Messages

451

Breeding / Re: Breeding youngins

« on: February 08, 2016, 05:30:05 PM »

Some say that you shouldn't breed from first year birds because they haven't developed fully.  There may be issues that show up later in coloring for instance that might lead you to choose different breeders.  But that means that you have to wait for a second year and you loose a year's worth of young birds in the beginning.  This works well if you have a big family of birds and room to house extras growing out for two years.  But most I think use breeders as they grow out each year.  I would breed from the best that you have this year.  Watch to see how they develop and colors change.  Keep pictures of this year to compare to next years pictures. Then you will have a better understanding of how your strain looks the first year and then again with the later coloring.  In the mean time you might hatch another group of pullets that might give you some more depth in your family.  And you will have even more to choose the best from. 

My experience is that the youngsters may take a few more weeks to start to produce fertile eggs in the winter.  But even with smaller pullet eggs you should have good production.  And your stock will grow out be the same size as your adult stock regardless of the smaller egg size for that age. 

452

Exhibiting & Promoting / Re: Training for show (the bird and me)

« on: February 08, 2016, 05:14:16 PM »

Dan,  People go about this in all different ways.  Most of us don't have all the time in the world like you said.  If you put them in a smaller coop it helps to get them comfortable to being approached more closely. Something in the 2' square range will work well for LF.  If it is raised up about desk height that will prepare them for some of the show situations.  Then you just approach them as many times a day as you can with feed and treats.  Just get them to be more comfortable with you is the goal.  Get the to see you as a source of feed rather than being scared when you open the door.  I would give him a full days ration of feed each day when you are working during the week.  On the weekends you can take away the feed Friday night and bring him feed several times a day.  Take him out of the cage and hold him in one hand.  Spread his wings and and look at each of the feathers.  Hold his head and look at both sides of the comb, eyes and muffs.  Turn him to look at his feet and legs.  He will be very reluctant at first, and will probably not look forward to this part of the experiment.  But the goal is to get him to be more comfortable when the judge does similar inspections.  Try to put him back in the cage when without too much struggling.  This will reassure him that you mean no harm and next time will not be as nervous. 

To start you can go out after dark and pick him up off the perch.  Place him in his coop and he will have the early morning to explore this new cage before you upset him again.  This will cause less frustration for both of you.     

453

News and Information / Re: Effort to seek approval from the APA and ABA for Splash Wheaten Ameraucana

« on: February 05, 2016, 08:42:00 PM »

The young Splash Wheaten males are still growing out and have a lot of filling in to do yet.  In addition they are penned now with an old male and there is a fair amount of bullying happening as they start to grow up.  Hopefully these youngsters will be in a pen of their own for breeding season and ready to show this fall. They are from a Blue Wheaten mating pen.

 

454

Housing, Health & Hatching / Re: Poultry Tractors

« on: February 05, 2016, 07:36:17 AM »

Sarah I like the coop and run set up.   And I expect it works really well to get them out on new grass.  A rotation of 4 weeks should give the grass plenty of time to recover too.  Giving them access to the ground gives them both space to grow out, and makes them happy to scratch and find insects/grit.  Lots of us let some of our stock free range when we are able to carefully watch them.  Your system is one that gives them a level of protection and containment while giving them larger grazing areas over time.  You are right, the roof material can add significant weight.  Asphalt shingles are great for stationary coops.  But corrugated or 5 crimp metal and plastic does a pretty good job to make it more portable.  Gordon had a predator problem even with an asphalt shingle roof.  So I need to be aware that the  the lighter roofs, and even sidewalls in my case, can cause problems down the road.  I do have an electric fence charger that I can rig up when predators seem to return repeatedly.  This helps me deter damage until I can trap and reinforce the coops after trouble.  I do not have a dog that runs out at night, but that seems to be a good option.  The sand floor cover seems to work well too.  Does it help in the winter more than shavings?  How many birds can you comfortably keep in each coop?  What are the dimensions of the coop?  You touched on summer heat.  Do you have summer vents too? 

The woven tarps are really light and do a great job for a time.  Some breeders are able to get used billboard vinyl tarps for a reasonable price. I've seen these on Ebay too.  The free advertising you gain may not be to your liking.  But the reverse side is black and can cause heat gain problems during summer.  You can buy white Rubber roofing that is similar from contractors or suppliers in your area.  You can get paints that will cover roofing materials as well.  Hypalon paint seemed to work well for building roofs.  These tarps are heavier and last for a good while.

Gordon, I don't know what to tell you about the name.  I don't know if they are implying that we are the mules or if the chickens are the tillers of the soil.  But it's much simpler than saying "portable chicken pens...I have to move around the yard..."

455

Housing, Health & Hatching / Re: Temp and humidity control

« on: February 03, 2016, 10:22:09 PM »

Nice hatch Dan and pictures of the chicks.  Were all of the blue chicks the same shade/color or can you tell some variation?  Max posted some info comparing the chick color to adult color.  You might begin to mark these chicks and see if you have the same results.   These pictures look more clear than the ones you posted of the mature flock for some reason.  Keep up the good hatches and you will have plenty of show stock this year.   

Gordon, I don't know what we are doing wrong, but it appears that Dan is able to have them in the house?

456

Breeding / Re: Eye Candy

« on: February 03, 2016, 10:12:52 PM »

Dan,  I like the Black male, he has a nice front, better than most I've seen recently.  I think he maybe could use a bit more tail. But it could be just that he is so strong in the breast. Some of the picture almost shows some blue on the top of his tail, but this is probably just the light.  Are his tail and wing feathers nice and wide?  The Splash hen with him looks nice and I hope will be able to give you some good prospects for this year.  I like the Black male's type better than the Splash male.  Some of this could be in the two poses.  But you should be able to get a good blue male to work with next season.   Toward the end of the breeding season you might cross the two splashes, hatch a few chicks and see how they color out too.  It would be great to see some of these at shows for sure.

457

Breeding / Re: Splash wheaten variety APA recognition

« on: February 03, 2016, 10:02:04 PM »

Hey Carolyn,   Thank you for posting the pictures.  From the pictures the Splash Wheatens appear pretty light but it might be the lighting of these shots.  Do you have pictures of your blue wheatens by chance?  Did you get any splash wheaten females?  So you are planning to mate the Splash wheaten males back to Blue Wheaten females?

The splash female looks like she has pretty nice blue ticking.  What do you have to mate the Splash for this upcoming season?  Most feel that the splash needs to be mated back to a Dark Blue to keep the Splash from diluting further and getting too light.   I know of at least one breeder has had success mating Splash to Splash for one generation and still produced chicks with good base pigment.

458

Housing, Health & Hatching / Re: Poultry Tractors

« on: February 02, 2016, 04:23:46 PM »

The mud has not gone yet but another storm is coming in.  Here are two pics of more recent tractors we've used.  I can move these with some effort using a small limb on the end opposite I am lifting.  I slide them sideways so they only move about 4-5 feet each time.  The white plastic was chosen to help keep the birds cooler in the summer heat, but obviously shows residue much more than a darker color too.  the plywood rectangular unit is 4x8'. The white plastic sided one is 5x8'. The slant wall gives more ground space but less room in the night coop.

I am sure that there are others with different schemes being used now.  Please post what you like to use. 

459

News and Information / Re: Effort to seek approval from the APA and ABA for Splash Wheaten Ameraucana

« on: February 02, 2016, 12:44:56 PM »

Thanks to Cesar for teaching me how to re-size pictures. (hopefully he is not sorry later)
 
This is a picture of one of Jerry's bantam Splash Wheaten males at Nationals.   Please don't fault him for so much for type. He was not happy being placed in a strange place with several folks aggravating him.  Several folks bought SW from Jerry at the nationals, so hopefully there will be others shown in the near future. 

460

Housing, Health & Hatching / Re: Temp and humidity control

« on: February 02, 2016, 12:40:24 PM »

Thanks Cesar.   It looks relatively easy after you've been thru it.  The pictures have to be really reduced though.

Don't mean to hijack the thread. Maybe we can move Cesar's directions to a general topic for attaching pictures?

461

Housing, Health & Hatching / Re: Temp and humidity control

« on: February 02, 2016, 07:28:23 AM »

I have the same problem with pictures Dan.  I think we need to have Susan show us how to re-size pics so we can attach them and put more eye candy on the forum.  Sounds like your hatching is coming along well.  Did you get any Splash by chance out of these hatches?  Get out and enjoy one of the upcoming shows.  Even if you don't show often, you get to see how your birds and those folks around you compare.   Good Luck!  I sent you an email.

462

Housing, Health & Hatching / Poultry Tractors

« on: January 30, 2016, 02:38:32 PM »

I've had a request for information on "Tractors" or movable pens that we have or would like to build.  I have used a few of these for several years for small groups of birds both for breeding and grow out pens.  The nice thing is that they have access to fresh grass/ground with less mess.  The down side is that they really need to be moved often because they will destroy a patch of ground in short order.  So the tractor needs to be light enough to move easily but heavy enough for wind stability and to deter predators.  I have several that I made earlier that have become stationary pens now that my helpers have grown up and moved away.  I will try to get a few pictures of the ones that I am using as soon as our snow/mud goes away.  Anyone else have a design that they would like to build or are currently using?

This link is to Patty Pickard's website where she shared info about her farm.   Patty was a really great asset to the breeds that she raised. And her version was pretty simple and useful for the AM bantams that she bred.   Sadly I doubt that her family still offers these for sale though now.   
http://www.faithvalleywaterfowl.com/chicken_tractor.html

463

News and Information / Re: ABC Seeks Approval for Self Blue from APA!

« on: January 30, 2016, 11:48:08 AM »

That's great news Susan.  Thank you for all the work you put into the work to prepare the application and to all those that signed affidavits.  Now we just have to get out to some shows and put together some numbers of this color together in a couple of shows.  I know that some hope to gather a group at the National this year.  Anybody have any thoughts about a location for a show or two closer to the central or eastern areas?  It would be great to get some bantams out there in numbers too.  Who all is interested in working with bantams in this color? 

464

Breeding / Re: Red Coloring Poll

« on: January 20, 2016, 07:57:43 AM »

Combs do not appear as simple as some of the gene sets. 
   From what I've understand from several sources:

   Rrpp, RR,pp provide rose combs
   rrPP, rrpP show as pea combs
   rrpp provides single combs
   RrPp, RRPP provide cushion combs

But the other aspect of the cross besides leg color in my mind is really egg color.  If you cross into a strain with dark brown egg color, it will probably take a long time to get back to blue egg color.  Buff egg color is still suffering from the buff orp crosses way back.  I seems that the brown egg color is much darker in the red colors most of the time.  Silver genes in AMs usually have better blue color.  Its too bad that there is not a red bird with slate legs and at least white egg color.  Most of the time you would at least have to breed out white ear lobs too.     

Gordon, it would be great if we had a counterpart in the bantam version to go along with any project in LF or vice versa.  But we've had folks start a color in one or the other before and later someone will take on the project of translating into the other size.  I know that we've had folks working on several colors over the past number of years.  Most often I think in the past they started with bantam and then breed up in size.
    Birchen, Columbian, Buff Columbian, Mottled, Cuckoo Lav, Partridge, and Chocolate have all been started at some point in one or the other.  I don't know if there are LF projects with Chocolate out there to go with bantams starting now?  But then you have the natural offshoots of some other colors like Splash and Splash Wheaten because folks are breeding the Blues and Blue Wheatens.  These are easier because you already have the parent colors progressed in traits of the Breed.    So there are lots of projects for people to work on, and then there are the 8 accepted colors that still need progression too.  Plenty to interest anyone who wants to take on an accepted color or project color.     

465

Breeding / Re: Red Coloring Poll

« on: January 19, 2016, 02:16:42 PM »

Cesar,   I have never seen the red orps but the picture you had looks pretty good.  I don't have a preference for the color between the three.  The project would take some time, maybe many years.  In addition to combs and egg color it would take some major breeding programs to get them to be the right type and body size.  I might guess that any of those breed crosses would create a very heavy bantam as Hybrids usually get in influx of size. 

I can't see what color is in the tail of the Orp, but I imagine that you are talking about a Black tailed Red?  And you would want to research the genetic makeup of the bloodlines you were trying to use.  For discussion, I've read where the Buff and Wheaten are based on dominate Wheaten, but the RIR is based on recessive Wheaten.  (Pure Red with no Black is based on eb)  You would need to pick up the Mahogany and Columbian and breed out the Champagne (blonde) color.  You could decide whether or not you wanted black in the hackle.  This would determine how many doses of Co you needed, right?  Buff theoretically has more than you need, but I've seen Black tailed Buff lines developed out of pure Buffs too.   

From my few years of working with buff LF, I have seen males come much darker than what you want for Buff.  Some tending toward red in a big way.  Especially when there has been a cross between Wheaten and Buff.  But I am not sure if you can get to the RIR color without an outcross.  The dark color like in the RIR would take some time for sure.  You might have more trouble getting the females dark though.  Most of the lines seem to have females lighter anyway.  But time would tell.  It might just take a lot of time and feed.