Happy New Year Everyone

[grisaboy]

Hello everyone and happy 2008.

What are your breeding plans for the new year?
My wife and I have been seriously considering selling our farm and moving into town.  We sold another property instead so now we are still weighing our options.
Needless to say this has put my poultry breeding plans in some disarray as I am not sure how much space I will have for birds.  For now I am continuing with the breeding programs that I have.  They are...
Ameraucana Bantams
Two or three pens of Silver.
One pen of Birchen.
Lavender male over black/lav split females.
Black male over Lav females.
I also have brown red and lemon blue males that I may put in with the Birchens later on.
Large Fowl Breeders include
Buckeyes
Birchen Modern Games

Good luck everyone.
Time to start the corn beef and cabbage.

Curtis

[Jean]

I plan to build up my flock this year.

I will be mostly working on breeding more LF white,  LF wheaten & blue wheaten and trying to get some new blood in my silver line.

I will be breeding my best silver male to a couple of my black hens which are actually birchen because they have slate legs.  I hope to improve size and vigor by the cross.

We are almost done building the frame work for the inner walls for my new chicken building and will be insulating soon.  I imagine it will be another month before it is ready for anyone to move in.  

My breeding pens are not ready except for the blues and blacks.  I have 12 hens in those colors and have been getting 1-2 eggs every other day.....

Happy New Year to All.

Jean

[John]

It\'ll be another month or more before I start to setup my breeding pens/coops.  I\'ll have over 30 coops setup with anywhere from pair matings to small groups of about 7 females with a couple males in rotation.  Here is what I\'m breeding in 2008:
bantam buff
bantam silver
bantam wheaten/blue wheaten
bantam lavender
bantam black/blue  
bantam brown red
bantam wheaten/silver (cross to improve both varieties)
LF buff
LF silver
LF brown red  
LF black/blue  
LF wheaten
LF lavender
LF black/wheaten/silver (crosses to improve all 3 varieties)
Others breeds:
bantam Vorwerk SC & RC
bantam Lakenvelder SC & RC
bantam Hamburg silver spangled
LF Chantecler partridge

[Mike Gilbert]

I have about a dozen breeding pens set up and actually set three dozen eggs in a hovabator last weekend.   From about 40 hens I collected only six eggs today.  This afternoon\'s high was nine degrees above.   I am getting eggs right now from bantam blues, blue-wheatens (with a wheaten male), and one silver pullet.   Also bantam partridge chantecler, silver laced wyandotte, and silver duckwing araucana.  In large fowl I am getting a few eggs from my brown red Ameraucana pen.   It seems the large silvers almost never lay this time of year, nor do my bantam buffs.  I will set eggs this coming weekend again, and then shut it down for about two months.  

[bantamhill]

Happy New Year everyone! Here is my tentative list of breeding pens for the entire season. Most of the pens are set and waitng for the first eggs to be laid. The temperatures on another wild swing for us. We were in the single digits this morning and by Saturday we are supposed to reach almost sixty degrees. I will start collecting in the next few days for a couple early hatches this month and then stop until the weather is better.

Large Fowl

buff x buff
blue x black & blue
silver x silver
blue silver x silver
wheaten x wheaten
wheaten x buff
white x white
brown red x brown red & birchen
cuckoo x black & cuckoo
splash wheaten x wheaten

Bantam

white x white
black x blue, splash & black
splash x blue, splash & black
lavender x black
silver x silver & blue
brown red x black & assorted
lemon blue Old English x black & assorted
black gold x black gold
buff x buff
wheaten x blue wheaten & wheaten
blue wheaten x blue wheaten & wheaten
black-tailed red x black-tailed red

millie fleur Dutch x wheaten, Rhode Island red, & assorted
millie fleur Old English x wheaten, Rhode Island red, & assorted
Rhode Island red x black tailed red
millie fleur Dutch x millie fleur Dutch
buff laced polish x millie fleur Dutch

[Guest]

Some of these birds are very young still and won\'t be laying/breeding until mid summer.  I just got my first egg after a month of *nothing* so hopefully the girls will reusme production shortly.  Because I have such a small flock, I generally try to hatch every egg that\'s laid.  Most of the time, that\'s not very many anyway.

Bantams:
Splash Ameraucana X Blue Ameraucana (pair)
Black (Lav/lav) AmOE X Black (Lav/lav) AmOE (pair)
Mille (of a breed yet to be named) X Wheaten Am (trio)
Black Cochin X 2blacks, a white and a buff
Blue Silkie X 2black, 1blue and 2white silkies (four hens, a pullet and one rooster)

Standards:
EEs and several breeds of brown egg layers all running together with EE roosters.  I let my standards free range in the summer time.  My Easter Eggers are very hardy and good layers.  I may pick a few of the best to put in an up-breeding program.  Nothing definite right now, I have enough projects going on.

I\'m also excited about the addition of a sportsman at some point this spring.  I\'ve been saving my pennies (literally and figuratively) for over a year now...

[Guest]

 Thank you .

 Happy New Year for all the members .

 Miguel

[Paul]

Our large fowl Ameraucana breeding pens are all set-up and in partial production.  Its been down in the mid to high teens at night and in the low 40\'s in the daytime.  This cold weather slows egg production.  Our first hatch will be set Jan. 14.  The first hatch is going to a 4-H youth group to show.
We have:
black X black
black X blue
black X splash
blue X blue
blue X splash
splash X splash
splash X blue
splash X black
wheaten X blue wheaten
wheaten X splash wheaten
wheaten X wheaten
blue wheaten X wheaten
blue wheaten X blue wheaten
splash wheaten X splash wheaten
splash wheaten X wheaten

[Guest]

Large Fowl

To start:
black x black
blue spash x black
wheaten x wheaten
splash wheaten x wheaten

Later:
wheaten x buff
black x blue
blue x blue



Added 1/25/08
The first batch of wheaten/blue wheaten went in the incubator today.