Hey! Sorry I haven't been posting much. I am trying to finish up a college algebra course and it is eating my lunch!
The final is May 11th and I will be working frantically on that for the next week.
Also we are drilling a new oil well at work and I am covered up with all the paperwork for that. Then yesterday one of the owners of the company had a brain hemorrage, and had emergency brain surgery last night to relieve pressure from his brain. He is better this morning, but it's crazy here!
The Ozzie/silkie cross is just an experiment to see if the baby chicks will have silkied feathers or not. The silkie crosses will not be used in the breeding program in any way once this little experiment is over. The first eggs from this experiment are due to hatch Sunday, but when I candled them this week, two of the three seem to have stopped. I think there was a problem with my turner in the beginning, so I'm not sure if they will hatch. I have more due to hatch later next week. I am putting all the eggs the silkies are laying in the incubator, 13 so far, with staggered hatching dates during May. So we'll see how these turn out soon.
Currently the only roosters of breeding age that we have are my two: Ozzie and Junior. Donna (upintheholler) has one rooster that is about four months old, but that is all right now. I have fifteen other younger chicks which I haven't determined the sex yet. The silkied ameraucanas are still not laying. They don't appear to be losing any feathers either, so I'm not sure what's going on there, except that I moved them to the new barn about a month ago and that's when they stopped laying. These chickens are rather skittish, and anything new or different shocks them out of laying. Once Harriet stopped laying for months in the beginning when Ozzie beat her up and I though she would never start laying again.
I noticed some commenting that some of their chickens are fluffier than others, and I have noticed the same thing with mine. Some of them are very soft and fluffy and others seem to have a rougher, stringier appearance. Both of my roosters are huge, but my hens are all different sizes. Some are big and others are petite.
Also one of my chicks born on March 13th, is developing some strange coloring. There is one red patch on each wing. I took some pictures last night to post, but I forgot to bring my camera with me this morning. I will try to post them later today. And I will try to take some new pictures of the entire flock this weekend to add to the thread.
My 13 blue/black ameraucana chicks from Paul Smith are doing well and growing up. They are about 6 weeks old and looking good. I only got 4 black ones, but they are looking like all females at this point. Of the 9 blue ones, I think I may have 3 roos/6 hens. Not completely sure yet. I am also working with someone to try and get a couple of older black ameraucana hens, so we can get jump started on this project.
I know some of you are waiting patiently on the hens to start laying again, and I will let you know as soon as I start to get more eggs.
