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?!?

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! ;-)

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.

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

Lavender Pekin Chicks

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!

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!

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!

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.