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Topics - Mitchell Taylor

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1
Exhibiting & Promoting / JR. Showmanship
« on: June 03, 2023, 02:03:04 PM »
Our daughter is exhibiting poultry for the 1st time this year and we are looking for any advice regarding showmanship. My wife and I exhibited large animals in 4-H / open shows, and while we are learning about exhibiting poultry, we know very little about poultry showmanship so any help / advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Mitch

2
Ameraucana Marketplace / Black LF Show Quality Trio
« on: November 12, 2022, 09:30:56 PM »
We are looking for a LF Trio of Black Ameraucana for our daughter to start her own Flock / 4H project. We are located in Southeastern Indiana, but are willing to have birds shipped if necessary.

Thanks

Mitch

3
Housing, Health & Hatching / Chicken Waters
« on: September 09, 2022, 09:53:09 AM »
Our oldest is in her second year of 4-H and she would really like more responsiblity/ownership regarding caring for our/her birds. She is great at taking care of animals and very responsible for her age. She does great gathering eggs each day and does awesome making sure the birds are always fed. The problem we are running into is that she isn't quite strong enough yet to handle/open the chicken waters ( Bell Waters / 3 gallon waters ). We are looking for possible options to help her. Not a huge issue because we insure everything is taken care of, just trying to help support and nurture her interest and desire to take ownership of her responsibilities.

Thanks for any help / advise.

Mitch

4
Housing, Health & Hatching / Worming / Parasite Control
« on: July 17, 2022, 08:55:27 AM »
Looking for advice on worming/parasite control. We have been very blessed avoiding issues in the past, but as our Daughter is starting to show in 4H and possibly open shows we are wanting to be proactive instead of reactive. Our local vet is great, but admitantly doesn't know much if anything regarding chickens. Any advice on what to administer, dosage, withdraw times, and the like would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Mitch

5
Ameraucana Marketplace / LF Splash Cock / Cockerel
« on: July 17, 2021, 03:52:06 AM »
We are looking to expand our splash operation and are currently looking for a Show Quality Large Fowl Splash Ameraucana Cock or Cockerel (* preferably around 10 months old or older *).

Thanks

Mitch

6
Housing, Health & Hatching / Hatching Issues
« on: February 15, 2021, 11:06:22 AM »
This is our 3rd/4th year hatching (second with the same cock bird and hens) and we've noticed that our chicks egg membranes are extremely thick almost a rubber texture or consistancy and several (30-40%) are having difficulty unzipping their eggs when hatching. We are wondering if it's something we are doing, genetics, or a combination.

We feed our hen's nutrena naturewise hearty hen pellets and sometimes mix in feather fixer or a 20% protein all flock if temperatures get below freezing for an extended time. They are supplied fresh water, grit, and free choice calcium at all times.

Our fertility rate is averaging between 80 - 90 % consistency but our hatch rates have only been in the 40 - 50 % range and we have lost as high as 20% at times that pip but don't hatch.

We have a nurture right 360 incubator and it holds a consistent temperature and we have checked it repeatedly for accuracy. We really pay attention to our humidity and maintain around 50% up to lockdown and then maintain 65 - 75% through the hatch. We now wait until lockdown to candle our eggs and other than that we leave the incubator closed up until we remove them from the incubator trying to remove as mainly outside factors as possible.

Any information or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Mitch

7
Breeding / Splash x Splash
« on: September 16, 2019, 01:23:29 PM »
With the possibility / future qualifying of the Splash variety, our family is considering primarily focusing on the Splash variety and are wondering what if any issues or pitfalls are encountered when crossing Splash on Splash over an extended period of time. Would coloration and feather quality be negatively affected like in other varieties?

We are currently breeding Blue, Black, and Splash varieties so we will still have access to those genetics if we need to occasionally cross those varieties back into the mix.

Thank you for any information.

Mitch and Tiffany

8
Exhibiting & Promoting / Exhibition Age for Ameraucanas
« on: March 12, 2019, 09:29:27 PM »
I was wondering the age everyone tries to have their birds (pullets and cockrells mainly) at for shows. I realize different birds mature at different rates, but generally what ages do you aim for when planning out your show schedule for the upcoming year. We are currently raising BBS large fowl and are looking forward to showing in the near future.

Thanks

Mitch and Tiffany Taylor

9
Housing, Health & Hatching / Showboxes
« on: July 15, 2018, 01:29:05 PM »
I am currently in the process of making showboxes to transport birds in. I was wondering if there are recommendations or advice making the showboxes. I'm planning on making the box dimensions 16 inches wide 20 inches long and 20 inches high for each individual compartment. I'm planning on making each box doubles so they would be 32 inches in total width.

Not really sure if the dimensions are adequate for adult large fowl Ameraucanas. I've looked at other people's designs and dimensions for Adult standard size large fowl and these are similar to those.

I'm planning on transporting multiple birds in this manner and I'm trying to keep in mind the safety of the birds while in transport,  and ease of use for myself.

Any ideas, recommendations, or advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Mitch and Tiffany

10
Breeding / Cockrell Breeding Age
« on: January 02, 2018, 10:52:15 PM »
At what age do you recommend/put a cockrell over pullets/hens? I've read that a cockrell can breed at 16 - 20 weeks but that fertility can be an issue and that they may struggle breeding until they have figured the whole process out better.

The majority of our flock is the same age 16 weeks so the cockreels are the same size or larger than most of the pullets. We do have 4 pullets/hens that will be a year old in March that are a little larger than the cockreels, but the way the cockreels are maturing that will not last long.

This will be our first breeding season so any tips or advise is appreciated.

Thanks

Mitch and Tiffany

11
Breeding / Cockrell or Pullet ?
« on: December 18, 2017, 12:19:42 PM »
We're trying to figure out if this bird is a Cockrell (late maturing) or a dark blue pullet. We have 4 birds I am confident are blue pullets, two (one blue and one blue wheaten) that I know are Cockrells, but this last bird has us confused so any help or advise would be greatly appreciated.

This bird has the same hatching date (12 weeks old today) as the other six and is from the same breeder. Its comb and tail feather development is no where close to the Cockrells but it's color is darker than all of the pullets. All of the birds are fed the same ration of feed and this bird is a little smaller than the pullets and noticeably smaller than the Cockrells.

Thanks for any help.

Mitch and Tiffany Taylor

12
Breeding / Ameraucana Breeding Literature?
« on: October 20, 2017, 06:27:50 PM »
Trying to educate ourselves on Amerauacana breeding and we've searched the forum's for the best literature for beginners and didn't know if there was any new books out that anyone would recommend? Most of the information we found in the forums was from older books and we didn't know how much things have changed in the industry since.

Another question we have is what happens when you cross a blue Amerauacana with a blue wheaton Amerauacana? Will it be a blue, blue wheaton, or simply an Easter Egger?

Thanks for any information.

Mitch and Tiffany

13
Housing, Health & Hatching / Feed options
« on: October 03, 2017, 12:52:28 PM »
Just wondering what everyone does/uses for their flocks feed. My wife and I are just getting started raising and breeding Ameraucanas and we've been buying a few different brands of organic/Non GMO feeds and have found that we like the Highland Naturals chicken feed line. Our chickens clean it up well and don't seem to waste much feed either. The feed is on the high side, but we want to stay NON GMO organic. We are talking to a local feed mill to see what other options are available for custom milling but it seems that finding NON GMO ingredients in our area (southeastern Indiana) is going to be the struggle.

Thanks for any input or ideas.

Mitch and Tiffany

14
Housing, Health & Hatching / Cross beak
« on: September 26, 2017, 12:34:45 AM »
While observing our chick's today my wife and I noticed one of our (blue Ameraucana) chick's has cross beak. While we have no intention of breeding this chick due to the deformity we are wondering if this chick is a pullet, like we think how negativity will this affect this chick as it developes. If the chick is a pullet and the cross beak will not physically pain the chick or hurt its ability to eat and produce eggs we'll simply keep it as an egg layer since we are still developing our flock but,  ultimately we want to do what's best for the chick and treat it as humanly as possible.

Thanks for any advise or help.

Mitch and Tiffany

15
Housing, Health & Hatching / Baby Chick Trouble
« on: September 14, 2017, 09:20:17 PM »
We just received our order of baby Ameraucana chick's and while they all made it alive through the mail, one of our chicks is struggling. It can walk and get around ok but, lays on it's side quite a bit and rolls on its back sometimes and struggles rolling back over. We are making sure it is eating and drinking and have separated it from our group of ten trying to give it a better chance of survival since they (the other chicks) would run over top of it. We are currently supplementing their water with electrolytes trying to help them recover from shipment (9 out of 10 are doing well) along with providing free choice feed and are monitoring the brooder temperature to make sure we are at the correct temperature.

Any information or advice on this matter is appreciated.

Thanks

Mitch and Tiffany

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