Washed up a group of birds an headed to the Newnan, GA show! Will bring a few birds for sale. Should be a great time with the groupie's, they have over 300 birds in the featherleg class so that will be a heck of a show : ) Almost all the birds are washed up, just a few more left. All the stock got wing & leg bands this week before heading to the show.
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Npip 02/08/2012
 
Well we are done with our NPIP inspection, just waiting on the cert. to be mailed out. Sherri made it in between house sales to get her birds and bring back my Mr. Wattles a white cock I bred in 2010. I also made the big decision to let go of Sexy my black cock to Sherri, letting go of the past is never easy, he is such a Teddy Bear. But Sherri will put him with the rest of the gm stock an he will have a great home. Washing birds still each day and managed to go through the chicks, will have some quick culls and a few I will hold onto a bit longer before I sell. We do have 4 blue chicks that hatched from Sherri's splash girl while she was boarded with us, lol Have some paint babies I am selling, a white chick, and two partridge pullets. One older white cockerel will be up for sale as well, very nice bird. Just have enough white boys now that Mr. Wattles is here I don't need to hold onto all these extras.
Gosh going thru the spring show line up, so many it is crazy down here, grin ; )
This weeks project is leg & wing banding along with still washing birds in the flock. Have to say getting the Kent feed is the bomb, the other shit Purina & Durma out to be banned, ugh gave my birds nothing but the light brown shits with all that corn and nothing but junk in it. Working with the local dealer for doing my custom mix for me, very happy about that an so will the birds. Will work on the website more now that I have time. Later, C
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The flock has relocated to the south! Only lost one chick and one hen due to temps or stress of the 2 day haul from 20 below with a windchill to 60 degree weather. Not easy, but the rest of the flock has settled in, pens have been built with more in the works. Will have our inspection on Wed. next week for the new NPIP number. Thankfully we get to use a PO for the location so will not have security issues as we had in the past. Sold off an extra white cockerel and have a young paint cockerel up for sale. My buddy Sherri is visiting this weekend to get her stock, so it will make my pens look naked, lol Which is a good thing, cannot keep everything. Letting some of the hens sit on eggs which is something new for me. Should be interesting to say the least, hope it works out. All the birds are getting bathes, nail & beak trims, and debugged. May hit a show soon, not sure which one.
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More chicks 10/24/2011
 
Another hatch out over the weekend with both paint and blacks, an of course the odd colored chicks. Redid the wiring in the A frames, winter is coming on and time to get the in insulated buildings close to home. Will be nice to get these sold bird delivered this next weekend at Crossroads.
Paint chicks that did hatch have a clean base & a good number & size to the spotting. Still have the paint horse type light & dark skin going on, and the chicks that come out black and partridge. More due in the next coming weeks, so it will be an early year for the paint program.


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Well just as I thought the paint male Lee is getting all the black girls bred & fertile. Kipp the black cock on the bearded paint pullets also got his job done. So we have LOTS of Black & Paint cross chicks on the way!
Yesterday I moved Kipp the black cock into the white pen. Going to make sure the eggs are not wasted and make some more goreous partridge! Picked up two light blue hens to come with our light blue cock Brock. And Chris is borrowing me her self blue cock. The blue & self blue will be used in the buff program. It will be a very fun new year of breedings!
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More hatching! 10/18/2011
 
More paints hatched and as usual we get a chick with a weird color pattern. This time is a dirty white with the chipmunk stripes, watching the other batch feather in and Khaki is still Khaki, some of the whites developed spots in the first week, three were born with spots, a couple came out black, and of course we have solid whites. All of these are a mix of Euro & American paint to paint crossing.
Next hatch out is pure black from Kipp on the hens.
Kipp the black cock is being moved to a white silkie hen pen. Going to make some of my super $5 partridge chicks, ROFL Got to keep a sense of humor or you go nuts with all these silkie folks ; )
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Fall weather 10/15/2011
 
Have to say spring & fall are some of the hardest times on the birds with all this swinging temps. The flock is weathering it with help, have heat lamps on the three young stock pens and moved a heater to the building. Cannot say I enjoy having to spend money on the electric & heater fuel. Most of the issues is a runny nostril or one eye cold in just a few birds. Lost one of my very young black pullets this past week when I was out of town, think she may have gotten squished in the nightly dog pile. So I divided up the pens from two to three and put in heat lamps. Not enough fat on some of these younger babies to deal with our 20-30 degree nights.
I did order in LS powder, GQF vitamins, pen pills, triple anti for the eyes, and another gallon of the apple cider vin. Candled ups some eggs and we have a large amount of paint to black breedings on the way, a few pure blacks from kipp and only one white egg. So will candle this last batch of 33 eggs set on Friday next week and may have to AI the white boys. Which I totally detest having to do.
Our family ballots arrived for the ASBC election and are ready to be mailed in on Monday. We have a trio of paints shipping out as well to Texas and a pile of birds I need to start washing for the CR show deliveries.
Once the sold birds are gone I am going to try the vac. for cocci on the flock which will save me money in the long run from using meds & med feed. Have heard enough good to give it a go. Looks like I will not get away with washing birds for a show, Muffin the buff pullet we are baby sitting for Chris is entered in CR so we are washin & preppin one bird, lol Too funny ; )
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Paints! 10/04/2011
 
We had a batch of paints hatch out from paint to paint breedings and have to say for this group of birds it just was not the best cross. Swapped out our Lee to my black hens and put our black cock Kipp on the three paint pullets. Hope these combinations improve the quality. Issues with this last batch, two black an one that had to be put down immediately for a deformity (all time low to deal with), had one hatch out looking like a white leghorn right down to the white skin, a few others are pure white silkies with dark skin, and two that managed to be paint silkie chicks. Cannot wait for chicks from crosses to our stock.  Been cleaning pens & cages, moving birds around and will start to do some AI. Ordered up some replacement meds & shipping box's yesterday. Set another 34 eggs and hope to keep it up.
Broke down today and bought up two hens from Angie, I really just need to stay away from the computer, lol But when you think about it, they are ready to breed now, the 4 chicks I have to wait months to use in the white program,
soooo hard to say no to myself.

,
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More stock 10/03/2011
 
No matter how hard we breeders try to control ourselves with numbers it just does not get easier. I should be able to let go of more females, but I just rebel at the thought. So that still leaves me with 70 birds in my flock once the for sale birds are all sold & the others delivered. We did some shopping last night and today and managed to buy some buffs an trade for whites. I just cannot seem to help myself, lol Us breeders really do enable each other, ; )
Heading out on this gorgeous day to work with the birds, looking forward to my buffs shipping in this week!
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Blacks For Sale 09/29/2011
 
Ok, ok, almost 30 breeders is too many. So I chewed my nails and picked one hen, another pullet, and one of my show cockerels to sell. It is not like I will not have 2 cocks, 2 cockerels, 8 hens and 10 pullets. This is with more eggs on the way in the bator, lol Reality check, let go! grin ; )
The 4 white chicks arrived today from Pearson Zoo, I was so pleased with the chicks! One of the pullets has the Darkest comb/skin I have ever seen on a white, wow! Fluff factor on them is just super and I am so looking forward to them growing up fast, lol
Getting the heater out for the chicken building, not looking forward to the heating bill. Chicks have had heat lamps already for a few weeks to ward off the chill. But I cannot handle the cold myself when I am doing chores an this is only the end of Sept., maybe it is age, ; )
I do have to say 2 1/2 month old silkies are not meant for pictures, just too gawky. They need another 3 months to show the buyers what they will be. For me it is easier as I have raised this stock for a few years and can make out what they will look like. But they can still give you very nice surprizes so its a chance selling this early. But timely for weather & delivery to Crossroads makes it a now or next spring kind of deal.
We have lots of paint eggs due in the next month with a handful of black & whites. Glendas white cock is still breeding the hens so I am pretty happy I may have a few more from him before he goes in a few weeks. Just moved Kipp the black cock we used for black breedings all this year over to the paint pullet pen. Should be an interesting cross, I just hope the quality does a serious spike upward. Very impatient for the white pullets from the paint program to mature for breeding. Now they have some great type! We are going down to 1 paint cock, 1 paint cockerel, and 3 paint pullets. All of them are bearded so this next year I will have less non bearded to sell off. Patience is a virtue, right, ; )
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