Just wanted to peek in here and say THANK YOU to everyone who answered my questions... a few months ago. Unfortunately soon after getting all comfy in the BYC forums I was diagnosed with a very very annoying autoimmune disease and have been fighting that with all my energy ever since. It isn't any better yet aside from my getting somewhat used to some of it, but I am tired of letting it have all my energy.
So, I have been trying to get caught up in the Washington thread.... only to find a new one was opened! LOL Only about 2000 unreads to go... Lucky for me I have insomnia now too! Hoorah!
Bird-wise now we have *11 chickens, about halfway split with standards and bantams. They are all starting to lay now (we have a timed light compensating for the dreary darkening winter for them) and I am delighted to announce that I am NOT allergic to our chickens' eggs!! I have an adult-onset egg allergy, one that gets worse every contact. We originally decided to give poultry-keepin' a try when we found out a lot of people with egg allergies can eat quail eggs just fine. We started with about 2 dozen Coturnix and that was fun AND I have no allergy to their eggs! Feeling successful and now curious about poultry (nothing is as bad as my spouse and I getting curious about something...) we got some chicks and later some pullets, and here we are.
So over in Fowlcatraz we now have Chickens, Coturnix Quail, Chukar Partridge, 2 mean hissing biting hen pheasants, and the pigeon loft we had before. Yes, all 3 of the latter are for training our dogs. The hen pheasants would be SO GONE by now if the weather and my stupid health would collaborate just one weekend day... I am not in favor of caring for something that bites and tries to spur us. The Chukar are remarkably fun birds. Really surprised us. This year marks the first time we have decided to keep the pigeons (or any birds) over the winter, and with this last month of monsoon conditions here, we have to do some loft modifications pretty soon. We figured that with the Chickens and Quail, caring for the Pigeons wasn't much more so might as well try keeping them this year, besides one of the males is a fantastic bird, clearly the lead guy, but very gentle, friendly, and fair. ALL the pigeons love him, including the other cocks. He is a fantastic father and his hatchlings are strong and his hens adore him. We call him Elvis, despite our usual rule of not naming the birds. We want to keep him. Especially since we never bought him... he was a feral bird who came into the loft and is quite happy. Had a racing pigeon legband but the owner never replied to us about him and in our experience so far the racing folks have no use for a bird that gets "lost" or leaves.His loss, our gain!
We are really really interested in getting some Orpingtons to try, young chicks if we can find some. We are also interested in trying hatching some ourselves and are back-n-forth lately on whether we want to buy an incubator or a Silkie.
A friend over in North Carolina is trying to convince us that Silkies are awesome, but we're a bit worried since some of the pages with breed info suggest that Silkies are fragile and not hardy to weather. Have y'all found that is true? Funny, the a/i thing is currently attacking my wrists and hand joints and every time I type Silkie, my hands initially type Sillie instead.
So back to trying to get caught up in the 1st Wash thread, then onto this new one!
Oh and our chicken contingent is : 2 Speckled Sussex (purchased from a really nice guy across the Sound - we actually bought more than that, but the majority became Roos and we really only needed 2 hens. We might contact him again this or the following Spring.); 2 Rhode Island Reds we raised from day olds; 3 Golden Sebrights all named Heather (bonus points if you get the reference); 3 recently purchased bantam "Easter Eggers" that are gorgeous and silly; and the leader of the flock - a bantam Plymouth Barred Rock we call Lady MacBeth, or Beth. We are currently getting about 3 chicken eggs a day - some white (Sebrights) and the rest a nice deep brown that we suspect is from the Sussex. We expect a lot more coming soon as the Reds now have bright red combs and waddles. Our quail are giving us a few less than over the summer when we'd regularly get a dozen+ a day, but we are still getting about 6 eggs a day from them. The males have a very strange "crow". Luckily where we live "Chicken Roosters" are not allowed, but nothing about quail so those boys all get to stay. We've sort of been trading back and forth all year to get the perfect flock, and we're awfully close now.
And our dogs, of course! Clumber Spaniels that we show, hunt, train, and rarely breed. 20 years in Clumbers and we have had just 6 litters, and 2 of those were singletons. About 80% of those puppies, though, have hunting titles and/or AKC Championships, and one from our first litter became the first Clumber ever to earn an AKC Master Hunter title. Another has decided he is a farm dog, and goes and gets his owner's sheep into the barn at night, and works with her horses, too. I have never heard of any other Clumber doing that, but I guess he didn't know he isn't a herding dog! Mona, the dog over <--- there in my avatar, and one of the 2 pups we kept from 2011 are also working as my service dogs (the pup is in training but a quick study) to help me through this stupid health crap.
So there you go, hopefully it won't be another 4 months before I can go through the WA thread!
~ Tracy in Rochester - just a sneeze south of Olympia,
So, I have been trying to get caught up in the Washington thread.... only to find a new one was opened! LOL Only about 2000 unreads to go... Lucky for me I have insomnia now too! Hoorah!
Bird-wise now we have *11 chickens, about halfway split with standards and bantams. They are all starting to lay now (we have a timed light compensating for the dreary darkening winter for them) and I am delighted to announce that I am NOT allergic to our chickens' eggs!! I have an adult-onset egg allergy, one that gets worse every contact. We originally decided to give poultry-keepin' a try when we found out a lot of people with egg allergies can eat quail eggs just fine. We started with about 2 dozen Coturnix and that was fun AND I have no allergy to their eggs! Feeling successful and now curious about poultry (nothing is as bad as my spouse and I getting curious about something...) we got some chicks and later some pullets, and here we are.
So over in Fowlcatraz we now have Chickens, Coturnix Quail, Chukar Partridge, 2 mean hissing biting hen pheasants, and the pigeon loft we had before. Yes, all 3 of the latter are for training our dogs. The hen pheasants would be SO GONE by now if the weather and my stupid health would collaborate just one weekend day... I am not in favor of caring for something that bites and tries to spur us. The Chukar are remarkably fun birds. Really surprised us. This year marks the first time we have decided to keep the pigeons (or any birds) over the winter, and with this last month of monsoon conditions here, we have to do some loft modifications pretty soon. We figured that with the Chickens and Quail, caring for the Pigeons wasn't much more so might as well try keeping them this year, besides one of the males is a fantastic bird, clearly the lead guy, but very gentle, friendly, and fair. ALL the pigeons love him, including the other cocks. He is a fantastic father and his hatchlings are strong and his hens adore him. We call him Elvis, despite our usual rule of not naming the birds. We want to keep him. Especially since we never bought him... he was a feral bird who came into the loft and is quite happy. Had a racing pigeon legband but the owner never replied to us about him and in our experience so far the racing folks have no use for a bird that gets "lost" or leaves.His loss, our gain!We are really really interested in getting some Orpingtons to try, young chicks if we can find some. We are also interested in trying hatching some ourselves and are back-n-forth lately on whether we want to buy an incubator or a Silkie.
So back to trying to get caught up in the 1st Wash thread, then onto this new one!
Oh and our chicken contingent is : 2 Speckled Sussex (purchased from a really nice guy across the Sound - we actually bought more than that, but the majority became Roos and we really only needed 2 hens. We might contact him again this or the following Spring.); 2 Rhode Island Reds we raised from day olds; 3 Golden Sebrights all named Heather (bonus points if you get the reference); 3 recently purchased bantam "Easter Eggers" that are gorgeous and silly; and the leader of the flock - a bantam Plymouth Barred Rock we call Lady MacBeth, or Beth. We are currently getting about 3 chicken eggs a day - some white (Sebrights) and the rest a nice deep brown that we suspect is from the Sussex. We expect a lot more coming soon as the Reds now have bright red combs and waddles. Our quail are giving us a few less than over the summer when we'd regularly get a dozen+ a day, but we are still getting about 6 eggs a day from them. The males have a very strange "crow". Luckily where we live "Chicken Roosters" are not allowed, but nothing about quail so those boys all get to stay. We've sort of been trading back and forth all year to get the perfect flock, and we're awfully close now.
And our dogs, of course! Clumber Spaniels that we show, hunt, train, and rarely breed. 20 years in Clumbers and we have had just 6 litters, and 2 of those were singletons. About 80% of those puppies, though, have hunting titles and/or AKC Championships, and one from our first litter became the first Clumber ever to earn an AKC Master Hunter title. Another has decided he is a farm dog, and goes and gets his owner's sheep into the barn at night, and works with her horses, too. I have never heard of any other Clumber doing that, but I guess he didn't know he isn't a herding dog! Mona, the dog over <--- there in my avatar, and one of the 2 pups we kept from 2011 are also working as my service dogs (the pup is in training but a quick study) to help me through this stupid health crap.
So there you go, hopefully it won't be another 4 months before I can go through the WA thread!
~ Tracy in Rochester - just a sneeze south of Olympia,
A friend over in North Carolina is trying to convince us that Silkies are awesome, but we're a bit worried since some of the pages with breed info suggest that Silkies are fragile and not hardy to weather. Have y'all found that is true? Funny, the a/i thing is currently attacking my wrists and hand joints and every time I type Silkie, my hands initially type Sillie instead.
