The Trap Nesting Thread

[galanie]

I give them more than a few days, I give them a couple of weeks. Maybe that's too long, I don't know but if they're flighty, it would seem longer is better. You have quite a project going!

 

[MANOZ]

chicken canoe-----welcome aboard,
First I would try too get the incubated chicks used to me handling them from time to time.Its hard dealing with wild birds, i have a few myself.I have a hen that i have only touched 1 time in a year.I rescued her last year,my father-in-law was about to shoot her. He had a air conditioning case sitting out on the ground in the yard,and this wild speckkled sussex hen went broody and made a nest inside the case.Everytime my father-in-law would try to move the case the hen attacked him.I ended up catching her nest and all with a net........at night. Til this day I still cant touch that bird.I took her eggs and incubated them the rest of the way and raised them and they are now more friendly and i can touch them.And then some of those showed wild qualities as well.I know cock fighters that like to keep the wild factor in their bird's bloodline,on the the other hand many people like myself like a more user/owner friendly type of bird. So this is something i consider when culling.This wild hen i got is up for culling but her beauty keeps me from dropping the axe.....lol.......she is eye candy for sure.

I would also run several distinct lines of that breed, lets say 2.......Keep those 2 lines seperate over generations father/daughter or grandaughter ......mother/son or grandson.You actually have 4 lines going 2 male lines and 2 female lines. From my understanding you can basicly breed this way for years.when one flock loses vigor you can basicly bring in new blood from one of the other lines and rejuvinate the flock, I think it is called spiral breeding,where you keep your lines seperate and breed cousins for bringing vitality back to the breed. instead of the traditional line breeding.

Get those trapnests up and running and you set to go,sounds like a nice project you got going on.

 

[MANOZ]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/344077/spiral-breeding

here is a link explaining it a little different than i did.....

 

[ki4got]

it's also called "rotational line breeding" and Bob Blosl wrote several articles about it on his website. http://bloslspoutlryfarm.tripod.com

i read thru most of his articles and agree with the breeding strategy. it can be applied to any breed, type, or utility. for myself, using my dorkings, I plan to institute it by next year, once i have enough birds to utilize. however, I am taking it one step further, and keeping the previous years' hens as well, since Dorkings really don't reach their full potential until nearly 2 years old. it would be a shame to cull a cockerel that was just mediocre and find he was my best 2 year old rooster.

 

[MANOZ]

ki4got-----that link has alot of good articles,thanks for the addition

 

[MANOZ]

HELLO EVERYBODY,
Well it turned out that I did not have a bad rooster after all.The feather grooming mentioned earlier in the thread seem to do the trick. The incubator upgrade to a wafer thermostat is working like a charm also. I just hatched 2 barred rocks with more due any day now. I went ahead and bred both hens since my other hen never returned.They both are high egg layers I'll deal with the size issue once i build my flock up some.I have had these 3 birds 2 and a half years, i also went back to the feed store that i bought these from and just picked up 6 day old barred rocks and 4 cornish x. I'm just curious about the cornish[ i wanna see how long they live].spring in looking wonderful i'm off to a good start so far. wish me luck lol

 

[MANOZ]

well all of my feedstore birds died

 

[knjinnm]

What happened?

 

[galanie]

Manoz! What happened? Are you replacing them and if so, what with? I personally don't buy from feed stores any more but I didn't think they were a risk.

 

[MANOZ]

i still have my original flock,i thought i would give the cornish x a try,they all died 4 days later,unknown causes. [sighs] i purchased 6 barred rocks at the same time also. A cold front came through and killed 5 of those. Coons killed 2 of my roosters An Aseel and a Australorp. I had a rough start this year, still not giving up....lol.....gonna fire up the incubator again this month.

I did manage to hatch 3 from my barred rocks,one of those died with the cold front too. So i have 3 and 3 Aseel from the first incubator batch. they were mostly Aseel eggs i figured i would do those first since i only had a small window of time to work with..Now its gonna be mostly barred rocks and reds.

i did manage a little increase. still trying to get the hang of breeding down.

As far as trapnesting, all i can say is it works like a smooth running machine.NO PROBLEMS WHAT SO EVER.

i do get a unknown egg from time to time but i can still say my egg identification is 95% or better and i have been going at this almost a year now.

galanie------how is your trapnesting coming along?

ki4got------how is your project coming also?

and any one i forgot. ?????