March Bulletin

[bantamhill]

The March Ameraucana Bulletin is almost ready for delivery. If club members would like to receive the bulletin via email instead of snail mail please send an email to Michael@bantamhill.com no later than Monday, March 1 at 7pm CST.

Michael

[John]

It\'s another great one!  Harold knows what he is talking about when he says \"The ABC...has the best Bulletin\".  All five directors contributed reports.  That doesn\'t always happen and proves we\'ve got some dedicated officers.  The Blast from the Past was timely and a good reminder about \"feeding for good hatchability\".
Thanks you Michael!

[Mike Gilbert]

I received mine today also.   Great job!
The only thing I would add about the article on feeding is this.   Whole oats are great for growing out, good feathering and conditioning - but they make a lousy breeder feed.   Birds that are not used to them may be slow to start eating them.   This can be helped by mixing them with mash at first.   The fines catch in the hulls and seem to make them more palatable.

[Tailfeathers]

I finally finished reading my copy (electronic) of the March Newsletter.  I have to echo Harold and those others who have said, \"ABC puts out the BEST Newsletter!\"

As I read thru the District Directors comments I noticed what appeared to be a theme with regard to egg production dropping off dramatically during extreme cold temps.  I must say I have certainly experienced that!  I have a dozen hens in four different pens with roosters on them and I get about 6 eggs per week.  

Thank you Michael for the time you took to help me and the wise counsel you gave.  Moreover, I\'d like to say thanks for summarizing all that in the Newsletter as I now have one place I can go back to for a reminder.  

I have 6 of my #13 hens in with a rooster right now in one of the pens and I am getting 2, maybe 3, eggs a week in that one pen.  I\'m pretty sure it\'s from the same hen.  The color is very good and I\'m setting every one of them.  I also have two of my #10\'s in another pen and I\'m getting about 3-4 eggs per week out of them.  They are my most consistent layers but have the lightest color.  

Reading Michael\'s comments again now has me wondering.  Should I cull all the other birds that are giving me NOTHING and just keep these three and start all over, or should I wait and see if the others start laying consistently once the weather becomes more consistent?  And just FYI purposes, I have them on a timer in the mornings and evenings with them getting 15 or 16 hours of light.  Even with that, I have gone MONTHS without a single egg from most of these birds.

Any and all comments/suggestions are welcome.

God Bless,

[angora831]

Dittos on the great newsletter.  While I still get mine by \"snail mail\" (have to support the company that gives me the paycheck) the electronic version sounds like a great move.  Has the idea been floated to somehow archive the newsletter and make it available to members only from maybe the ABC website or somewhere else online?  I know that there is probably a collection of hard copyies somewhere, but with the current news items and the \"blasts from the past\" in each issue, electronic storage might be an option.  Just a thought.

Ken