Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Chickielady]

My Excequer Leghorns have reached POL, and so far have given me 3 little eggs.......COOL!
In the darkest part of winter too!

A few days ago, I was in the cabin working & looked out in the garden and saw birds running, and 2 of the Excequers blasted straight up in a bare alder...........
I ran out to hear ALL of my birds going ballistic and Jack was slathering & barking & snarling...foam spit going everywhere as he starined on his chain.and I looked up & saw the pullets in the tree looking straight down at something, and there in the middle of my garden, 10 feet away was the Bobcat.and he was paying no attention to either me or Jack my dog !

So now I have a shotgun IN THE CABIN....and at every door of the house !
This cat is getting far too friendly & not the least bit afraid of us or the dog!

 

[Chickielady]

Here is some gQf instructions...what kind of incubator you looking for ?


http://www.gqfmfg.com/cabinet-instructions


at the bottom of this list is an egg temp chart...that may be a help, and on page 5 of "cabinet model instructions" is 2 charts that are helpful, one is humidity & the other translates percents to wet bulb.

I only set mine by wet bulb, after a few days of perfect temp & humidity I remeove the wet bulb tray so mineral deposits don't build up, then wash the wicks in vinegar & store them away.
I may set them back up again later in the season to check & make sure nothing went wonky...but that's it.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Okay good to know @Chickielady I have been bringing it up at lock down almost 20%
@Hinotori but chick taking to long egg dried on it chicks out trampled poor thing (they are in the brooder now)
5 in brooder 2 in incubator had one did not eat the cord had to tie and cut not doing great
see if the make it over night or if I have to cull

 

[Duck Drover]

I have an Easter Egger rooster that needs a new flock. He is sleeping outside on top of the coop at night and running with the ducks during the day because his father will run him off if he gets too close to his hens - one hen is his mother and the other is unrelated so it is not a problem if he breeds them as long as he does not breed his sisters (they are still with the Silkies until they start laying). Since his crow is not confined in a coop and we keep a porch light on all night for the ducks, he crows more than the rest of the roosters combined and as a result he has to go.

When I list him on CL I just get people asking how many more roosters I have to sell but all his brothers already went to the auction for meat and I would like this guy to live. His sisters are not laying yet so I can't guarantee his egg color genetics until they start but he should have strong blue egg genetics to pass on to a flock. I think he is a handsome boy so I would like to see him have a home but if that does not happen he may end up going to the auction after all.

I have a neighbor with Easter Egger hens and no rooster so I have considered talking to her about letting him visit them to make some fertile hatching eggs but I don't need to hatch more mystery chicks since I would not be able to keep them beyond maturity anyway. I will probably end up selling the pullets I am raising now (unless I keep them with the Silkies for eating eggs), once I know how the chicks from my Quechua rooster turn out, and then I will just sell the straight run chicks we hatch in the Spring. I am happy with their coloring but I need to make sure they all lay blue eggs before I can guarantee them as blue egg laying Easter Eggers.

I started this project thinking I might go back to raising the original Easter Eggers I raised for many years since it is hard to find the original Easter Eggers (which were basically the tuftless Araucanas with tails once the tufted rumpless breed standard was recognized). Is anyone else using blue egg genetics in their Easter Egger projects? I know alot of people are going for olive eggers with the Marans crosses but I like the blue eggs best and I sold all the Marans I hatched because I was not in love with the breed.

If this rooster does not get a flock by Saturday he will probably go to the auction for meat. Out of all the roosters he is the only one that ended up so colorful. I have held onto him hoping he does not get eaten like his brothers but we do not need more crowing when he is not grandfathered in like the rest of our roosters.

 

[junebuggena]

I have an Easter Egger rooster that needs a new flock. He is sleeping outside on top of the coop at night and running with the ducks during the day because his father will run him off if he gets too close to his hens - one hen is his mother and the other is unrelated so it is not a problem if he breeds them as long as he does not breed his sisters (they are still with the Silkies until they start laying). Since his crow is not confined in a coop and we keep a porch light on all night for the ducks, he crows more than the rest of the roosters combined and as a result he has to go.

When I list him on CL I just get people asking how many more roosters I have to sell but all his brothers already went to the auction for meat and I would like this guy to live. His sisters are not laying yet so I can't guarantee his egg color genetics until they start but he should have strong blue egg genetics to pass on to a flock. I think he is a handsome boy so I would like to see him have a home but if that does not happen he may end up going to the auction after all.

I have a neighbor with Easter Egger hens and no rooster so I have considered talking to her about letting him visit them to make some fertile hatching eggs but I don't need to hatch more mystery chicks since I would not be able to keep them beyond maturity anyway. I will probably end up selling the pullets I am raising now (unless I keep them with the Silkies for eating eggs), once I know how the chicks from my Quechua rooster turn out, and then I will just sell the straight run chicks we hatch in the Spring. I am happy with their coloring but I need to make sure they all lay blue eggs before I can guarantee them as blue egg laying Easter Eggers.

I started this project thinking I might go back to raising the original Easter Eggers I raised for many years since it is hard to find the original Easter Eggers (which were basically the tuftless Araucanas with tails once the tufted rumpless breed standard was recognized). Is anyone else using blue egg genetics in their Easter Egger projects? I know alot of people are going for olive eggers with the Marans crosses but I like the blue eggs best and I sold all the Marans I hatched because I was not in love with the breed.

If this rooster does not get a flock by Saturday he will probably go to the auction for meat. Out of all the roosters he is the only one that ended up so colorful. I have held onto him hoping he does not get eaten like his brothers but we do not need more crowing when he is not grandfathered in like the rest of our roosters.

Silver or gold base color? I'm getting to the point where I need some new blood, but he needs to be gold base color for my breeding project.

 

[Duck Drover]

We plan to downsize our flock in 2017 since my daughter is now a junior in high school and she will be going to college in 2018. We are trying to determine which chicken breed we are most interested in keeping with our ducks or if we should even keep chickens now that roosters are banned in our area (our roosters are grandfathered but we can no longer keep roosters once they reach the end of their lifespan). We are most invested in the Silkies and English Orpingtons because we have nice show quality birds (although we don't show due to biosecurity concerns) but I also love having Easter Eggers for their unique feather coloring and colored eggs too.

We originally got the Silkies to hatch ducklings but the duck eggs hatch well in our Little Giant incubators so we have not used the Silkies to hatch them yet (they have hatched their own eggs but the coop was not set up for chicks so we have had to take them away instead of letting them mother their babies). They are the least productive of our birds so they do not really pay for themselves. The pullets are very sellable but the roosters mostly end up going to the auction for meat after putting feed into them for months. The chicks are also very sellable but not as much as the pullets because people who get pet chickens usually can't have roosters where they live. Once I invest in raising pullets, I am more likely to want to use them myself than sell them to someone else but we only keep our best birds so I have taken a loss on selling pullets and layers as we decide on the best birds to keep for breeding. I am not as attached to the Silkies as my daughter but they do have value as incubators and brooders once I gain confidence in them as mother hens.

When I asked my daughter which breed is her favorite she said she likes the Silkies best. I never thought I would raise bantam chickens since I have always raised chickens for eggs and meat, lol. The Silkies are amusing and they make great pet chickens so they have grown on me since we started raising them, however they do not lay as much and their eggs are smaller so we only hatch their eggs or eat them scrambled (they are not good for baking due to their size). We would probably need to buy eating eggs if we only had Silkie chickens so that defeats the purpose of raising our own food. I have never eaten Silkie meat before so they are more pets in my mind than the other breeds.

The Orpingtons are a great dual purpose breed, which is why they became my new favorite after I sold our Easter Egger flock (that had been self-replacing for many years) prior to a move from Ellensburg (we went from a rural lifestyle to an urban lifestyle when my ex lost his job and we could not afford to live on acreage anymore). I love how well the Orpington breed is suited to the PNW (I started my Easter Eggers in Colorado and they were well-suited to that climate) and my intent was to eat the roosters and keep pullets the way I did with chickens in the past but my younger daughter is too much of a bird lover that she can't eat anything she raises.

All the birds are pets to my daughter while I like eating chicken more than I like raising chickens, lol. I could probably force her into eating the roosters if I butchered them and served them cooked but I have just taken them to the auction and we buy chicken breasts at Costco since I like the breast meat best. We used to mainly eat the breasts and drumsticks from the roasted bird and then make soup from the remaining carcass so now we have less chicken soup. I thought as my daughter got older she could learn to separate "pet" birds from meat birds as I have done but she still insists she won't eat the birds she raises.

I have considered converting the Orpington coop (originally a playhouse) into a duck house but the ducks do not like being cooped up like the chickens do and the 3 roosts and 5 nest boxes were designed for LF chickens. The ducks have gone up the steps to the porch in front of the door (originally a window) but they do not go inside. We could probably sell the coop if we stopped using it but now that we built wood fences around it there is no way to move it out. It is huge and heavy so we brought it in on a flatbed trailer and then raised it off the ground before adding on the nest boxes so there is shelter under the coop that could be completely enclosed but is only 3-sided now. There is a trap door in the floor that we could open if the ducks would use it (it was the original door before we cut out two more for access and added external nest boxes on one side) but it is right in front of the nest boxes so we only open it to hose it out when we clean the coop. The access doors are on opposite sides so they could be used as bird doors too if we had steps or ramps leading up to them but neither door is well suited for bird access due to one being located in front of a gate (that could be moved) and the other one going into the rabbit run (which could be used for birds as well) next to the back of the coop.

The Silkie coop was specifically modified for the Silkies (huge insulated dog house with covered porch) with no roosts and only 2 nest boxes (we probably need to add more but they make nests on the floor of the coop in addition to using the boxes). It could work for nesting ducks and/or mama ducks with ducklings if they would use it (with or without the added access door). We have a solid wood fence enclosure and it is partially covered for protection since the Silkies are more at risk to predators than the Orpingtons and Easter Eggers. We recently added a ramp (instead of the original cinderblock steps) to the raised coop so it is suited for chicks or ducklings now but holes on the current wire door within the larger access door are too big to keep newly hatched babies inside (we don't keep feed in the coop so fortunately we have not had rodents or other predators go in the coop). I could even easily convert it to a grow-out pen for brooder babies by removing the nest boxes since we already put the chicks out with the Silkies when we move them outside and it has worked well for that purpose. I can't move the house out of the yard now because it is too heavy to lift over the wood fence but I could put the dog bed back in and let our LGD use it if she will go in it and just remove the gate to the yard.

We could keep all 3 chicken breeds for now and just downsize the numbers of each breed since we have separate yards for each breed or keep just one breed and focus on that breed (reducing our roosters from 4 to 1). We have even considered just keeping ducks if we are unable to move before we reach the end of the lifespan on our grandfathered hens and roosters. We can keep drakes with no problem but we can't replace roosters now that they are banned where we live. The ducks have a longer lifespan than the chickens so they are grandfathered longer. Because the codes were changed from limiting birds based on space per bird to a limit of 5 birds total, we are not able to keep any young birds in order to keep an existing flock going so we can only sell offspring and let the flocks die out from old age if we were to stay in our current home.

I would love to live on acreage again once we have enough equity in our current home to buy a home on acreage but I am not willing to go back to renting acreage again because we would have no equity in our home that way and the owner can choose to sell our home and force us to move at any time. Our area where we purchased our home is becoming too urban now so I want to move but not until my daughter graduates from high school. Once we have enough equity in our home (no down payment to purchase) for a 20% down payment on land, we will gladly pack up and move somewhere we can keep our horses and birds plus have livestock and be self-sufficient again.

As far as making a decision on the chickens, I tend to want to stick with Heritage breeds and breed to the SOP since we love hatching eggs even more than eating them but I could just hatch and raise ducklings (they are more fun than chicks and we can vent sex them at a very early age) or buy hatching eggs. The problem I have had with buying fertile eggs to hatch is that the hatch rates are not as high as our own flock and I have had both "oops" breeding and inbreeding, which I avoid in my own flock. I prefer to hatch our own if I sell the babies so I can guarantee the quality of the offspring as much as possible.

I know that it is common for new chicken owners to ask which breed they should get but I am asking which breed, if any, we should keep. I know I can always start over again if we were to sell all the chickens and be done with them for awhile but anyone who has had a breeding flock knows how much goes into having the best birds possible through years of selective breeding. I have sold a breeding flock in the past only to discover that they were not as replaceable as I thought with so much mixed breeding happening. I suppose I could be satisfied with anything that lays an egg and feeds my family rather than trying to reach a standard of perfection if I were not hatching my own birds but hatching is a big part of my interest in raising chickens as a replenishable food source. Ideally I want to raise my own food no matter where I live so living a rural lifestyle on acreage is far more ideal than making a house payment on a home with increasing limits on how I can feed my family. I have had the luxury of homesteading in the past and I want to return to that lifestyle in the future but in the meantime I have to live in a home I can afford and deal with code changes that change what freedom I have in using my property to my advantage.

I know this is too long for most people to read (I am fortunate to be a speed reader) but I wanted to get my thoughts out in words and get feedback from anyone interested in helping me analyze the pros and cons of our situation. Hopefully I covered everything in order to give a full picture of our options and limits. For people who don't raise birds or have a bird loving family member to consider, the simple solution for them is not as simple for me. It is a new year that requires us to update our goals when it comes to managing our birds in the best way possible.

 

[Duck Drover]

Silver or gold base color? I'm getting to the point where I need some new blood, but he needs to be gold base color for my breeding project.

He most likely has a silver (or blue) base, not gold. I think the roosters that looked more like the Quechua father were out of the red hen and he was more likely out of the silver hen. He does have a gold base from his father and he has red feathering that could be considered leakage but I can't guarantee his base color since I suspect he is out of the silver hen (she was out of a splash Ameraucana rooster but I don't know about her mother).

 

[Duck Drover]

He most likely has a silver (or blue) base, not gold. I think the roosters that looked more like the Quechua father were out of the red hen and he was more likely out of the silver hen. He does have a gold base from his father and he has red feathering that could be considered leakage but I can't guarantee his base color since I suspect he is out of the silver hen (she was out of a splash Ameraucana rooster but I don't know about her mother).

The pullets (full and half sisters) all have both gold and blue feathering.

 

[junebuggena]

He most likely has a silver (or blue) base, not gold. I think the roosters that looked more like the Quechua father were out of the red hen and he was more likely out of the silver hen. He does have a gold base from his father and he has red feathering that could be considered leakage but I can't guarantee his base color since I suspect he is out of the silver hen (she was out of a splash Ameraucana rooster but I don't know about her mother).

No such thing as 'blue' base color. Only options are gold or silver. He's silver, carrying red. Useless for me, but beautiful boy.

 

[Duck Drover]

He most likely has a silver (or blue) base, not gold. I think the roosters that looked more like the Quechua father were out of the red hen and he was more likely out of the silver hen. He does have a gold base from his father and he has red feathering that could be considered leakage but I can't guarantee his base color since I suspect he is out of the silver hen (she was out of a splash Ameraucana rooster but I don't know about her mother).

The pullets (full and half sisters) all have both gold and blue feathering.

This is the red hen. I can't find a picture of the silver hen on my phone.