Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[KMHunter]

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[Hinotori]

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Luke and Leia are not amused!

 

[Greg Richardson]

Need some Blueberry recipes................
http://www.oregonblueberry.com/recipes2.html

 

[CarolynF]

Hey Greg... you're up around Duvall... did you happen to live there back in the early/mid 70s by any chance?

 

[Clumber]

How funky is this?!! The 6 itty-bitty chicks love classical music. I'm serious. They all try to sing along. We can hear them change key and tempo as the music does.

All 6 looking great and we're making sure to handle them a lot. So far the silver/blue/lavender is the first to settle down after being picked up, with the supposed Welsummer close behind. The least fond of being handled is the ALL BLACK one with dark brown wings, she also is the largest of the 6-pack and s/b/l still likes to shove her way under that one for naptime.

The littlest one, s/b/l, looks fine now. Substantially smaller. Not sure if she is just younger (which would make no sense assuming the seller was right.) or is she just a bantam egg that snuck in somehow?

Kind of a funny image, huh, of a little egg sneaking into a group of bigger ones...

 

[Greg Richardson]

Nope. Lived in Kenmore at the time.
Duvall back then was like traveling to Omak now it felt very far away.
Did some work out here in the 80's.
Moved here in 92. Been here ever since.

 

[JennS]

Thanks everyone, for the kind words for the silkie chick.

Today was a good day for the coop. Lamont was here for almost 5 hours working on it, and since my husband was working from home (half day due to still being sick) I could leave my son in the house and paint in the garage. The doors have been started and they are going to look great! The last work is going to be tricky. Lamont cut the plywood trim a bit larger than needed, so we will be making the final cuts on it after we move the coop to the back yard. I can see it now. We're probably going to be working under a pop-up canopy in the pouring rain, cutting sheathing and applying paint to the edges that might not even dry... Oh yeah, looking at the local weather it's supposed to rain for at least the next week. Yay.

I found a home for Tandoori, so whenever we *do* get the coop done, the plan is to move Tandoori out in the day and then add all the new birds to the coop that night. There will be 5 new ones and 3 "old" ones (the new are the same age or older), and lots of space. Hopefully everyone will figure out the pecking order quickly.

Jennifer

 

[Mumsy]

I get you.

And I totally understand.I was giving you a hard time.

They are high maintainance and just for fun. I definitely wouldn't get them if I just wanted layers, although they lay pretty regularly, the eggs are small. I used to think they were ugly too, I am not sure when or how that changed.

I am about having fun, not just layers anymore, so they suit me fine. I do think they serve one purpose though....good broodies! I have on right now sitting on 5 eggs that I am not sure are even fertile yet!

I agree on the high maintenance and they are not for everyone but for anyone living off grid or worried about hatching eggs through prolonged power outages, Silkies are worth their weight in gold as reliable broodies. You can pretty much count on a Silkie hen to lay 12 to 15 eggs and then brood. Can't say that about a lot of other breeds. It's been bred out of them by the big commercial hatcheries. Most big layers are laying machines then blow out their oviduct in two years. You have to keep replacing them continually to keep your production up. Those big commercial hatcheries are counting on that. I like heritage breeds that are kept true to the standard whether Bantam or Large Fowl. . Silkies as a heritage pure breed have survived quite a long time. Chickens are like any thing else. To each his or her own.

 

[Cowgirlgrace]

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[Chicken Rustler]

Hi hope everybody is ok. I have kind of crawled in a shell for a bit. I am now so far behind that the history will just have to be a mystery.

In skimming a bit I have noticed some talk about bantam's. It seems that some are of the opinion ALL bantams lay tiny eggs. THIS IS NOT CORRECT.. There are Bantam breeds that lay very nice size eggs for the size of bird. I had B RIR and currently have B Faverolles both of these lay eggs that will match some of my smaller LF eggs. Yes there are B that just lay tiny eggs but not all of them do. Also if you look at the feed to food conversion. The B who do lay larger eggs will win over LF. See Bantam require less space, and eat less food. I kind of find find Silkies a little cute in all their fluffyness. But they are high maint (like women). When my Silkie is laying She will ALWAYS lay 4 skip a day lay 4 skip 1 and she is the best incubator around.