Washingtonians

[HoneysuckleHills]

Quote:
Oh, Dawn, thanks for thinking of me.
I've been out searching again this morning.
I'm hoping she's found a safe spot and is hiding out from the rain.
I was out gardening all day yesterday and all eight of the girls were with me.
No noise, no alarm, no feathers flying. At some point in the afternoon I became aware that she wasn't with us. (She's my favorite, of course.)
Now I'm not sure what to do.
Someone (not a chicken fancier) had an attiutude last night of "it's just a chicken" - I'm grateful for this forum.
You guys understand that it's not just a chicken - it's Dottie!
She's got a great personality. Lots of my neighbors have commented on her and she's a favorite with the neighborhood children.
(She's one of Hallerlake's Spitzhauben with the spikey rock-star hair-do.)
I hope she finds her way home.
Not planning to be out in the rain today and trying to decide if I should let the other girls out to "find" her.
What do you guys think? Would it help?

exactly, it's Dottie !

I'd keep the rest cooped up today, and feed them a few extra treats, so maybe she can hear the "I've got it and you can't have it" vocalizations

also maybe make a "treat trail" from where you last spotted her, to the coop

hoping for the best

Thank you for the good ideas. Will go out right now and treat out the coop and make a treat trail.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Quote:
Okay back to this - The first two are likely full duckwing. The first is likely either a BBR male or solid gold female. The second might be a silver female. Quinta is either a carrier of Columbian or of E/E (solid black)

Quote:
I'm still referring to this post while trying to figure out what we have in our chicks

I think...oh jeez...I have no idea! LOL You know I will be asking later!

The following said is true, but if the chick has light coloration with diluted, broken up, or pale chipmunk patterning it also is likely carrying Columbian but more likely Wheaten too. So for example the one I said was a male - Will probably grow up to be a golden duckwing w/Columbian, as he's very pale, broken up in color, - So he's a carrier of Columbian but the combination of gold and silver genes lightens him up as a chick. He may grow to be mostly white with a black tail, red shoulders/wings, yellow hackles/saddle.



The real dependent here always comes down to the parents. If you want to know the gender and color of your chicks, she me the parents.

Because I may be wrong when labeling them without parental knowledge.

These are all from Kaneke's eggs, so she'll have to show you the parents- there's a discussion of which eggs come from which hens back in whatever page was posted Saturday evening.

I was also mistaken about Tertia- counted that one twice, in profile and in a back shot which is on my daughter's fb page and shows clear chipmunk stripes but a darker body color. Quinta is the only unchipmunk one. Prima, Secunda, and Tertia are a little group, either by dint of the "looks like me" rubric which I notice every time I have distinct groups of calf patterns or because they're the ones who went into the first night together (Quadros being stuck in at 4:30am and Quinta at 9:45am).

For my next trick I will finish eating breakfast. Maybe.

 

[Cowgirlgrace]

Haven't gone anywhere. Just busy and cranky.

Harvesting for co op still with last of the summer and fall crops and new crops coming on, ie parsnips, cabbage, brussels sprouts and getting into storage, onions, squash, potatoes etc. Getting fields cleaned up for winter. Plus getting all my chicken pens ready with sand. Had 10 yards delivered and have my work cut out. Have about half done plus odd jobs on coops. And still mowing lawns plus there is leaf pickup in addition to mowing so getting pulled in all directions. I'll use the leaves for compost and mulching my winter carrots and beets so thats good but lots of work and can't wait for things to slow down. I'm pooping out.

Incubator was off for about a month which was REALLY nice but now I have the first of my meat bird project eggs in there plus had to start over with my Mille Cochin project AGAIN. This time dogs (not mine but my bad, I forgot to close up their pen the night before!)killed all my 4 month old Mille/Black Mottled splits so have a few of those eggs in there too but most Milles are broody so only have a few to hatch from. Lav/Black Orp splits are beginning to lay so will be hatching Lavs soon as well. The next generation! Bigger and better. All the layers in my layer pen are in a moult but starting to come out of it. As soon as they look decent some will be sold to make room for some POL pullets. So things are making progress although I'm not excited about winter chicks but it's necessary if these projects are going to get anywhere.

So I'm here and trying to keep up but it's getting to be 10 pages again every morning so sometimes just read the last few. Try not to waste daylight hours in front of the computer when I can be checking things off my list. It's raining right now though but need to get to town and pick up a new fertilizer spreader. Last one gave up the ghost yesterday while trying to get the pasture fertilized and seeded before the rain! Hopefully it will stay warm enough for the seed to come up as I'm a little late. Should have been done a month ago. It never ends.

 

[Chickielady]

Quote:
Okay back to this - The first two are likely full duckwing. The first is likely either a BBR male or solid gold female. The second might be a silver female. Quinta is either a carrier of Columbian or of E/E (solid black)

Quote:
I'm still referring to this post while trying to figure out what we have in our chicks

I think...oh jeez...I have no idea! LOL You know I will be asking later!

The following said is true, but if the chick has light coloration with diluted, broken up, or pale chipmunk patterning it also is likely carrying Columbian but more likely Wheaten too. So for example the one I said was a male - Will probably grow up to be a golden duckwing w/Columbian, as he's very pale, broken up in color, - So he's a carrier of Columbian but the combination of gold and silver genes lightens him up as a chick. He may grow to be mostly white with a black tail, red shoulders/wings, yellow hackles/saddle.



The real dependent here always comes down to the parents. If you want to know the gender and color of your chicks, she me the parents.

Because I may be wrong when labeling them without parental knowledge.

And that, my friends, is why I showed Illia the 2 parents of my new chick (a few pages back) and that is also why I have not bought the book, why buy the book when we have Illia?
LOL
She's awesome!

 

[Kaneke]

Quote:
Okay back to this - The first two are likely full duckwing. The first is likely either a BBR male or solid gold female. The second might be a silver female. Quinta is either a carrier of Columbian or of E/E (solid black)

Quote:
I'm still referring to this post while trying to figure out what we have in our chicks

I think...oh jeez...I have no idea! LOL You know I will be asking later!

The following said is true, but if the chick has light coloration with diluted, broken up, or pale chipmunk patterning it also is likely carrying Columbian but more likely Wheaten too. So for example the one I said was a male - Will probably grow up to be a golden duckwing w/Columbian, as he's very pale, broken up in color, - So he's a carrier of Columbian but the combination of gold and silver genes lightens him up as a chick. He may grow to be mostly white with a black tail, red shoulders/wings, yellow hackles/saddle.



The real dependent here always comes down to the parents. If you want to know the gender and color of your chicks, she me the parents.

Because I may be wrong when labeling them without parental knowledge.

Illia, to remind you, these are the parents for Stumpfarmer's, Dawng's, and SadieSue's chicks:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/5674_dsc00622.jpg

all six hens are gold duckwings; one is perceptibly more mahogany color than the others, and she lays a pink egg (therefore no blue gene, right?), all have pea combs
the other five lay olive, mossy, minty, aqua, and pale turquoise
the rooster seems to be definitely carrying Columbian; I think we decided he was a silver duckwing -- as a chick he was dark mink brown, slightly mottled

 

[Chickielady]

Nice to see you again CCG...biz should slow a bit for you now, yes?
At least cepting for the leaf fall.
I know we always see you more in winter ...
So sorry to hear about your babies lost!
We all make mistakes.
I have gone out to open coops in the morning & found one was left open all night, so far, no predators found their way in....

I have to double check now, as sometimes DH closes coops for me, and sometimes I think he has, but he didn't..you get the picture.
We have been lucky.

Would love to hear more about the meat project you have going.
pettec63, myself, and Illia all have versions of meat birds going, let's hear what yours are?
Pleeese???
I love new ideas.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Oh, Illia, about hawks: it's amazing to me how many of them there are these days. I grew up and started birdwatching during the great DDT population crash, and was taught when I was reading up for a wildlife survey I did my first year at Evergreen that Peregrine Falcons* and Cooper's Hawks** both were "human contact avoidant." There were a few Sharpshins and Red Tails around then (spring 1973) and a resident Prairie Falcon at the Nisqually Delta, but I did not see Bald Eagles, Coopers's Hawks, or breeding Peregrines until the late seventies, when the Falconer, else The Crazy Tenant, lived here in the cabin with his held falcons (legally, licensed master falconer) and every raptor within ten miles checked in to see what he was doing. There was a point when I was going to apprentice with him, and for almost twenty years after he donated his Prairie Falcon to the Snake River Raptor Recovery Center the resident female redtail was one he had taken as a brancher and held for three years until she took off and mated.

The truth: Raptors are not much afraid of any mammal, although they are quick to learn about guns and traps. They are "lazy" in the sense that they all wish to make minimum effort for maximum caloric intake, which is part of the reason that they all tend to be strongly territorial. Even resident birds make five unsuccessful attempts at a catch for every sucessful kill; for migratories and vagrants the proportion is more like ten to one, and the difference in energy budget means the latter birds make close to four times as many attempts. Holding territory is such a big influence on hunting success that parent birds avoid hunting close to the nest tree and take off completely when their young can fly, leaving them high prey populations in a visually familiar environment to learn to hunt on- it took me decades of living a quarter mile from a Red Tail nest tree to figure that one out!

The single most important thing to keep in mind when devising bird predation prevention structures is that they are eyeballs with appetites. Flickering light patterns aren't going to confuse birds which hunt cottonwood forests, and visible wire grids are going to be memorized and avoided. I suspect, also, that any wide grid which provides secure footing isn't going to work; if they can perch and drop through they will (and Accipterines, especially, can get through remarkably small openings; even Goshawks can drop through a circle the size of a dessert plate). Professionals at this stuff- zoo cage designers, traditional game keepers, the SRRRC- tend to have loose and uneven netting over their cages. (It's also harder for raccoons to rip through loose and relatively unsupported cage roofs- they are more likely to get entangled, and it's harder to just pull on the wire and break it).

There's a place in Seattle near Fishermans Terminal that sells used fishing nets and advertises on Craig's List; I wonder if there might be someone in Neah Bay/Sekiu/Port Angeles that you could buy from?


*The ones that bomb through the Oly Farmer's Market parking lot at noon on the tail of terrified juvenile gulls would be surprised to hear that

** Yeah, no. Did I tell the story here of the resident male chasing a scrub jay between the clothes line and the end of the house when I was hanging up sheets?

 

[Kaneke]

will try to get a closer-up picture of the rooster ... this was taken in full sun, which we certainly don't have today ...

DH took a fall on the back steps (down 15 risers), so I will be staying close to him and monitoring for awhile -- see if this is a shoulder injury or just soreness -- he sat in the rain for ten minutes without calling out so I didn't know this had happened; therefore treating for shock and incipient hypothermia

also supervising the dog who wants to get up on the bed with him ...

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Quote:
Oh, jeez, so scary to fall like that! You've just prompted me to add "install grab bar at back steps" to my list for the week. Hope your DH (whose name I have of course forgotten: not a sign of incipient senility, I've been like this all my life!) is fine and dandy after warming up and having some nice sweet hot tea.

 

[Kaneke]

thanks, Julia -- there are handrails on each side of the steps but Bruce usually clumps down without using them (with the recent rain they are a little slippery, algae and moss, even though the steps have been treated, and I scrubbed them down about a week ago)

I've slid down the upper floor steps, the side door steps, and the back door steps, on my tailbone, cracking it each time; have yet to slide down the front steps but am sure that's to come; we have four doors to the outside on the main floor, as a result of forensic-engineer-late-husband having investigated a lot of house fires ... and large-enough openable windows as well

he's sleeping now, after aspirin and SOME hot sweetened (Equal) tea ... felt somewhat nauseated so he didn't want to drink much; he's snuggled under a down comforter and another fluffy fiberfill one (he said he did not hit his head so the nausea is probably incidental to shock syndrome)