Nic's last clutch of Belgians began hatching the night before last and he's got several new little ones courtesy of mumma Tiger who will be raising them. Lily's brood are growing like weeds and Crazy Dot has finished her brood as well with the last ones being clear. I'll get photos of them once they've all finished hatching so I don't disturb her too much.

The little lavender pekin chick, who'd been doing fairly well despite it's funny twisty feathers passed away this afternoon. The lightbulb on their brooder died during the night even though it was a new bulb and they all huddled up together. When I woke in the morning and went to freshen their food and water, they were sitting on top of the poor lavender chick. It was alive, so I took it and set it up on a heating pad on my desk, nestled in a bit of cloth and gave it some rehydrating fluids and it hung on until almost 4pm but then had what looked like a seizure and was gone. Seems like these poor littles have been so ill-fated... 14 set, 5 candled live, 4 hatch, 2 died shortly after I got them and the lavender chick nearly from being chilled in transit and now this poor baby as well. I know it's not directly related but I think I've been really put off buying an incubator tbh... if these eggs had been set under a mother hen they'd have never had to be transported, two wouldn't have died from chilling, this lavender baby wouldn't have had the set-back and maybe the whole thing would have been averted. Really makes me appreciate my wonderful broody mummas so much!

I hope everyone had a lovely easter... our little chicks are doing well, growing like weeds and are now at a rather moth-eatten stage between chicken down and baby feathers. The lavender has got some really funky feathering atm, the tips of wing feathers weak and curled - lots of stress barring. The "white" pekin chick has revealed more colours - it's yellow/white down moulting out to a rosey bisque colour - darkest on it's head and lighter everywhere else, with lavender where it's saddle will be and irregular splashes of pale lavender on the bisque in the wingfeathers and tailfeathers. I had an awful time getting pics - so hard not to get shadows everywhere and accurate colours.

This is an overview, chick sitting in my palm and me spreading the wings out. Head at top, tail at bottom. The rosey bisque on the head and shoulders is what is appearing out of the down and you can see the pale lavender patch in the middle of the 'saddle' area, a bit of the tinges in the tail and wings (tip: look at the shafts and on their edges.)

This is the underside of the wing (what they normally have tucked against their sides) which gives you a better view of the colouring. The far right side is part of the breast-feathering.

And this is the tail (middle) showing the lavender splotching and on the left and right are the wing tips as viewed from above (look at the first picture and pretend the wings were closer together)

Adults are all going well including the 'new' kids who are all settling in. I need to get pics Nic's chicks and my first set of Wyandotte 'babies' who are now lovely 'big kids' although still curious and friendly as ever - especially when treats are involved! LOL

I found a new chook colour I'm totally in love with though:
Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo pretty, lovely and gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my... my little chook lovin' heart is a flutter! The poster said it's essentially a salmon faverolle colouring with single lacing - patterned mahogany silver wheaten, the breed being Serama apparently. I just love the colour! ;-)

Apparently I shouldn't have used up all my words to describe nice days in the last posts title! ;-)

Today was also very nice... beautiful trip up to Euroa, I love the scenery on the drive and the lovely little towns!

Despite the heat, the shed was watered down and kept as cool as you could expect under the temperatures and water topped up frequently with a few people having brought misting bottles, so the birds were hot but coped well. I got to meet up with heaps of people - Broken Bird, Tribe of Honk, John who incubates eggs for me along with his friend Sam, Andy Vardy and his wife whom I'm not met previously, Raylene whom I'd not met previously at chook events but HAD met online through BYP and previously in sheep shows as she also has coloured sheep in a bit of a "small world!" moment, Ann who owned the partridge silkie roo I'd admired at the Paky show yesterday was there with a silver sister of that roo and two partridge daughters. Jacquie and several others were there but I missed them! :-( I think it was just too hot for everyone to wear the BYP hats today! LOL

I ended up getting this purdy little Standard Wyandotte Partridge pullet for a measley $22!

Now, the two little silkie bubs...


are here. Nice little girls, only maybe 3-4 months so heaps of growing still to do yet!

And this lovely little lady was Broken Birds and is now Raylene's... she's a slate turkey and was being auctioned with the money being donated to BYP's online show I think.
There were heaps of turkeys in various colours and I was soooooo tempted to buy some but I know I don't have the pen for them atm. I want to build one down back but have to build my big chooky breeding sheds first, plus fencing, renovating the bathroom/laundry/study in the house, dogs agility yard etc etc etc. so it's a project that will ahve to wait until I've finished the others. I was also told by Meg Miller to wait until La was a bit older as well and to contact her in a year or two, so "someday, someday!" LOLOL

Nic didn't buy anything (no Belgians) but when he came home he found another little chick - another yellow one with a small lavender spot and stripe which was a nice addition!

Nifty neat-o and peachy keen ;-)

Despite my chooks being rather out of condition and still not quite looking their tops due to the moult I decided to enter a few of them into our local show to meet other local fanciers. I put in:

• my black silkie roo
• my black silkie pullet
• my partridge wyandotte hen
  
• my aylesbury
• Nic's belgian hen

Just as I was catching my wyandotte of course the crazy thing makes a dash for it and goes to scratch in a pile of dirt turning her yellow legs FILTHY! Little so and so! No time so after catching her she had to go in a bit unkempt. At any rate, it was a lovely day and we got to talk to so many nice chooky folks and ended up being invited to the Warragul poultry club meeting this evening and wound up having a grand time there as well! Fantastic bunch of people and I got put on to some people who are very savy in Wyandottes and should be able to help me get ahold of some more good quality breeding stock. :-D

At any rate - the outcome... my black silkie roo got third prize, my partridge dotte got first prize, my Aylesbury got first and second AOV waterfowl and Nic's belgian girl placed third. We've got some little placement cards and some prize money which funded an frozen yogurt treat. ;-)

I also got to see some very lovely coloured sheep, fell in love with a pair of beautiful moorit sheep... ohhh such a pretty colour! And am on some more waiting lists to get sheep. (Unfortuntaely the time the people left who were agisting here meant we had no chance of getting anything off anyone else of decent quality.) And made some fabulous contacts for handspinning and knitting lessons from a person who is nearby AND (how is THIS for a weird coincidence) also used to live in Auburn, a few streets down from us and was best friends with our elderly next-door neighbor Nadia!

And tomorrow we're on to Euroa for the poultry auctions! Hurrah!!!

Nic's Belgian eggs have hatched out a total of:

• 3 darkish chicks with white bellies and markings
• 1 pale yellow chick with a lavender spot on it's head and a single interrupted stripe down it's back
• 4 that have solid lavender bodies with pale yellow heads. More to hatch based on the peeping and tapping I can hear. And that's not counting the clutch he's got under my other broody! I'm glad for him but how unfair is it that I spend months doing the prep-work, building broody pens, getting the girls to go broody and he reaps 97% of the benefit with instant chicks! ;-p

These are the older three - the light one with the headspot/stripe and two dark ones

and the ones hatched today and yesterday - one dark one and four lavender with yellow heads.

And if you remember my lovely white? pekin chick... well it's not all white apparently! It's got little wing-feathers peeking through with splotches of lavender. You can mostly see it in the shafts of the wing feathers and some coloring peeking through around the eyes, breast and toefeathers.

These pekins are exciting! I'm used to my partridge wyandottes. You breed a partridge to a partridge and the chicks are very predictable - all partridge! LOL

And here's my lovely little lavender baby at two weeks old as well!

1 Week Old

Still doing well, the white/lav is double his 4 day old weight and the lavender only slightly under.

surprise - take... erm, what are we on?

This little cutie is a baby Belgian D'Uccle porcelaine. Nic's very first chick from his own chooks. *G*

I have to say for being distinctly OUT of breeding season, we sure seem to have them breeding like flies atm...

ETA We've had two more arrive last night and more peeping in the shells. Of last nights two one is the same colour as the pictured chick and one is pale yellow with a broken pale lavenderish stripe up the back.

The two little pekin bubs are doing well... I'm watching them closely. At this point I'm absolutely paranoid if I blink something awful is sure to happen to them and I will be waiting for the lavender genes forever!

To give an idea of size, the biggest was 20g at 4 days. This is under half of what my std. wyandottes weigh at hatch from memory and is just barely half of what std/bantam cross chicks average at the same age.

To help them recover they've been getting mince for extra protein/fat. They're absolute vultures for this mash!

Sad news :-(

The little light lavender baby and the little columbian/wheaten passed away last night despite a lot of nursing on my behalf and DH's behalf. :-(

Poor little ones were just too stressed by the time spent in transport and chilling. Poor little mites... :-( :-( :-(