Ya know, it really STINKS how things work out sometimes...
It took alittle over a year from the first time I saw these silkied Ameraucanas til I was able to get some hatching eggs from Julie. She sent me 17, and only two made it to the pipping stage - but only one lived. It turned out to be a fluffy rooster.
I've been babying this rooster indoors and then in our garage since he hatched 6 months ago - meanwhile, I had 5 pullets that were just a tad older than him growing out in my free range flock (two splashes and a blue wheaton from Peachick's lines, and two blues from Crunchie's lines). They started laying sporadically over the winter while the rooster was growing out. More recently, the pullets had matured and began to lay just about every day, and the rooster was crowing up a storm in the garage.
I had hoped to set up the breeding pen a couple weeks ago, but between the rain we've had, and then a freak snow and more rain, I just wasn't able to get to it. So finally last weekend, I broke down the breeding pen, cleaned the coop all up spic and span, and put the girls in. Figured I'd give the girls a few days to get used to their new digs before they had a rooster dancing all around them, trying to get their attention. I didn't say anything to anyone, for fear of jinxing myself...
So today was the day - my fluffy rooster's first day outside, and his first day with his new harem. Temps and weather were finally just about right, so I go outside first thing this morning to open up - in a really good mood, and VERY excited to FINALLY be able to begin the project that I've been anticipating for the last year and a half - only to find my fluffy rooster dead as a doornail and stiff as a board.
He had no injuries, no signs of illness, and not a feather was out of place - he looked just like he was sleeping, in the same position he was in when I locked up last night.
And so it goes... I'm devastated - and out of the project. Unless anyone has any surplus eggs/chicks/adults that I can start over with? If not now, keep me in mind for down the road, because I've got 5 nice girls that need a man!
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