PHEW. That was a BUSY three weeks. We had birds get lost by the PO, Renee and I spent a full week calling EVERY single phone number we could think of to get them located and delivered. Then the following week was MLK day, so I couldn't ship the next group, but was still calling and reporting claims and issuing tickets because of the previous week's screw-up. I'm happy to report that both my regional USPS processing center and LAX changed their bird shipping procedures because of the stink Renee and I raised! I actually took Monday the 23rd off work to ship 3 more boxes of (ten) birds and two boxes of eggs IN THE RAIN. On top of all that, I interviewed for and accepted a new job
, and after 4 weekends straight of used car shopping we finally found the one and made an offer. Oh, and I organized, hosted, and played in a poker tournament. Oh, and school started, so I was at class three nights a week. If I didn't get to anyone in as timely a fashion as they would wish - sorry?
I need a vacation!!! Just typing all that makes me feel like I need a shower!!
Let's start at the top.
ALL the birds are now shipped. I don't know if I'll be able to re-join the project for years, but almost all of you have my email and can send me questions and updates (PLEASE SEND ME UPDATE PICS OF THE CHICKS YOU HATCH!!! OMG CHICKS!) By the time the blue fluffy girls were shipping they had just started laying - that's how close to black fluffies we (you) are!!
Not only did we only use dry hatch here, but we also weighed the eggs pretty religiously during incubation so we could monitor weight loss (target was 13%) and adjust water levels accordingly. Send me an email if you want a copy of my last excel chart/log.
OMG he looks so grumpy!!! What a silly bird. Have you noticed his weird voice? He cracked me up so much!
Regarding the olive coloring of eggs. One of the Line B hens, after her molt, started laying really olive colored eggs. If I hadn't sold my olive girls ages ago I wouldn't have even marked those as hers (they were all tagged, and weren't housed together, so there's no chance of a mix-up). One of the Line A pullets lays really olive as well. When faced with the choice of culling those two girls, or sending them out to you all to keep the project going, I went with sending. The only culling I did with these was fluffy males that had no tails. It's hard enough to get them to hatch and survive that culling for coloring should be our (now your) second concern. CatKai, I think you got the worst of it, I'm pretty sure you ended up with both of the olive layers.
Yes, the splash roosters have a lot of red/gold leakage. This has been mentioned since the beginning. The girls could be a better blue. Some of the blue fluffies are much too dark, and the smooth blues are much too yellow. Yes, one of these birds is throwing yellow in the legs.
It's a project, there are A LOT of things that need to be worked on! Once you're sitting on a few batches of "unrelated" fluffy chicks is when you can really start selecting for the traits you want.
GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!!!
Holy cow...I'm tired just reading your post!!!
Thanks so much for sharing your eggs with me...I'll definately forward pics of the chicks!!! Thanks again!
