The Wyandotte Thread

[HallFamilyFarm]

Sadly, I have BLRW eggs in my incubator. What do I do now?

Seems Wyandottes are taking over our place. We already had Buff Wyandotte bantams and a few weeks ago added Black Wyandotte Bantams. The BLRW are large fowl.

 

[vanalpaca]

Stumpfarmer,

there is a breeds tab on this site. It has a chart showing egg color. So if you want white egg layers, large fowl, dual purpose birds, you can put that into the breed calculator and it will spit out those options. Then you can read up on those particular chickens to see which temperaments you like best and go from there.

Royce (Tailfeathers here on BYC) has nice chickens and he is right there in Washington.

If your daughter is into cooking shows, she might like selling a RAINBOW BASKET of eggs instead of white eggers. In which case you could run lt brown, dark brown, white, blue and green egg layers for egg sales and raise heavy meat birds for the capons. After all chickens are for eating. I like the Large Egg birds with medium to heavy production for the eggers.

Making chickens sweet and friendly is easy enough if you handle them a LOT from hatching ON for at least the first 6 weeks. Mine are 10 weeks old now and I can still grab them, hold them, pet them, and gently set them back down on their feet. They like their necks and chins rubbed and even the rooster will let me pet him as he goes by with only ducking and not squawking and running away. It is good and easier for handling to have friendly birds.

Take your flock and CULL to APA standard. This is easier to do if you are just running one breed of bird. Working with chickens is a fun hobby. No reason to just have lots of hatchery chicks when sustainable backyard farming is doable and you are adding to the neighbors food supply!

Maybe you should look up OPA here on BYC and see how he does SMOKED CHICKEN to add to your farm sales.

There is also a SEARCH tab up on the left side of the screen. I usually put in my search term, drop down and pick a FORUM to search, then drop down and put POST instead of Topic which is the default. I can get around BYC pretty good with that and find what I am looking for. So you can go look up your sexlink chart.

I have found the breeders here very helpful with getting me started on the birds I am interested in. It takes a little work to introduce yourself and express your interest in a given breed and look for them locally, then closest states. There are meet ups, trades, shows going on as well to source birds at.

Good luck on your chicken venture. Wyandottes are dual purpose birds. Also, some birds are better for capons and FLAVOR than other breeds so you might want to look that up as well. The hatchery meat birds have weak legs and fast growth and HAVE to be butchered by a certain age because they can't walk.....From a farm management point, you may want egg layers and meat birds as both have been bred to be effiecient at their job for food utilization. But from a sustainable point a dual purpose flock can yield both and forage for better quality eggs and meat and less feed bill.

Sounds like you need a bird that also likes it in wet conditions.....

 

[Mrs. Turbo]

Quote:
just lots of work to do now that the swamps are almost gone in KY.....we still have been getting rain every day, but not like we did a couple weeks ago. Oh, and taking care of lots of birds and lots of kids can make you tired.

The BLRWs we have growing out this year are looking great and some of the pullets are 5-6 months old and bigger than the hens we have now.

...no wonder the feed bill is sky high. We also have some young SLWs that have massive heads on them! I am excited to see what the final result will be. I need to get a few pictures of them to post.

 

[ItsAZOO32]

Mrs. Turbo :

Quote:
just lots of work to do now that the swamps are almost gone in KY.....we still have been getting rain every day, but not like we did a couple weeks ago. Oh, and taking care of lots of birds and lots of kids can make you tired.

The BLRWs we have growing out this year are looking great and some of the pullets are 5-6 months old and bigger than the hens we have now.

...no wonder the feed bill is sky high. We also have some young SLWs that have massive heads on them! I am excited to see what the final result will be. I need to get a few pictures of them to post.

I am sorry to hear that you guys are getting rain every day BUT.. we need some HERE!! It's SOOOO dry in Florida right now.. and HOT.. My poor chickens just lay and pant in the shade. It's been in the low 90's already this week.​

 

[goldtopper]

Marcia Marcia MARCIA!!

 

[PHarris985]

Quote:
sorry about that, I was referring to the blr x buff by bleenie.

Ah.

Is there an easily accessible chicken color genetics article or table that's not the color computer? I saw a sex link breeding table and forgot to save the link, but it also only mentioned BLRW as an off-hand addition. I'm finally at the point where I'll be actively seeking a couple of additional hens in the next week or so, and my epic series of bad design decissions on the permanent Wyandotte accomodations has used up a lot of the chicken budget, so I'll be limited in my choices.

Try going to kippenjungle.nl/breeds/crrossbreeds.html

 

[vanalpaca]

JimsFarmStand,

Why sadly? How many are there? Got the brooder ready? Building a new pen? They'll need more room.

What kind of incubator and when do they hatch?

You are really just bragging, right? Where did you get/make the BLRW?

You guys!

 

[HallFamilyFarm]

Wife thinks we have too many! Some we will keep and the others we will pass on to 4H club members.

The BLRW LF and Black Bantam eggs were offered on either Heritage SQ Egg Chain Swap Thread or SQ Egg Swap These have been some fun swaps. Just a great way to add a few of a new variety/breed without paying an arm and leg for them.

Our current incubator is a Genesis.

 

[vanalpaca]

Sunday night chicken dinners were created for a reason. Seems to me you need at least 52 birds for that alone! Then you need extras for laying eggs, broodies or a good bator and genesis sounds like a good working one.

Summertime is bug fest so feed should be cheaper, Winter Dinner birds go into the freezer, so less to feed.

Sounds to me like you don't have ENOUGH chickens!!

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Quote:
Thanks for the info, you're very kind.

Too late for the single breed, though: I've already got the Hamburg hens, which, despite my bout of madness the other night, will not be going in with the Wyandottes. They seem determined to prove themselves fine providers of eggs, though, so much so that we're dealing with a surplus already.

I was already intending to cull both Hamburgs and Wyandottes to APA standard, sell the culled hens as pets and butcher the cockerals (or sell the cockerals to a local gourmet meat operation which already handles our beef and pork) (Yes, I know Hamburg carcases are small and insufficiently plump and meaty: there are recipes to deal with that). What I'm not really up to is establishing a new social network much beyond this board: I don't drive, nor travel very well either, and my husband is recovering from back surgery which may not have been entirely successful for controlling his pain. I don't want to get into too many boring health details, but what it comes down to is that I am looking for an outlet which is a net economic gain within my own physical limitations.

Somebody at the Washington board has already directed me to the sexlink info I was looking for, which comes down to an answer I like: SLW hens. Now all I have to do is find some relatively close, eh?

I'm copying your answer to a locked-to-me entry on my blog, which gives me the best chance of finding it! Thanks again!