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That rooster knows how to show!
I have 20+ LF partridge chicks in the brooder right now from Duane Urch. They're going to the Foleys in exchange for blacks. I bet Rebecca is going to work something out with you, too.
Rebecca and Jerry have an agreement with me
It's been a little of a slow year. First, I don't play games like I should. I hate lights and this year confirmed why I always hated them before. The hens lay and the males aren't ready. Kinda like that old Alan Jackson song, just backwards. I have to settle for a burger and a grape snow cone and all I want are some chicks. So I had what I thought were fertile eggs because I was AIing, but they weren't and I didn't want to switch roosters because, well, why use what I don't like as much? and I have limited hens (6). So Then to top it off, the thermometer on my bator was 1.5 degrees too low and I was only getting a couple chicks to hatch and my humidity was too high, so I burned up and drowned two settings that I was getting some fertility on. Now I think I'm figuring it out
I got 5/6 this time, which is progress
But for me it's early, because this is only my 3rd hatch. Most guys that show have been hatching since January. But I keep running into problems with early hatching and I give up, officially. If I start my incubator next year before March 1, please send me some hate mail or something.
With rare varieties, I need to stop wasting eggs
Gotta hatch them stinkers. So, I'm up to 8 Partridge chicks, but I've got eggs
and they're fertile. Not stopping until I get at least 65. My other pen just got fertile, too, so in a few weeks, the hatches should pick up. It's aggravating because I've got almost 50 Dorkings out already in 3 hatches (the first was only 5, 45 in 2 hatches, not bad
) By Crossroads, I'll have some and by then I'll have an idea what they are going to look like. The big Partridge Cochins are getting fertile, too
It's gonna start getting crazy around here!
Yup we have an agreement...I know good Wyandottes when I see them...and you have the best Partridge I have seen at the shows.
I never would put lights on the birds, but then I would show pullets in the fall and the other wyandotte breeders had pullets that were much more mature than mine...hard to win against older wider birds. So i broke down and finally turned the lights on my SLW and the Partridge right after Columbus in November....wow I cant believe how big the pullets and cockerels have already gotten...it does feel like I am playing games with the chickens, but I didnt loose any chicks and they did seem to grow out faster. Last year I kept a lot of late hatch chicks, and they really struggled in the hot summer..I lost a few and they have yet to get up to the size of the early hatch chicks. To make a longer story just a little shorter..I will put lights on them in November again.
Send those eggs to me Rudy...my incubator is working just fine. Dang...I thought I was signed in as me...not Mrs. Turbo, she is gonna skin me.
Jerry
