Fowl Play

Wyandotte National 2009 - Albury

2009-06-29T13:22:00.007+10:00

Appologies to those who love the silver/gold lace, white, black, blue etc but I mostly snapped my favorites since I was sure the BYP contingent would more than adequately cover the rest.

We had an excellent time at the show, enjoying the birds and putting faces to names. It was good to see colours you don't often see as well as some nice birds among the more prevalent colours as well. I was very happy to see Std Partridge there (no, not mine - not with a 2 month old baby anyway LOL) as well as the buff laces. I was very tempted by their being in the auction but in the end we decided to save our pennies and enjoy Albury and catching up with BB, Judy and gang in the evening.

I also got my hot little hands on a copy of the new Wyandotte colour guide and think it's an excellent publication the club should be well proud of, as well as a bunch of other Wyandotte merchandise!

The trophy table - the framed illustrations were especially nice!

Std Partridge PB Roo

Std Partridge hen, 1st in class, Ch Partridge, Ch Penciled

Std Partridge hen, 2nd in class, Res Ch. Partridge, Res Ch. Penciled

Bantam CB Partridge Roo

Std Patridge hen

Std Partridge hen

Buff laced pullet. Res Ch Buff Laced, M & K Vizer

Ch Buff Laced, Buff Lace Rooster, M&K Vizer

3rd place Buff lace cockrel, one of the auction birds

Blue laced gold cockrel - R Woods

Blue laced gold pullet

One of the interesting rare colours

Blue laced REDrooster - gosh he was a striking fellow - the photo does not do the richness of his colours justice! I'm sure his breeder was exceedingly pleased with him!

Blue columbian buff - std size birds (the black of normal columbian markings is diluted to blue)

Blue columbian buff pair - bantam

1st place Red rooster - R. Williams

Liquorice Allsort chick Pt II

2009-06-13T22:05:00.003+10:00

For those who remember, one of my little broody girls managed to sneak one of her own eggs into a clutch she was sitting and hatched out a cute little black puffball dubbed the liquorice allsort chick. Her babydaddy was one of my Wyandotte roos and I was curious to see how it'd turn out from such an oddball mix of colours and hoped it was a pullet and would make as good a broody as mum. Well, here is the results, in front of her mum:

I know... I know... for such a cute little chick out of pretty parents, poor Liquorice is not the most pretty chook around! Poor dear has smutty black feathering, whiteish skin and ears and pale eyes and a horn coloured beak and a mishmash looking comb. Her face is a weird looking combination of Wyandotte/Silkie/Pekin that looks perpetually a bit cross and hawkish. She is sweet though and hopefully she makes a very good broody like mum.

Duck-Duck the goose

2009-06-09T14:16:00.004+10:00

Meet Duck-Duck. No, I did not name him...

He's an aproximately 9 month old Embden gander who was turned in to a shelter after being hand-raised as a pet. Lucky for him one of the people who works at the shelter has a soft spot for fowls and asked me if I might be interested as she knew I had an Embden girl without a partner.
Duck-Duck does have a bit of a bad habit though - being handraised and imprinted on humans he has no idea he is a goose and being a strapping lad now coming into maturity, Duck-Duck is a bit confused about who he ought to be mating. So far he has been very well behaved here although we're watching him carefully for training as necessary as you can imagine it's not a terribly good thing to have such a large bird with that sort of habit. Hopefully though he will bond nicely with my Embden girl and this will go a long way to solving the problem of misplaced hormones.

Settling in has proved interesting as to the best of my ability to discern, he has never seen another bird since the day he hatched and he has no idea he is one or how to relate to them. In many ways, the poor fellow is really quite divorced from his own culture, although he is showing some curiousity now after a week and a bit in that he will watch them from a meter or two away. He is enjoying the space though and especially the rainy weather of our autumn!

2009-03-21T21:52:00.004+11:00

One of this years girls

Magnolia

Aylesbury ducklings - on the left is "Lucky"

2009-01-12T13:22:00.003+11:00

For those who remember, a few months ago BYP member Flogs found Matilda (above 9 Jan) for us and so we got our first muscovy. They make great broodies and mums, so the plan is to have a few muzzie girls who will hatch aylesbury eggs and be good mums to the bubs. Matilda was a bit young for that this season but makes a great auntie to the ducklings even so and is about the cheekiest bird around. Well the other day I'd been told about another girl who was very sweet and in need of a home and so Magnolia (aka Maggie) came here yesterday...

Some muzzies can apparently be quite showy when first introduced but she is much like Matilda a calm and easy going girl who takes it all pretty much in stride.

Like Matilda, also ruled by her tummy. (Hunting for scattered wheat, Matilda left and Maggie right.)

The two look a good bit different, albeit both are white and DH confuses the two terribly so far. Among the differences are Maggie's big crest!

Pretty comical eh?

And because I've been a bit slack and not posted these previously... one of Laurent with one of my Wyandotte roosters

A better picture of Lucky (foreground) pleasingly coming along on 11 Jan 09

Younger duckies taking a late afternoon siesta

Last but not least - the picture of pathetic... poor girl is MOULTING... rather seriously!

Aylesbury ducklings

2009-01-07T18:38:00.002+11:00

The lovely "Lucky" duckling... hatched at the start of Nov 08, pictured 5 Jan 09 among the same age group and several younger ducklings.

Goofing around together hunting for bugs.

And of course the very cheeky Matilda wondering WHY I am in a pen without HER and taking pictures of DUCKLINGS when she is around! "Wheep wheep wheeepp whok!"

Liquorice Allsort chick

2008-12-17T22:48:00.003+11:00

Along with the group of OEGb and Wyandotte chicks that have hatched out over the past few days, this little critter popped up from under Penny today. At first I was a bit puzzled - this colour down shouldn't come out from my OEG bantams and it definitely pure Wyandotte. Plus it has smutty legs and no single comb. Ahh... sneaky little broodies have gotten one of their eggs into a nestbox - so this little puffball is most likely from a Silkie x Pekin x Jap mum and a Wyandotte Partridge dad.

Meanwhile the older OEGb and Wyandotte chickens are doing well, the first batch of ducklings is almost all feathered out and the younger batch are growing like weeds and eatting like pigs. LOL I'll get photos on the weekend if it's not pouring rain!

2008-11-30T21:13:00.003+11:00

My little ducklings are not so little now, growing like weeds in fact!

This gut is "Lucky" the tiny little duckling from the start of the month. Look at that fat crop, to big to easily walk - what a porker! (And yes, still sporting a swish blue mohawk to ID from the others)

One of the other three little duckies with Lucky. They're only about a day apart.

The whole lot together, lucky at the back.

One of the partridge girls. Not the best photo but very pleased with her.

One of last years handsome boys... this one is probably the nicest of the older lot who leans towards the CB. (Note the solid black breast, black in hackle, slightly more bright hackle etc.)

And leaning more toward PB. Quite goldy in the breast, darker overall in the hackle, where the other fellow is black this fellow is just a shade of darker hackle colour.

Matilda says...

2008-11-08T21:20:00.003+11:00

"...FLOWERS?!?"

"Why are you taking pictures of FLOWERS???"

"When you COULD be taking pictures of ME!"

2008-11-08T00:31:00.003+11:00

Lucky the lone duckling is still doing well, joined the other day by 3 Aylesbury buddies her age.

Tonight was the night for candling the clutches I've got set currently. Tiger's lot are a mix of Wyandotte eggs and OEGb eggs. A few of the 'dotte eggs fertile, a few clear, shell quality on 2 was not pleasing especially considering they do have free access to calc/shellgrit.

Penny's were mostly Wyandotte eggs - her own and her daughters. Same thing with them, a number look promising, 3 were clear, excellent shell quality. Penny is also sitting on a duck egg - Aylesbury, which is looking like it's chugging along quite well. Less than halfway through incubation but nice blood vessel formation and activity visible on candling.

The new wyandotte hen was very, very disappointing. Shell quality was dreadful, half of them clear, one showed bacterial ring on the inside so it'd probably developed about 10-12 days before dying. She's currently sitting on four, so I'll pop some more under her shortly.

The older pair of Chinese geese have laid a single egg for a second clutch. Mind you it's the only one in several days so if she doesn't lay more I'll put it under one of the hens and hopefully get her laying again better. And two more of my 'dotte girls have gone broody on me - geeze, where were they a month ago when I was putting eggs in the fridge for lack of broodies!!! Argh! So may look at buying in settings for them.

Interesting...

2008-11-06T23:59:00.002+11:00

World Poultry says
Commercial birds miss half the genetic diversity native to the species
Scientists have discovered that, on average, super-productive modern chickens have lost more than half the genes present in ancestral populations.
Commercial birds miss half the genetic diversity native to the species

The consequence of this is that the birds are more vulnerable to diseases such as avian influenza.

Purdue University's Bill Muir and colleagues used the recently sequenced chicken genome to measure genetic diversity across these lines, and compared it with 19th century breeds and wild chickens. They found that chickens had lost a lot of genetic diversity before modern breeders got started. Some have even lost 90%.

"Just what is missing is hard to determine," Muir said. "But recent concerns over avian flu point to the need to ensure that even rare traits, such as those associated with disease resistance, are not totally missing in commercial flocks."

He said it's also important to preserve non-commercial breeds and wild birds for the purpose of safeguarding genetic diversity and that interbreeding additional species with commercial lines might help protect the industry.

Small genetic differences exist

In the19th century, breeders turned the common European chicken into breeds such as the White Leghorn - white birds with identical combs that laid a single white egg daily, reports New Scientist.

"The basic level of inbreeding was already 10% when modern poultry companies came into being," said Muir. This means 10% of the genes of any 2 birds from the 4 classic breeds that were adopted by modern producers are already identical.

Commercial breeding has pushed this commonality to 15% over the whole industry. That makes any two chickens more closely related than aunts and nieces in a typical human population, who on average share 12.5% of their genes.

Most of the remaining genetic differences are between different companies' breeding lines, which never cross. Within lines, though, much more has been lost.

Lines of chickens bred for eating share at least 30% of their genes. Some lines of laying hens share a staggering 90% of genes – meaning they have also lost 90% of their potential diversity.

Breed DNA back

Scientists want to breed DNA for traits such as disease resistance or "animal well-being" back into commercial birds without introducing undesirable traits. However, in-breeding is a concern with chickens, as the industry is dominated by a few big corporations that produce billions of birds from a handful of private breeding lines.

Source: New Scientist.

* These findings have been published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

2008-11-03T21:04:00.003+11:00

In the middle of the week we had a little surprise the only egg from a clutch that had candled clear/non-developing I thought MIGHT be fertile and developing well ended up hatching. Cute little beggar and getting well spoilt being an only-chick. Over the weekend we had the Australian Shepherd Club of Victoria's specialty show, trials and versatility awards. When I got back I pretty much collapsed but found we'd gotten a second little surprise arrival late last night. Apparently telling the birds I'm focusing back on the dogs was the way to motivate them to hatch things out! Who knew! LOL

RIP Little peep

2008-10-22T14:17:00.004+11:00

Unfortunately after looking like he'd made it around the bend yesterday morning and afternoon, I left yesterday to pick DH up and get a bit of shopping in and when I came back we found the poor little one had passed away.

Not really sure what specifically caused it though my suspicion is that the mum nipping him and having him on the edge of the nest instead of under her and warm, coupled with possibly having nipped him in the shell causing earlier hatch and bloodloss as the navel cord was so long.

Even more disappointing beyond the sadness of the loss of such an adorable little one is that the savy people of BYP had said he was definitely purebred Chinese - which means he was from my older pair most likely.

The new Wyandotte trio

2008-10-05T23:29:00.003+11:00

Pic quality is not very good because we got back after dark, the lights in my quarantine shed give everything a funny tinge and I didn't want to stress them out too much after a long trip. So they are a bit lighter in natural light than the pics etc. But as I keep them in the q-pens for 2 weeks (gives them a chance to settle in stress free environment from the move, lets me observe them closely and ensure they have a preventative dose of sulphaquin, moxi etc) and am too impatient to wait to till I can take 'ideal' pics. LOL

So here they are - the new roo, quite pleased with him - no black in hackles or saddle, good broken gold on the breast, nice comb/workings/leader, no white in ears, even the black in the tail is brownish black, nice eye colour.The first hen, still have a ways to go compared to the bantams which are quite well developed in most plc*g* but they are quite nice little girls and very pleased with them. And the second little girl, who'd been broody when I picked her up and hasn't realized her eggies didn't make the trip with her. She's broke brood but will take a few days before she decides to resume laying.

2008-10-04T20:06:00.004+10:00

Well... after last time's disappointment things have been both a bit down and a bit up.

The downside is that two of my young ducks have been lost, apparently to a snake at the dam biting them and the rest are temporarily banned from the dam. It's been suggested the most likely is a Tiger Snake, which doesn't thrill me given the highly venomous and pugnacious reputation they have - especially the idea of not only the ducks being possible victims but dogs and child as well. Unfortunately not having seen any snake but a copperhead (venomous but unlikely and generally not easily provoked) confirming it let alone locating it for removal is not proving easy. Besides being friendly little pets after hand-raising, they were also gorgeous youngsters I had high hopes for the next season.

On the upside, after being quite upset about not being able to get the Wyandotte trio I'd had my heart set on I had a good hard think about priorities and decided to sell off the Silkies and most of the OEGb (kept the pretty roo, cuz you know I need a rooster just to look at...) in order to buy these ones as it felt like an opportunity I'd regret for a long time if I passed it up. So tomorrow I will be going to pick them up! As well as this Tiger (SilkieX) is starting to act broody, so fingers crossed we might actually have some hatching sometime this year!

2008-09-26T23:35:00.004+10:00

One of Jarrah and Penny's oldest boys, a year old on the 21st

A funny shot of Matilda... I was trying to just take a nice one when she spotted some yellowed tailed black cockatoos and did the crest raising and tilted her head up to watch them.

My younger pair of Chinese... well, in theory they are a pair... in reality she likes the Embden goose as well! ~_~;

Reason for lack of news is how sucky this season has been. I've been feeling really disappointed with it - laying is so scatty, fertility is non-existant, no one is going broody except the Embden who is partnered HERSELF with a female chinese and so nothing is going to hatch unless someone else is sneaking eggs in to her nest (don't think so).

Mou.

Razzafraggin WIND!

2008-09-14T18:36:00.002+10:00

After we finally got the geese laying (and determined the Embden IS indeed a girl goose, having caught her actually laying a few times) mum was just starting to look like she'd go broody when BANG... the wind rips the door open and off it's hinges (welded mind you!), which startles the geese and results in a stampede which results in goose-egg omlette.

Crappity crappity crappity CRAP! The joys of living in a very windy valley!

2008-09-01T18:04:00.003+10:00

After watching at the agility nationals on Friday and Saturday, Sunday was straight off to Euroa. Supposed to be some large partridge wyandottes and I was quite hyped to hear it.

When I got there, I finally found them. All three were sold as one lot. One was nice, one decent and not as nice with a lot of wild markings, all smaller than mine but with decent type. However, one was constantly head-flicking and the other slightly fluffed and I wasn't sure if it was something or nothing, so ummed and ahhed a bit.

Last time we had a good bit of fun (not) as the trio of OEGb I brought home had a nasty case of flesh mites, northern fowl mites. Now all new birds here go STRAIGHT into quarantine pens for 2 weeks, are immediately treated for lice and given moxidectin, followed by wormer and preventative doses of sulphaquin before release. This is on the premise that sometimes birds will have an issue that is not at a detectible state on purchase and the stress of moving can bring it out as well as the fact they may not have immunity built up to local strains of cocci. Generally you try to examine the birds but when the cages are zip tied to prevent theft and over head height you have to eyeball it. To top it off, these guys had a VERY well established case as the mites must have been there for some weeks already to exist in such numbers so the fact that the seller brought them just rankles... either they knew and didn't care or didn't know through sheer lazyness and bad husbandry. The rotten mites ended up killing several as while I'd seen the bugs upon getting home and promptly dosed them and redosed them appropriately, apparently they aren't killed by moxidectin. (Which quite generally is effective for everything else, just not the rather rarer stuff.)

At any rate, since to the best of my ability to examine I couldn't see anything other than head flicking and stress I decided I'd put in a lower bid and take a chance. So I put in my bid but pulled when it hit the bid hit $140. So instead I came home with a lovely bunch of daffodils courtesy of Tim (whose family owns a gorgeous daffodil and bulb farm) and spent the day chatting with everyone inbetween cuddling Cami to keep warm when it started raining and getting into discussions with everyone in their brother about how I was really, truely, honest to godly sure she WAS an Australian Shepherd and NOT a Koolie. Can I also say I really, really, really wish we could change the name to AMERICAN Shepherd... honestly, I think there are a number of people convinced the Yank is crazy or trying to have one over on them! ^_^;

happy dance

2008-08-09T19:33:00.004+10:00

Why? Well if you've been following this blog you know I've been looking for more Std Partridge Wyandottes for about a year or so. I thought a few months back the fellow I'd got my original rooster from had more stock but it'd turned out he thought I was a different previous buyer and wanted Australorps when he said that. As it happened he'd sold his partridge breeders to parts and persons unknown ages ago.

So imagine my delight when first a week ago I hear of a breeder who is moving and selling it all, including a trio of std partridge dottes (waiting for pictures of them) and second the next Euroa auction this month has a clearing out by a well known Std Wyandotte breeder which includes a trio of females between 1-2 years old. FINGERS CROSSED!!!

The Picture of Pride

2008-07-25T21:20:00.001+10:00

More Matilda

2008-07-24T17:33:00.003+10:00

We went down to the dam today for a good splash about...

Enjoying the sunshine after a splash.Bizzaro-world Grooming Rituals

Chinese Grooming Session

Waterside Contemplation

"I is not a liddle duck! See? I is BIG DUCK!"
and last but not least...

VERY NAUGHTY BIRDS!
(Ye gads... Embden-Chinese-Aylesbury Duc-oslings anyone?)

2008-07-22T15:45:00.002+10:00

Miss Matilda Muscovy arrived last night, picked up from the RSPCA and quite happy to be around other poultry again! She's been very calm and slipped into the routines quite easily although sometimes a bit unsure of where everyone is rushing in a big hurry. (LOL They heard the food bag crinkle.)Here is a nice full profile shot of her, standing in front of the Wyandottes near the house.

And together with the Aylesbury near their little clamshell. We'll save the dam for another day when she's more sure of where home-base is and I'm sure she'll come back out. The red on her face is natural colouring, Muscovy's have bumpy red skin there called caruncles.

A better photo of her close up, so you can see her caruncles. They get more pronounced as she gets older.

And the other unusual thing about these guys is they've got a tiny crest of sorts that they can raise and flatten depending on how they feel. You can see she's got hers slightly raised here and can see she's not pure white - she has two tiny black feathers as beauty spots.

And one near Ambrose Aylesbury, to give an idea of size difference. She is very young still, but looks so petite next to them and even smaller next to the geese!

Matilda the Muzzie

2008-07-16T21:16:00.002+10:00

This little girl was found lost and taken to the RSPCA. Unfortunately the RSPCA seldom gets owners claiming the birds and most end up euthanized unless a shelter worker adopts them. One of the shelter workers has adopted several but couldn't keep adopting dozens of ducks, so she put up a notice looking for someone to take in this little girl before her date with the green dream.

I'd been looking for a few muzzie girls for broodies (muscovy as a breed are generally a favorite breed for hatching out eggs from breeds that don't naturally sit) and this was perfect timing... so I wrote to see if she still needed a home. As it happens, she did, so she's been named "Matilda" since she was found a waltzing (I know, I'm awful aren't I?) and I wanted to keep a M theme to go with my Aylesbury all having A names. LOL

2008-07-15T19:55:00.001+10:00

Euroa breeders invite auction

2008-07-13T22:26:00.003+10:00

I had an absolutely fabulous day today at the Euroa's breeders invite auction. I've been waiting for this one since before the start of the year and it didn't disappoint. Very nice birds and a lot of BYPers, so it made for a fabulous get together!

I'd gone specifically looking for another pair of brown chinese and with my eye on the birds Hamish Russell had up, as he is retiring from geese and they would be representing decades of work and a fabulous bloodline. I was very, very pleased to secure a pair, a lovely big fellow and a pretty young lady even if I spent a bit more than anticipated. (My DH officially gets the Best DH Ever Award for putting up with my poultry obsession with such tollerant indulgence... LOL)

I'd also e-mailed Kirribindi, to request when she had more ducklings if I could get a pair of baby girls. I was lucky enough to catch her in time to pick these two up today - meet Amelia and Anabella. They are disgustingly adorable and have imprinted VERY quickly - they are MOST unhappy when I'm out of sight... LOL

2008-07-08T21:27:00.001+10:00

A trip to the dam... happy geese, joyous ducks, curious sheep.

Ambrose has his curly tail back. ;-)

Beautiful, beautiful Wyandottes

2008-06-15T18:29:00.005+10:00

Few things please the eye so much as a lovely large partridge wyandotte.

This is probably one of the nicer pictures I've got of her showing type as she's usually busy MOVING or looking for food.

Had a nice day at Warrigul Bird Day today - took the 6 OEGb and 3 Wyandotte - Penny, her son Twobands and an unrelated pullet. Penny took 1st. Twobands wasn't shown of course being PB line but I'd brought him just to get opinions on and pleased with what I was told. OEGb - my first blue-goldenduckwing male placed and the honey-dun girls got a 2nd. I also brought the new trio to get opinoins on as I wasn't sure if I'd keep/onsell.

More geese pictures...

2008-06-14T20:25:00.004+10:00

I'm having way too much fun photographing them. Unlike the chooks, they actually hold still.

Even in the rain, geese are happy!

A better one of the Embden. Beautiful blue eyes!

And positively catlike in grooming

And grooming.

And grooming. (Yes, this is right side up.)

2008-06-12T17:50:00.003+10:00

Picture it - a sunny but windy day, Mr. Ambrose Aylesbury has had his morning meal and his crop is bulging to the point it's nearly dragging, the great gut! Content at last (read: unable to stuff a single pellet more down his gullet) he waddles over to the clamshell pool, clambers in and begins splashing about with much joy. So great is his joy in the act of bathing he fails to notice he's near the edge of the pool and his head, chest and crop are standing right over the edge. With another joyous splash his great full crop of food overbalances him and he comes forward, over the edge and out of the pool still rapturousy shaking his wings, tail and body in the bathing dance - unrealizing he's actually fallen out due to his fat gut. A few more flaps and he notices (finally...) the "pool" is distinctly short of water and full of grass. He stops, looks down and looked a bit puzzled... "Hm, fancy that... I could have sworn the pool was full of water when I entered! Ah, no matter, mustn't interrupt my bath!" and continues flapping and shaking as if he were in the pool.

Silly duck. Lucky he's cute...

One Year

2008-06-08T18:36:00.004+10:00

Only one year and I'm well on my way to being a "crazy bird lady". ;-)

Would you believe on 30 May last year I got my first three baby chooks in Australia and it's sprawled into this in only a year??? LOL To be fair, I was warned how addictive poultry is! To celebrate I spam you all with more goose photos! ;-p

Some of my mob come up for a chat.

Young fellow enjoying the sunshine after a good meal.

Look ma, I'm in colour!

Having a stickybeak.

Pretty as a picture... *snap*

Who needs a rubber duckie? Real ones make bath time more fun!

A place for every feather and every feather in it's place.

Everything must be "just so".

Duck, duck, GOOSE! (I just can't help myself.)

Beautiful geese

2008-06-07T18:58:00.004+10:00

After months of waiting eagerly, I was finally able to get my first geese the other day. A beautiful young pair of Embden and a young pair of Brown Chinese from Tim at Tribe of Honk.

This is one of the Embden, a bit muddy as it's not had a chance to visit the dam.

The little Chinese looking very elegant... the above picture also shows an Aylesbury behind it (the white splotch) and the Faverolle boy in the background.

The problem of bringing out a camera when chooks are aware that photographing them equals treats!

There is a bit of a shadow over their homecoming as when I released them from the crate, it's mate took off in a panic and made it to the dam. Since we couldn't get it off the water, we hid behind the shed thinking it'd come out and we could then shoo it toward the shed. When we peeped back out a few mins later it was gone - not in the dam, not in the field or adjoining fields. I've spent all night combing our property and yesterday and today looking everywhere, putting flyers out, knocking on doors, posting signs, newspaper etc. What a thing to loose one of your new babies less than 10 minutes after arriving home. :-( Several neighbors have flocks though so I'm hoping the quickness of it disapearing means it heard someones birds and took off to them and we'll hear from them when they find a new goose there.

2008-06-01T22:38:00.009+10:00

Big weekend - Victorian Waterfowl Show, which my 2 Aylesbury were entered in. (Firsts in open duck and drake, Tim's were in young duck and drake, his girl taking breed.) The judge made a comment it was nice to see more people getting them out there and hopefully getting more people to take them on as awareness grew.

I fell in LOVE again. This gorgeous little call girl of Broken Birds...

I just love her pretty colouring - so soft, and her lovely dark slately points!

Then today was another auction at Euroa. I got to catch up with a number of people we'd seen at the VWA show and several I've not seen since the last Euroa auction. Everyone from VWA show was there so it was a regular BYP get together!

There were absolute heaps of Indian Games, lots of Pekins in a variety of colours with mixed results, nice number of geese, guinea fowls, OEG, Muzzies, a pair of very nice looking Pekin ducks etc. There were a few Partridge Std Dottes there but the penciling was so poor I'd warrant they were CB instead of PB if I didn't know there were so few CB lines anymore! One had lots of silver in it as well. So I passed on them. Silkies... some black ones but nothing that impressed me. Partridge likewise.

In the end I ended up buying a lavender pekin roo and his daughter

and a "lavender-something" also from John Damiano who incubated eggs for me previously.

Pretty fella!

I also got a trio of OEG bantams - roo is a golden blue duckwing like my other one and the two girls dubbed dun-pyle and golden blue duckwing but a bit course so will probably onsell.

Last but not least, a few clips of the afternoon as it faded into evening on our 'wandering' trip back home...

Last but not least - a few photos of the Wyandotte kids and Aylesbury...

Jarrah x Penny - Clutch #1, Two Bands

Jarrah x Penny, Cluctch 1, One Band

Pullet from the same clutch (foreground) and Penny (background)

Now why couldn't they stand like this at the SHOW?!?

2008-05-22T19:57:00.003+10:00

Here's some pics from today of the little OEGb cockrel after his dubbing. He looks so different this way but he is such a gorgeous guy, I could just spend all day watching him and not get sick of it.

I know I already posted this to my regular blog, but since not everyone reads both my trip to Canberra is officially off. The roof sprouted a leak, which killed the electricity which spawned visits from the various repair people who came to the conclusion I need a new roof and new wiring which is exceedingly very expensive. *le sigh* I was really looking forward to it too!

Busy busy busy

2008-05-18T16:57:00.004+10:00

That's what this weekend has been! Saturday morning we went out to Frankston to pick up the new breeding sheds. The biggest pannel being 8x12' and all of them very heavy! I had to drive a 3 Tonne Truck. Twas a bit cool! This was all done in the pouring rain as well! LOL The next trick will be setting them up. I need to get someone with welding skills out and that will *definitely* be a few weeks.

Today we went to Warrigul PC's young bird show. I mostly wanted to get some "in person" opinions of my OEG bantams and someone to help with my 1st dubbing. Most of my other chooks are too old for a young bird show or too young.

A few of the fellows said the cockrel was a nice young chap to start with but I needed to match him up to a different color hen, and the hens need a different colour roo. He was dubbed and didn't seem too fussed by it. I'll post a new pic of him in a few days. The OEGb pullet got a 1st card but the most interesting bit wasn't that... but that they reckon she's honey dun NOT lemon blue! (I see days of reasearch on dun ahead...)

Then Ambrose (Aylesbury drake) turned up a sore leg... all I can think is he must have hurt it in the car somehow! :-( Poor fella isn't going to be happy to be stuck in a sick-cage for a week or so! Silkie went unplaced, not surprised.

And now... *kersplotz*

2008-05-10T23:38:00.003+10:00

Okay, now I've bagged the poor Faverolle time and again as being rather feather-brained and they're gone now but I do have to admit they're incredibly tollerant of 2 year olds hauling them all around the garden. Even when he walks away it sits in the last spot he ploinked it.

I pick a 'mah-to for you chookie. 'Ere oo go!

Mumma chookie ate a MAH-TO!!! *hysterical giggle fits*

*MU-WAH* Kissed da chookie mum!

Ohhh... neat toy!

2008-05-03T19:49:00.003+10:00

Select your roosters ground colour, pattern colour and pattern and then the same for your hen and see what you'd get... I've been mucking around on this for way too long tonight dreaming up pretty chookies! LOL http://home.hetnet.nl/~h.meijers69/kruiskip Publish Post kiezer.html

http://www.krassesrudel.at/malenumbers.rtf Text on the effect of male numbers in a population on the COI from a webpage of a Brahma breeder in Austria.

better pics of the new kids

2008-04-28T14:19:00.003+10:00

Sir rooster from the side and front

and the two girls

what you can't see is what animated little gorgeous critters they are. It's like watching little wind-up toys... they never stop moving!

Dandenong Poultry Clubs Show

2008-04-26T19:13:00.008+10:00

I wasn't showing today but went down to have a lookie-loo since it's fairly close to us and it's always nice to meet more local people. Of course, being as I was arrogant enough to post on a public forum that morning that I was pretty happy just having my 'dottes, silkies and aylesbury I promptly found something too pretty not to buy. ~_~;

So I'm the proud new owner of a trio of Old English Game. The roo is sold to me as blue duckwing, the girls as lemon blues. I know nothing about OEG but they're pretty and I like them and they're close to looking like the blue cream light brown dutch bantams on my "colour one day I must create in Australia" list. LOL (The BCLB Dutch bantam can be seen http://www.dutchbantamsocietyamerica.com/files/adbscolor_files/typebluecreamlightbrownc.jpg here)

So here's the new trio in their cage.

Roo seperate

Pullet

and hen.

Now for a few of the other birds there that caught my eye...

I was happy to see a lovely Aylesbury there... one of Jacquie's babies, owned by ToH

Pilgrim Goose - Tim's as are the two brown Chinese below

Silkie - there were two of them, same owner absolutely lovely to see the SIZE on them! Gee wiz, would love to have that with my blacks! O_O

Std Partridge Dotte - a surprise to see, apparently also of the same bloodlines mine are from but the only one the guy owns, so no luck in having another local breeder!

Random game cock and hen, above and below

A pretty pair of buff orphington ducks, drake and hen

And below, a number of the muscovy there....

Another blue and white, whose markings I really liked. I still know beans about Muzzies but the colouring on her wings was such a pretty frosted blue. One of Hamish Russells I think.

Yippie! ^_^

2008-04-25T16:57:00.004+10:00

I just came back from inspecting a bank of aviaries I was looking to purchase as breeding pens so I can have MORE chooks... LOL (Because what else do the addicted do?!?)

They were very nice, currently being used to house breeding flocks of parrots. The guy will be disassembling them over the next week or so and then we'll go pick them up. Very tickled! These will be used as night pens, with additional daytime runs to be attached but I should be able to keep a heap of chooks in them very comfortably! Yippie, yippie, yippie!!!

One handsome duck!

2008-04-19T19:20:00.000+10:00

After all these dramas...

2008-04-18T22:06:00.007+10:00

Eek... has it been so long since I updated? I guess mostly it's just been watching everyone grow up and been quite calm on that front! I do have new pictures of my lovely 'dottes though.

Cedar, whom I got at the Euroa auction last year.

And my Jarrah and Penny bubs... the first four are from their first clutch and the boys are "The Boys"... big, friendly, curious lugs the lot of them! Hard to get pictures of because you can't hardly get them away from you long enough! They *almost* look like handsome adult boys instead of young and gawky pipsqueeks!

One band

No band (Being naughty and looking the other way!)

And two bands

And their sister, who is even more uncooperative in getting a decent picture! You can see most of adult feathers in though.

And these two girls are from the last clutch from Jarrah, hatched only a few days before he passed away. They're still in their 'toddler' feathers of course. There are eight more of them but they've got their older siblings habits of not holding still!

2008-03-31T15:48:00.004+11:00

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!

2008-03-25T22:47:00.005+11:00

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! ;-)

2008-03-16T23:20:00.005+11:00

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 ;-)

2008-03-16T00:01:00.002+11:00

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!!!

2008-03-13T23:25:00.004+11:00

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

2008-03-05T17:28:00.003+11:00

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?

2008-03-04T14:37:00.006+11:00

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.

2008-03-03T00:49:00.005+11:00

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 :-(

2008-03-01T15:43:00.001+11:00

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... :-( :-( :-(

Lavender Pekin Chicks

2008-02-29T20:33:00.005+11:00

They're here! And they're gorgeous... omg they are so tiny though!!! They are literally less than half the size of my std wyandotte chicks at hatch!

Unfortunately the fellow who incubated them worked it out with my DH so that they met up in the city after work and he carried them home on the train. Now they were in a little box with warm water tubes but it was a long day without food or water and by the time they arrived several hours later they were cold and stressed. One little bub is very listless, one has a pooey bum both of which I'm quite worried about if they'll rally.

This is one of the Lavender babies... darker fellow and doing well.

This little one is also lavender but much ligher in down colour, the lavender shows most strongly on his back. This little one has a pooey bum and is a bit weak atm.

This little one will probably be lavender columbian, columbian split lav. or wheaten split lav. White down with a smidge of darker colour on his back and you can just barely see some greyish colour in the wing feather buds blood feathers. This is the smallest and also the weakest baby atm... :-(

And this is the surprise chick... white down. It's the biggest and pushiest of the lot and since he doesn't match any of the colour possibilities we'd expected we'll just have to wait and see what it turns out as!

Torture! Pain! Agony!

2008-02-27T21:12:00.004+11:00

I have to wait till Friday to pick up my little pekin bubs. The good news is there are four total, one more hatched. Ahh... soooooooooooooo excited!!!!!! Waiting till Friday is going to kill me though! LOL

More surprises!

2008-02-26T00:51:00.006+11:00

I got an e-mail from the fellow incubating my lavender pekin eggs and three hatched - maybe more by now. Of the eggs possible colours were lavender or possibly black, blue or mottle split lavenders. Of the eggs hatched so far there is two lavenders and one which apparently has white down!

Now down colour is different from adult colour but we know what chicks from each colour look like. From the split colours I mentioned you'd expect the down to be darkish blacky-blues with yellow splotches. So I am absolutely dying of curiousity!

Introducing Mr. Ambrose Aylesbury

2008-02-24T19:47:00.006+11:00

After meeting up with Jacquie the other day I found out she had extra drakes, which I happen to have a shortage having no boys at all. So we rung her and arranged for this lovely chap to come live with us. I hope the girls will be suitably impressed with his ducky good looks and curly tail feathers. ;-)

2008-02-23T21:08:00.003+11:00

We went to the Gardening & Rare Plants Expo in Silvan today and came away with a nice selection of pretty plants, catalogues and contacts for when the garden is ready to plant. I missed the talk the Rhododendron Society was holding but found out one of *the* foremost experts in identifying them is literally just around the corner from us!

Tim, who runs Tribe of Honk poultry stud also is part of Drewitt's Rare Bulbs and was doing a chook talk as well. So besides the gorgeous time enjoying the plants it also ended up a mini-BYP get together as Jacquie (Kirribindi) was there and to my surprise Broken Bird also had come to pick up some geese! When BB went to pick up his geese, we were also invited back to Tim's. His geese are so gorgeous... I love the Chinese of course but also am taken with the Embden and Saddlebacks. We also saw this little chook and isn't he just the neatest looking little guy???

He's a Silkie X roo - little crest, big silkie comb although red, feathering down his legs, a nice beard, beautiful colors in his wings and lacing on his blue and absolutely tame as could be. He probably sat in my hand getting a pet for a good half hour and would have probably sat there all day had I not handed him back! LOL

Now as I'd mentioned to Tim, I have plenty of grass for when I get geese. This photo of a few of my guys outside their nightshed - just to give an idea! LOL

And pics of my girls to show off how they've shaped up. The top one is Penny, who is now all grown up and filled out.

And one of her daughters who is now 16 weeks old and starting to look like a chook instead of a gawky feathered raptor. ;-)

Surprise... take deux!

2008-02-22T12:51:00.004+11:00

Well a bit more from us... the 'other broody' I'd let sit on a clutch of her eggs to stay broody has hatched out three little bubs today and maybe more to come.

Found the camera - here's the pics! Waiting to see if any more eggs will hatch.

Now I'm just dying to hear about my pekin babies... any day now!

2008-02-15T22:51:00.004+11:00

My little chicks are officially teetering out of cute chickdom and into gawky teenagerhood... You can probably get an idea of males and females in this pic fairly well. The ones with only a little feathers on their wings are boys, the ones with more feathers everywhere are girls. They are growing like weeds and eatting like horses!

After the chooks only being "my" thing, I began to sucker my husband into this by purchasing him a RIR chick which he named Milly after he'd admired one at a show. Over the next few auctions he told me he liked a type and colour he'd seen, "pretty ones, with blue and cream and funny little faces and boots" he reckoned were the breed he'd want if he were to get one. Last weekend we went to the B.M. sale intending to buy some nice black or partridge silkies as my b-day prezzie and while unfortunately I didn't end up buying, DH found a pair of "those pretty ones" (known to the rest of chook-dom as Belgian d'Uccle bantams) which he was told were decent breeding quality and were nicely matched up to each others faults and of a good line (Carolyn Shannon) and so for the princely sum of $35 he is the proud owner of a pair of d'Uccle porcelaines.

They are vigorous little things... haven't missed a beat in breeding or laying - sir rooster 'did the deed' shortly after being placed in the quarantine cage and she has laid an egg a day since arriving! O_O

2008-02-09T20:40:00.000+11:00

Just got the news from John who is incubating my lav pekin eggs, five of the dozen are fertile, plus the two he put in which will possibly be black/lav, wheaten/lav or col./lav splits. Very nice to hear!

Meanwhile Ms. Wyandotte Banty is still sitting tight on her clutch and the Wyandotte chicks are growing like proverbial weeds having sprouted most of their wing feathers and half their breast feathers. Looks like we've got a good number of GIRLS mixed in with those boys! Yippie! I was half expecting because of the heat they'd all be BOYS! LOL Need to get pictures of the little guys!

Non-chook related, I decided to scan and put up some of my (non-chook) sketches at http://sketchymemories.blogspot.com/ Not many up at the moment, I have heaps more I will scan in as time (and toddler) allows.

Birds of a Feather

2008-02-02T18:33:00.001+11:00

The little chick is a partridge wyandotte baby, nestled up with his foster mum who is a Silkie X.

The Ups and the Downs...

2008-01-20T17:51:00.001+11:00

All the babies are doing fine, fat and sassy under mumma chook. So no one worry that the 'down' is about them!

The down is instead about one of the Faverolle pullets who came up with what is very likely to be Mareks and had to be culled the other night. The irony that these birds WERE vaccinated against it doesn't escape me... :-/ I don't vaccinate my birds and had decided to breed simply for a healthy, strong flock so nothing I've bred or from fellow hobbiests has been vaccinated. Except for these guys, which I bought and later found out had been vaxed. Everyone else should be fine and their healthy immune systems should bounce it off and the littlies will still have cover from their maternal antibodies.

So where is the good news in this? Well for those who've listened to my ravings before I've got the idea in my head to try to create lavender silkies. To give an idea of what they'd look like, this is an American breeder who has created lavender silkies over there.

Since we can't import (well, not without a spare 40-50K laying around...) anyone wanting it has to go out and make it by "borrowing" a lavender gene off a breed where it does exist. It's a simple recessive so getting the colour should be (relatively) easy with the majority of time after that spent getting type back. It's probably a 4-5 year project... with a year or two being spent building up a loosely line-bred base-stock of each breed to work with. I was recomended to get Lavender Pekins like these guys. Unfortunately the guy I'd originally planned to get mine from next year had suffered a fox attack. However it turns out that someone else has some and he had some spare eggs up for offer! :-D One person got in ahead of me but if they keep laying we may be able to get some of them.

Surprise!

2008-01-17T22:32:00.000+11:00

As expected this morning there were seven new little fluffkins cheeping underneath mama hen. The two I'd left pipping the other night had hatched. Eager to get some photos, I bribed her with some scratch grains and while admiring the little crew did a head count.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Hold on... EIGHT? One, two, three, four, fice, six, seven... eight?

My brain mulled this one over. There were definitely seven wyandotte eggs put under her. I'd pulled them out from under Penny and stored them in an egg box inside before putting them under Lily.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Yes, definitely eight. It was early in the morning but the coffee definitely had enough time to have kicked in and it was no trick of my eyes - there were definitely eight. I pulled the empty egg-shells from the pen mulling this over when I noticed that the two "dummy" eggs were one short. For those not familiar, dummy eggs are non-fertile eggs left in the nestbox of a potential broody in order to induce her to go broody. Once she's setting, you remove the dummies and give her some fertile eggs. In my case, Tiger, Lily and Luna had been sharing a nestbox to lay in. I'd left two of those when I slipped in Penny's fertile eggs as she was rather disgruntled with me and I didn't fancy having more pecks. I'd not removed them later as I figured everything had been killed by the heat anyway so I'd just leave all of them to keep her broody until I found some more fertile eggs.

Except apparently it wasn't quite as non-fertile as I thought seeing as how it hatched! It will be interesting to see how it feathers up and see if we can guess who mum and dad are!

A belated Merry Christmas!

2008-01-16T23:25:00.001+11:00

I don't know if anyone remembers me mentioning just after Christmas that one of the silkie X's I'd bought for broodies went broody just in time for me to slip the last few partridge wyandotte eggs laid under her. I'd joked it was a lovely Christmas present - joked because this was on the day we hit 40 degrees and over the next week we also had disgustingly hot weather so I thought for sure the eggs would be write-offs. I left them under her mostly to keep her broody in case I found some more eggs to slip under her.

Well... guess what I just found when I went out to check on her this morning?

A little bitty face peeking out, still a bit damp. I was pretty chuffed at one chick, far more than I expected out of that batch! (Erm... actually I was worried they'd explode and was thinking of turfing them to exchange for plastic dummy eggs.) So I carefully lifted her off to check and found three more!

I figured I was on a roll and checked the rest of the eggs. Did I dare hope for 1 or 2 more?

The rest of the eggs are *all* pipping or tapping away so fingers crossed (knocking on wood, rubbing horseshoes etc etc) we should have a 100% hatch out of these! The pic above is a little beak poking through the hole in the membrane/shell and the white blip at the bottom of the hole is the eggtooth. At last check there were six babies and two more pipping. We even caught this little one making it's way into the world just as it tumbled out of it's shell and discovered the law of gravity.

They really are much, much cuter once they fluff up eh?

I'm shocked that this is a 100% hatch. First because their mum (Penny) definitely wasn't broody and the fellow who incubated the last lot was on holidays I was upset thinking I'd no choice but to turf them when I really, really need to build numbers. Then after the minor miracle of Lily the Silkie X going broody, the heat hit and if it was 42-43 outside, I shudder to think what that shed was my attempts to keep it relatively cool aside! Not to mention having great fertility this late in the season when earlier the fertility was a less than stellar 45-50% fertile at 8 days is just weird! I am *making* myself behave and not go peek at these babies until tomorrow to give everyone a chance to dry off and settle in. Meanwhile Lily is doing a great job being mum and is definitely protective of her little brood!

2008-01-07T11:49:00.001+11:00

Another shot of the girls, having been carried down to the dam. ;-) Obviously taking to it like... well, like ducks to water... what else?

Bubba L holding one of the Silkie X girlies and chatting to her.

And "helping" daddy put together some more broody nestboxes, which involves, "make pretties (writing) on bawds (boards)" because that is what you must do before putting screws in - although if we followed L's guide screws would be everywhere! ;-) These are meant to go one per broody pen which is why they're so small!

"so dwill (drill) goes BRMMMMM in da nail!" and "make noises" with the hammer. (IOW hitting the hammer on random places where he's laid screws over his doodles. He was immensely pleased with his efforts and clapped for himself after each 'job', cheering, "Oh YAY!" Inbetween this he was a self appointed tool holder and screw hander outer as well as our go-fer!

Welcome Abigail and Agatha

2008-01-04T11:42:00.000+11:00

Tish from BYP was looking for a home for her Aylesbury girls and I told her they'd be more than welcome here. (I'm sure everyone who has heard me go on and on and on about my little puddleduck are shocked! Not! I plan to build up numbers so I have a whole flock of them in the next year or two!) Well Miss Abigail and Agatha arrived today and are settling in. They are bred by Jacquie, so most likley related to my lost girl as well. They are also Christmas babies, they turned 1 year old on Christmas day - how neat is that?

Bubby L was *so* excited to see ducks again, I hadn't even shaken their mum's hand when he was pointing to the ducks in their carrier and then pointing to the pens insistantly! LOL As soon as we got them in he scrambled up the pen door and stood on top the door saying, "quok wok wok, ducks!" refusing to come down and chatting to "Jawwah!" (aka Jarrah) when he crowed.

In other news, my silkies are still doing pretty well. :-) The green droppings seem to have cleared up, I was thinking they'd need an antibiotic if it was caused by something secondary but it's gone now. We'll still have a test run now that the vets are open though just to be safe. :-)

2007-12-31T17:29:00.000+11:00

Ah bugger. The poor little black silkies came up with coccidiosis the other day.

I suppose the conditions were ripe for it being quite hot and having had a lot of recent rains and these guys only being a few weeks out of quarantine in a new home but I was hoping it was a one off from a bit of heat stress. The good news is they don't seem much bothered by it and are still drinking, eatting and puttering about as normal back in their quarantine cages despite continued bloody droppings. Their water is dosed with sulphaquin so hopefully that should clear it up quick-smart and they are getting small amounts of soft layer mash with drops of blackstrap molasses in it to help. I'm trying to find some raw goats milk as well. I just hope the current 43 degree weather doesn't contribute to the stress too much. :-/

More pics! I'm on a roll!

2007-12-29T01:22:00.001+11:00

Yep, more pics again! I got a fwe of the black silkies giving a better idea of their colouring, though I'm still not thrilled with how the beetle-green tends to look reflective/highlight as a bluey colour on this camera. One day I'll get it right!

Till then here are my bookends busy looking for bugs....

And here's a cute pic of the little chicks taking advantage of the warm day to have a stroll in the grass and a bug hunt.

Lastly, one of the Faverolle.

Holy cow you would not believe how difficult it was to get even a single picture of these guys! I haven't posted many pics of them as they've been very disappointing. I got them, same as my Wyandottes, because of their repute for good natures and placid tempers. Most Faverolle are... mine I suspect came from a line with dreadful tempers as the whole lot are nuts! Very highstrung and nervy, they scatter in a dozen different directions when they hear a footstep. This pic is courtesy of my 12x zoom and even so you can see she's got her mouth wide open alarm calling! Same environment, feed, number of feeders, space per bird and amount/type of handling as my lovely friendly Wyandottes and Silkies but man what a difference! I'd intended to keep a few to breed on but considering their temperments, they've all got about 10 weeks before they're sent to chookie heaven no matter how pretty they are. :-(

Merry Christmas everyone!

2007-12-27T17:55:00.000+11:00

What is this?

Why, it's a partridge (wyandotte) in a pear tree of course! ;-) Oh dear, a rather bad joke but I couldn't resist!

I just have a few more pics I wanted to update... the first is an update picture of Cedar, the partridge 'dotte roo I got at Euroa... now free of scaley leg mite and feeling much happier out and about!

And update shots of the wyandotte chicks... gosh they are funny looking things at this stage! Their feathers sure don't resemble their parents beautiful patterns atm do they!

Believe it or not this little patchy looking boy will end up looking like the one above when he gets his grown up feathers! If this fellas comb comes up nice, he'll probably be nice for breeding.

His penciling on the wings is a bit neater but the markings on the chest is less nice than green. He's smaller overall with slightly less beetle green to his black and rich bay colour to his wings.

This fellow has a dark neck, darker chest with decent markings but penciling is quite messy. Below is their sister who when she gets her grown up feathers will have nice concentric pencilling instead of baby bars. She looks to have a nicer ground colour than her mum which is what I was hoping for but will depend on how her penciling comes up and how she turns out if she's better than mum or not. Hopefully she's at least equal.

Happy holidays everyone!

2007-12-25T20:55:00.000+11:00

We had a lovely (if slightly soggy) solistice and beautiful Christmas day.

I got two rather unexpected Christmas gifts -

the first is that is looks like one of my little bantams is going broody so I have someone to hatch my Wyandotte eggs! I was so upset about having to turf them as their mum isn't broody and the incubator service I used for the last batch is taking holidays as well but now it looks as if I may not have to!

The second is this lovely chap... he's a teeny tiny necklace, only 1.5 cm tall in real life but I blew it up so you could see some of the detail in the fine metal work. (Sorry for the flash whiteout in areas!) DH got him for me as our jeweler sent us a $250 giftcard in thanks for our purchases over the years which was such a lovely surprise! Isn't he just gorgeous?!?

What the heck are we?

2007-12-15T14:44:00.000+11:00

This is the question I posed the other day on BYP for Tiger and Lily. They're obviously Silkie crosses but I wasn't quite sure what the cross or crosses might be or what you might call their colours/patterns other than "pretty". It's easy to guess the cross might be pekin. It's a common enough cross with silkies and they rather look like it. But take a look at this pattern... it looks kind of like spangled doesn't it? Besides it's funner to try and pick the genetics apart!

And then there's this one who someone guessed might have some Japanese bantam in her because she's a bit smaller, narrower and has a jaunty set to her tail and if so the colour might be called brown-red or golden birchen.

Now... for what you've all been waiting for - the chicks! I picked up my new little ones yesterday and they're so cute! Unfortunately the 5th baby didn't absorb it's yolk correctly and passed away. After letting them settle in I banded them and weighed them up. They're already starting to get some of their bloodfeathers in. So here's the kids at about 4 days old...

No band - the smallest of the lot at 1 oz. and obviously the aforementioned "light chick". ;-)

Red band - 1 1/2 oz

White band - the lunker of the lot at 2 oz., has a tiny speck of down in the middle of his legs.

Yellow - also 1 1/2 oz. and also having one speck of down in the rear of his leg.

An example of size difference between the last lots male and female! Green is male, non-band is female! LOL At about 29 days old I think? Will post some more of the growing up photos later tonight when I've got some time to resize them!

Results

2007-12-13T10:16:00.000+11:00

I got a nice e-mail this morning - from the fresher dozen, of 5 fertile at 8 days there are 5 chicks. Of the old dozen, several were candled as being fertile but apparently but in hindsight the best guess is that the age of the eggs probably made them look as dark as a fertile egg. Ah well, we gave them a shot. Apparently they exploded when cracked to be checked. I really hope it didn't make a big mess... ew!

I should pick them up on Friday so be watching for pictures!

Now I've just got to coax my darling hen back into laying at least a few more eggs and keep their bums defluffed. I think nutrition is all right - they get a mix of layer pellets, a free-range scratch mix (seeds, grains, lucerne bits etc) both of which are stored in airtight containers in a cool, dark, relatively low humidity area. Plus whatever bugs and such they gobble from the garden, fresh greens/veggies/healthy scraps in small amounts in the evenings, diced garlic and occasional dobs of yogurt (real stuff), honey or blackstrapmolasses in a mash, applecider vinegar in the water in small amounts. Going to start some codliver oil as soon as I can find some. Plenty of space and free-ranging as they follow me around the garden and we've got heaps of bugs in the mulch. Been wormed so parasites aren't the problem. I think it's just bum fluff and maybe some to do with the recent bout of heat we got for a few days even though they had a shallow tray of water to bathe in spoilt chooks!

2007-12-12T21:54:00.000+11:00

Waiting is *so* hard!

My new batch of chicks was due to hatch around the 10/11th but all was quiet. I've been so nervous about them because one box of the eggs was quite old (14 days!) and I didn't expected them to do much but chucked them in because I was paying for 2 dozen to be incubated either way. Natch' it turns out 7 of them were fertile at 8 days.

I got a quick text last night, 3 from the second (fresher) box hatched!

So of course now I'm sitting at my e-mail pathetically hitting the refresh button every time I pass the room hoping for news of the rest and *trying* to be patient! ;-p

2007-12-09T23:14:00.000+11:00

I figured I ought to put up a bit of an update. My "baby chicks" are now looking distinctly more like young chickens and it looks like it's going to be 3 boys, 1 girl. Figures!

Sir Green Band Chick... who looks very much like his brothers, though they've all got varying amounts of black/redish colouring.

And the little miss! They're still all pretty sweet and tame and will accompany me on weeding sessions in the garden on the hunt for bugs which they quite enjoy.

The eggs I sent off are due sometime Monday/Tuesdayish hopefully and I'm really hoping all of them have made it. Cross your fingers everyone!

Silly Penny had started laying quite steadily, got to about 6 eggs, started acting clucky, I told her she better keep laying and not just sit on 6 eggs. Well... teach me to say something like that! She not only didn't keep laying but stopped sitting as well. X-) If she doesn't start laying again that will bring my season to (hopefully, cross fingers, knock on wood, rub a lucky horseshoe) 16 chicks which isn't the most spectacular number ever!

I'm also thinking of where to source more hens. I'm most inclined to go back to Jarrah and Penny's bloodlines and just get more that are at least somewhat related to them and owned by someone who knows the lines. The downside to that is that the old chap had sold out of his birds and is now in the process of building up his own numbers from some birds he reckons will take him a few years to work back up to par. My other option is to write to some of the breeders in my Wyandotte book, most likely in NSW and plan a trip up there if someone has some to sell or will put me on a waiting list or less ideally if I can at least get a couple dozen eggs of a good line which then of course means having to hatch them out and raise them up before choosing the best... a bit luck of the draw but may save me driving 16+ hours! So hard to know what to do!

And while not chooks, I thought the bird lovers among us might enjoy these guys, two of the local parrot population on our property.

2007-11-28T15:54:00.000+11:00

Just got an update from the fellow who is incubating my eggs - 2 dozen eggs, 1 had hairline cracks so not set, 12 of the remaining 23 fertile. The interesting thing is 7 of the 12 are from an "old" batch aged 10-15 days after lay. He figured they were unlikely to be viable and even I figured it was a long-shot. However I figured if even one was more than I'd have otherwise so might as well try - especially as Murphy would dictate if I composted them, they'd have all been fertile and big winners. ;-p

The fresher batch which I expected far more out of is 5 of 12 fertile! Methinks I know a chooks about to get their bum-fluff plucked!

The hen who laid the eggs has five eggs under her at the moment and is acting broody. I've told her she is absolutely, positively NOT going to go broody and sit there for a month on just five eggs!

Oh. And for any who might be wondering, the silkies in the pics below are definitely black... someone brought to my attention that the way I photographed made them look dark blue when they're not. Oh for a grey-card... ;-)

2007-11-25T23:07:00.001+11:00

To show the chookies off better, here are some that show true colours under natural lighting conditions! (Also a fun excuse to mess around with macro.) These guys are SO hard to get a focus on though, they MOVE every other nanosecond!!!

Ladies first... here's the little black girl 5 months old.

Okay so this is me having a bit of a photographic joke - this is a colour picture black and white. It IS a colour photograph though! ;-) She is looking over her back here.

Head shot

Side shot

Side of head shot

Closer picture of her feet... this is probably the one area I will need to do a bit of work in breeding. She has virtually no middle to feathering (few tufts on the side of the middle toe) and the seperation between the 4th and 5th toe isn't great. His is much the same though he has slighly less seperation between the toes but more middle toe feathering.

The cockrel from the front

Side portrait shot. (Look ma, I have EYES!)

Side shot.

Cedar (wyandotte roo) was less cooperative about staying on my table and I didn't want him hopping down while they're still in quarantine so I'll try again later.

2007-11-25T00:39:00.000+11:00

It's been a bit over a week now. I'm not sure if it feels like longer than that or shorter.

It's weird, there is still this outlandish hope that someone escaped and they're just lost, maybe the fox dropped them in the underbrush across the road or something. I find myself watching the sides of the roads when I drive home or scan the edge of the fields even though I know there is no way this is going to happen.

The day after I went on a bend of discovering even more and better ways to guard against foxes and further secure the pens.

I have made a few half-hearted attempts at gardening but it just seems empty without someone softly clucking at me from their perch on my lap.

I never expected to get so attached to them. I've had chooks and ducks before but they were pretty wild and while I was fond of them, I was fond of them in the way I'm fond of my sheep. They're beautiful, lovely to watch, I enjoy giving them tidbits but there's no bond beyond generally accepting I'm benevolent and my appearance usually indicates food is forthcoming. It's still lovely to interact with these and come a bit into their world but it's on a different level than say my dogs or cats where there is an actual relationship and genuine bond extending far beyond pocket love. Especially with my silkies though, they were just the most amazingly affectionate little souls and to bond like that with a chook was just an amazing, unexpected experience.

That said, I did go to the auction I'd planned to go to before this all. DH had some wise words and while I had a few wobbly moments, I also had a lovely day in some lovely company. I came home with two 5 month old black silkies (Jessamine and Cereus)

a std pb partridge wyandotte roo who was quite a surprise to see now named "Cedar"

and a trio of broodies - two silkie crosses Tiger and Lily and a wyandotte bantam (thinking of a name still).

I'm not sure what the X is in either of the silkie crosses. Any ideas? They're pretty little things though even if particularly fond of attempting to nip at this point! (Tiger is aptly named!)

All have various degrees of scaley leg mite, so the first thing after getting settled was a healthy dose of moxidectin which seems to have everyone much more comfortable.

The black silkies, while I'm not hugely interested in the black colour as such are necessary if I want to create lavender ones, so hopefully in a few years time I'll have some lovely lavenders. I need a lavender pekin for that and while I've got a good lead on where to get one I want to breed a few batches from these guys first to improve middle toe feathering and degree of separation between 4th and 5th toes. I think partridge colour will always be my first love though.

My little chicks are growing like weeds, the smallest is still very much smaller than the others but thriving.

I sent batch of eggs to be incubated on the 20th, one had a hairline fracture so wasn't set but fingers crossed for at least a few chicks out of them. Their mum has continued laying, has 4 in the nest as of today and looking as if she may want to go broody. Not sure if I should let her or keep removing them to set in an incubator as I really want to get my numbers up this year so I have a nice selection available to make my choices from.

Fox... all my little chookies gone

2007-11-16T00:09:00.001+11:00

I went out Wednesday mid-morning to find all my babies gone. Blossom, Petal and Basil - my silkies. Martha - my cheeky Aylesbury girl. Rosie my wyandotte pullet. Just gone. I thought maybe Nic had moved them until I saw a few feathers and the hole. As best I can figure it was a fox. I haven't found anything except a few feathers near a hole that was dug under their pen... under the patio tiles and sunkwire meant to stop attacks.

They were maybe 3 meters from my bedroom window. I looked around the whole property hoping someone had gotten away or thinking maybe they were hurt... I couldn't bear it if they were out there and suffering. I tracked through the grass out to the road across the neighbors field but lost it after that.

I spent all of yesterday just bawling my eyes out. I don't think I've cried so hard since I lost my Collie suddenly to heartfailure as a college freshman... I've lost 2 other dogs since but they were ready and passed away peacefully in my arms, loved and completely unafraid. I've been randomly bursting out all day today, couldn't sleep last night, finally gave up about 5 am. I went out to the garden to do some weeding and started crying when I realized they weren't sitting with me the way they always did when I weeded. My mind just can't understand how my littles are gone when the evening before they were sitting in my lap, getting treats, Blossom preening my hair and lowering her head for scratches 'chuc chuc chuc'ing at me softly. Petal sitting on my leg and hopping off to peck a bug when I turned one up as I weeded, then hopping back on to wait for another. Basil sitting nearby and watching for me to hand him sowbugs before the greedygut girls gobbled them all. Martha looking like a duckie bulldozer poking about for snails under the mulch, tail waggling and qwocking constantly under her breath and Rosie trying to gobble up more bugs while Jarrah, my roo did his little dance and Penny napped. Anyone who has seen the pics on my blog from a few days back of my son cuddling and giving them rides on his pedal tractor knows how friendly they are. I'm just sick every time I think of how scared they must have been, they're completely tame, theyve never known anything but gentleness.

I still have Jarrah and Penny, my wyandotte roo and hen and the chicks which were all in my house still under lights. Jarrah and Penny had been seperated from the others as I wanted them to breed but not with the silkies of course and Rosie would scatter Penny's eggs if she had access.

I *thought* my pen was pretty safe, I'm not sure what else I can do to proof it besides weld avairy mesh to the bottom of their nightshed inside it. The pen is sided with a tough wire mesh (think like sheep fence but smaller squares and an additional wire along the ground to prevent it being pushed up) and chickenwire over it along the bottom, netting on the top to prevent hawks/crows/cats, sunk wiring, 12x12 patio pavers surrounding to discourage tunneling. Jarrah and Penny are in my garage/shed which has cement floors and colourbond walls so hopefully htey're safe at least.

Sorry this is so long and rambly. My mind is just not straight and I don't have the heart go edit and spell check atm. I may not be on much over the next few days. I'd been intending to go to Euroa on the weekend to buy more silkies. My husband reckons we should still go but I'm really not sure I wouldn't just be a blubbering idiot.

(I copied what I wrote on Backyard Poultry as I didn't want to try and write it all again. I went and looked again this afternoon in case anyone had been in hiding and too afraid to come out but only found some of Rosie's down feathers. I had to check again because I think the fox probably ended it for Blossom, Petal and Basil quickly being that they were small... gods I really hope it was quick for them and at least they didn't suffer... but the feathers I tracked from the chooks pen all the way across the front garden, across the neighbors paddocks and to the road the other day were Martha's and it looked like she put up a fight most of that way so I was afraid/hoping/I don't know that maybe there was a chance it let go of her. It's a long way and looks like she was attempting to fight most of it. With the clump I found today, they were Wyandotte down, in a clump, with scuffed marks in the dirt so I thought she must have got away at one point but I guess the fox must have grabbed her again as there's no other sign she got away or any further struggle.)

Which one is not like the others?

2007-11-13T01:09:00.000+11:00

(L-R: Yellow band, Green band, Red Band. Middle: Blue band sans band)

The chicks are now 22 days old and growing rapidly into spindly raptorish looking things - except little blue-band who is not wearing it's band as it's so small even the "baby chick" size kept slipping off! It's not even half the size Green and just half of Red and Yellow. There is plenty to eat and no bullying plus they get plenty of bugs hunted in the garden so it's not as if it's for lack of grub- it's just plain small and has more of the rounded features of the baby chicks. Despite this it is feathering up faster than Green or Red but slower than Yellow band.

Meanwhile Red, Yellow and Green chicks have graduated from little chick leg bands to big chick leg bands. Green is the largest and imo going to be a boy. Yellow and red are pretty evenly matched size-wise but yellow is feathering up faster, having some feathers on her shoulders and just starting to sprout them on the sides of her chest. (You can barely see this in the pics.) All of them remain pretty placid little critters especially compared to the fruitcake Faverolle! For this photo I pretty much ploinked them on top of a towel on a table in the position I wanted and they calmly stayed where I ploinked them - neatly in order - and waited while I stroked their tummy up to a standing position instead of nodding off! (Yes, seriously, they nodded off after being ploinked! O_O)

2007-11-07T15:41:00.000+11:00

This started out with me trying to take more recent "look at how they've grown" pictures of my silkies! Of course I had my "helpful helper" and so it quickly degenerated into a series of cute photo ops! Ah well!

"Look chook, a geen WEAF!" (green leaf)

Blossom gets a cuddle.

It's all about your Point of View

A different sort of chicken tractor! LOL Blossom goes for a ride on Bubby L's "geen tac-tah"

But quickly gets distracted with pats.

I did manage to grab two semi-decent and bubba free shots...

Petal (above) and Blossom (below), with Basil not pictured as he was being a gobbleguts on the grass - head down and bum up busy inhailing bugs!

One day old and two week old pics

2007-11-02T21:59:00.001+11:00

Another picture of mum, "Penny" that turned out nicely and pictures of the four bubs at one day old. I'll be getting leg rings for these guys to be able to identify them individually but right now they're too tiny so they've just got marks where toe punches would be! First is red band chick.

Then green band

Yellow band

And blue band I think.

And below are the littles at 2 weeks old aprox. First is "blue band"... who is the smallest of them and has what looks like it *might* be a white fleck in the down on it's head?

Blue band with fleck below.

Now here is green band

Red band

And yellow band

They are friendly little critters. If I look into their box they start talking to me and if I put my hand in the come up to cuddle and hop aboard for personal attention, they like to be lifted to snuggle under my chin! ;-)

Introductions

2007-11-02T20:50:00.000+11:00

I suppose, first things first, introductions are in order. I decided to create this blog as a record of my chooks, ducks and (hopefully soon!) geese and decided to open a second blog as the readers of my first are primarily my friends and my dog friends, who've relatively little interest in chook related ramblings. Meanwhile, since my son is on my main blog, it's not one I wanted to keep public as there are not-so-nice people in the world. So that's the "why".

The who is Amanda, though many of you know me by my web handle. As for where, we're near Gembrook in Victoria on a small property of 5 beautiful acres.

My primary interest in chooks is my lovely partridge Silkies and my much loved std partridge Wyandottes which I keep the PB version of. I also have a cheeky Aylesbury duck named "Martha". She is a beautiful duck and I'd recomend the breed to anyone wanting a lovely, nice-natured duck!

DH's RIR "Millie" who is admittedly quite cute

and we've got a few Faverolle chicks as well which my son likes despite their high strung tendancies!

My silkies are:
Blossom, my first pullet, who started it all. I purchased a pair of sussex bantams as well but after awhile of owning them decided I wanted to pursue the silkies as I adore the friendly little guys and wyandottes only so they found a lovely home in the 'burbs as spoilt pets!

Petal, my second pullet, who is turning out to be a lovely young lady!
(Pictured here at 8 weeks old)

and pictured below at 14ish weeks old.

Last but not least is Basil, my cute cockrel below

These guys are all from Tim at Tribe of Honk in Silvan, Victoria and will hopefully be the start of a nice breeding line.

My second breed is my Wyandottes. I am just nuts about these guys, they're just beautiful! I purchased a hen and pullet from Alf Williams at a show earlier this year.

"Penny" is the hen and she's the nicest marked and quality wise, though the colour has plenty of room to improve! ;-)

The pullet, "Rosie" is a little less nice than "Penny" as you can see. Her penciling tends to go wild about mid-wing to rump, the markings in her neck and general shape.

My cockrel from George Norman a little while after and his name is "Jarrah". He is a true gentleman of a rooster and takes good care of his girls as well as being reasonably well behaved to handle.

Hopefully he should compliment the girls faults and vice versa and produce nice offspring!

I love the colours on this colour variety in both the roos and the hens. I just don't think you can beat them for sheer beauty!

On 21 August, Penny hatched her first clutch here. She did a good job laying and sitting but 8 days into it my pullet flew over the fencing and into her area and ate 3 eggs (fertile) and scattered several more which traumatized the embryos into dying. Of the eggs left, these 4 little guys are the results!

My son adores the little tykes! I think having chooks with children (albeit always supervised!) is a delightful thing for everyone involved! (Including the chicks as he's inclined to go hunt bugs to feed them!) Here are a few of the littlies just hatched - two of them still wet!