So, in a few months, it'll officially be a year back in the Backyard Chicken keeping thing, so I decided to do sort of a retrospective/year in review....thing...
I started with five chicks;
3 Buff Orpingtons
1 Easter Egger
2 Partridge Plymouth Rocks
a few months later, once the hens were old enough to go out on their own, we added a pair of nestmate roosters to the flock
since then, i've had the following losses;
1 BO lost to, most likely, a racoons
1 PPR to a particularly nasty neuromuscular disease that rapidly paralyzed her legs and caused numerous seziures
I'm now down to;
2 BO
1 EE
1 PPR
2 roosters (one Cochin/Silkie mix, one pure bantam Cochin)
I originally wanted just Heritage breeds, but the EE and her mint green eggs were too hard to resist, she's not a purebred strain, however, I'm glad I added her
personalities;
BO; sweet, freindly (just don't like being picked up) goofy balls of feathers, not very vocal, watching their waddling, trundling run as they run to greet me in hopes I have treats always brings a smile to my face, amazing free-rangers
PPR; very independent, flighty, excellent free-ranger, good eye for airborne predators, extremely chatty, *hates* being picked up, usually the first one out to free-range in the morning
EE; a great balanced personality, curious, inquisitive, excellent free-ranger, freindly, but on her terms, try to pick her up, or pet her, and she'll do her best to avoid you, but when she *wants* attention, she will come up to you and demand it, she seems to be the most spatially aware of the flock, she *knows* the Bringer Of Food lives in that huge white chicken coop next to hers, and she's the only one to actually approach the sunroom when people are sitting in it , she will peck at the glass sliding door and demand to be let in.... when i bring them their water and my boots are covered with snow, she prefers to eat the snow off my boots, instead of from the run area a few feet away, when im pouring the water into their fount, she'll drink from the stream of water coming out of the jug I'm pouring from... of the whole flock, she comes the closest to having a human-like intelligence
Hardiness;
the entire flock laughs at winter, they've handled subzero temps with aplomb, no frostbite, they're a bit bored with being confined to their barn, the door is open and they can go out, they just choose to stay in the barn, there's nothing to free range on anyway, unless they want to eat snow, or snow, or maybe snow, and if they don't like that, there's snow... and with flats covered with 4', and drifts up to 7'.....
Egg Production;
BO; medium to large eggs, pinkish-brown, average to poor production and inconsistent size, 3-4 per week
PPR; medium to large eggs, light brown, average production, 4 per week
EE; Large to XL eggs, mint green, excellent production 5-6 per week
Right now, Chiana, my EE is outproducing all of the other hens, I can pretty much rely on her producing an egg almost every day, and they're *always* consistently the biggest eggs produced, the BO and PPR hens are producing on the smaller side of medium, and less reliably
Had I know now what I knew then, I would have gotten more EE'rs, and perhaps one BO and PPR
since I'm going to need to replace the two hens that I lost last season, I'm going to get some more EE'rs, and perhaps a couple "interesting" hens like Wyandottes or Salmon Faveroles (just runnin' round the rooster here...)
Dover Agway is going to have EE and Golden Comets as their early orders, they are getting SF, but near the end of the ordering season, and they're going to be twice as expensive
I also don't want to overcrowd the flock in the barn, so no more than eight hens
...of course, the other alternative is to buy or rent an incubator and hatch some of my own eggs to get my replacements, the downsides are, more potential roosters, and if I do hatch hens, the roosters are probably going to try mating with their "daughters", and that's probably not good, genetically, the upside is, once i've paid for the incubator, any further chick hatchings will be "free", but given the price of an incubator (lets say $100), I'd have to hatch 25 chicks to get my moneys worth (at a rounded price of $4 per chick)
assuming a 50% male/female rate (a perfect male/female split ratio is not logically possible, but for the sake of argument I'll let it stand), if I hatched 26 chicks, I'd have to find some way of re-homing 13, or sending them to Freezer Camp
13 additional mouths to feed would also require more frequent purchasing of feed, changing the bedding sooner, more chances of inter-flock troubles, possible "Incest" issues with the roosters, and more competition for free-range goodies
I'd love to hatch my own, but it seems impractical, sad, as I'd love to see what a Bantam Cochin/Easter egger or Cochin/Silkie/Easter Egger mix would look like...
I started with five chicks;
3 Buff Orpingtons
1 Easter Egger
2 Partridge Plymouth Rocks
a few months later, once the hens were old enough to go out on their own, we added a pair of nestmate roosters to the flock
since then, i've had the following losses;
1 BO lost to, most likely, a racoons
1 PPR to a particularly nasty neuromuscular disease that rapidly paralyzed her legs and caused numerous seziures
I'm now down to;
2 BO
1 EE
1 PPR
2 roosters (one Cochin/Silkie mix, one pure bantam Cochin)
I originally wanted just Heritage breeds, but the EE and her mint green eggs were too hard to resist, she's not a purebred strain, however, I'm glad I added her
personalities;
BO; sweet, freindly (just don't like being picked up) goofy balls of feathers, not very vocal, watching their waddling, trundling run as they run to greet me in hopes I have treats always brings a smile to my face, amazing free-rangers
PPR; very independent, flighty, excellent free-ranger, good eye for airborne predators, extremely chatty, *hates* being picked up, usually the first one out to free-range in the morning
EE; a great balanced personality, curious, inquisitive, excellent free-ranger, freindly, but on her terms, try to pick her up, or pet her, and she'll do her best to avoid you, but when she *wants* attention, she will come up to you and demand it, she seems to be the most spatially aware of the flock, she *knows* the Bringer Of Food lives in that huge white chicken coop next to hers, and she's the only one to actually approach the sunroom when people are sitting in it , she will peck at the glass sliding door and demand to be let in.... when i bring them their water and my boots are covered with snow, she prefers to eat the snow off my boots, instead of from the run area a few feet away, when im pouring the water into their fount, she'll drink from the stream of water coming out of the jug I'm pouring from... of the whole flock, she comes the closest to having a human-like intelligence
Hardiness;
the entire flock laughs at winter, they've handled subzero temps with aplomb, no frostbite, they're a bit bored with being confined to their barn, the door is open and they can go out, they just choose to stay in the barn, there's nothing to free range on anyway, unless they want to eat snow, or snow, or maybe snow, and if they don't like that, there's snow... and with flats covered with 4', and drifts up to 7'.....
Egg Production;
BO; medium to large eggs, pinkish-brown, average to poor production and inconsistent size, 3-4 per week
PPR; medium to large eggs, light brown, average production, 4 per week
EE; Large to XL eggs, mint green, excellent production 5-6 per week
Right now, Chiana, my EE is outproducing all of the other hens, I can pretty much rely on her producing an egg almost every day, and they're *always* consistently the biggest eggs produced, the BO and PPR hens are producing on the smaller side of medium, and less reliably
Had I know now what I knew then, I would have gotten more EE'rs, and perhaps one BO and PPR
since I'm going to need to replace the two hens that I lost last season, I'm going to get some more EE'rs, and perhaps a couple "interesting" hens like Wyandottes or Salmon Faveroles (just runnin' round the rooster here...)
Dover Agway is going to have EE and Golden Comets as their early orders, they are getting SF, but near the end of the ordering season, and they're going to be twice as expensive
I also don't want to overcrowd the flock in the barn, so no more than eight hens
...of course, the other alternative is to buy or rent an incubator and hatch some of my own eggs to get my replacements, the downsides are, more potential roosters, and if I do hatch hens, the roosters are probably going to try mating with their "daughters", and that's probably not good, genetically, the upside is, once i've paid for the incubator, any further chick hatchings will be "free", but given the price of an incubator (lets say $100), I'd have to hatch 25 chicks to get my moneys worth (at a rounded price of $4 per chick)
assuming a 50% male/female rate (a perfect male/female split ratio is not logically possible, but for the sake of argument I'll let it stand), if I hatched 26 chicks, I'd have to find some way of re-homing 13, or sending them to Freezer Camp
13 additional mouths to feed would also require more frequent purchasing of feed, changing the bedding sooner, more chances of inter-flock troubles, possible "Incest" issues with the roosters, and more competition for free-range goodies
I'd love to hatch my own, but it seems impractical, sad, as I'd love to see what a Bantam Cochin/Easter egger or Cochin/Silkie/Easter Egger mix would look like...
