The breeding season is well under way now and while we are getting a fair number of eggs, we are only incubating a few eggs in our Brinsea Eco 20 at the moment. We will probably plug the much larger 1202 in a the next couple of weeks, but we haven't had a consistent number of eggs to justify it until the last few days. Everything except the Mandarins and Silkie-things are laying and we've shipped a few hatching eggs off already, but we are incubating bantam duck eggs currently and should have some Calls and East Indies hatching soon (fingers crossed) and then Wyandotte bantams, a couple of Welsh Harlequins, and then more Call eggs!!! We are planning to let the Romans and Pilgrims go broody and hatch their own babies this year as we really don't need any more of either breed this season, we want to keep our goose numbers about the same for next year as well. The Wyandottes are a recent addition, we finally talked the kids out of Modern Game bantams!!! They are very kid friendly, but not hardy, and we didn't hatch many of them, so the Wyandottes are friendly, VERY fertile, and the kids think they are cute, so they are replacements for the MGB's I hope!

The 2013 Breeds List

Welsh Harlequins both silvers & golds

Snowy Mallards

Gray Mallards

Black East Indies

Magpie Calls

Pilgrim Geese

Tufted Romans

Mandarin

Wyandotte Bantams in black & blue

Paint/White/Splash Silkie/Sizzled Showgirls  *Micah's Breeding Project*

 

 

What a season!

The breeding season is over and our '12 show season officially kicked off yesterday at the White River Poultry Show in Spencer, IN. We had a very good hatch of Welsh Harlequins this year and because of that, we have decided to cut back on some of the other breeds a little bit in order to make sure we have enough space for them. We focus primarily on the Welsh Harlequins, and there are many nice females from this year we have decided that we should add to that flock and have even more breeding females for the '13 breeding season.

Micah's Birds

As many of you know, our son, Micah has his own little flock of birds that he enjoys. He is VERY opinionated when it comes to poultry, and has some very interesting ideas of what appeals to him as "pretty" or "cool". He has the Magpie Call ducks that are pictured somewhere already on the blog, in addition to those, he also has a Showgirl breeding pen set up currently with a white Silkie cock in with a splash Silkie hen and a white Showgirl hen. He has a breeding quad of Birchen Modern Games, in LARGEFOWL. As well as a Birchen Modern Game bantam cockerel and a white Silkie cockerel/pullet (we still haven't figured out what sex the little Silkie is, but it is still really young.) I will try to get nice pictures of the Moderns for you all to enjoy...

Games

"In Pencil" 2012 Breeding Plans

These are all still "in pencil" as we haven't actually divided the pens or switched anyone around yet, but this is the plan so far.

Welsh Harlequins:
4 males, 8 females (3 trios of silvers, 1 trio of golds)
All bred together for the first portion of the year, and then around May, we may seperate the gold drake with our best silver hens to hatch gold breeder females from.

Indian Runners:
2 males, 4 females (2 trios)
All bred together for the breeding season, in hopes to increase the flock and give us a few more birds to go through and cull down to a decent flock.

Mallards:
5 males, 10 females
J.P. Drake x KS old hens, KS old drake x JP old hens, KS young drake x ks young hens, the wild greys will stay together as a pair, the J.P. gray drake will go in with one of the snowy hens we hatched last Spring from another line that is pied in hopes of producing all grey pieds. (Just for fun!)

East Indie:
Pair together

Pekins:
Still not sure on this project.

Calls:
Pair together.

Nankins:
Still don't know, probably won't decide until they begin laying anyway.

Largefowl Gamefowl Project:
Red Male x Black Modern Game Hens

Micah's Projects:
Birchen, Silver Blue, Blue & Black Modern Game bantams.
White & Splash Showgirl/Silkies

Animal Breeding Genetics Calculator Website

http://kippenjungle.nl/Overzicht.htm#pluginTree

Ducklings and Chickens

A white Call, three gray Calls & a Welsh Harlequin ducklings from several years ago.

Two pictures of the game-ish project cock I currently have. I love the color, but he's wild!!! Same one in the chicken crossing the road blog, but I finally caught him to dub him.

A cream light brown Dutch hen. We use to raise these wonderful little birds several years ago, and I love the breed, they are fragile birds, but excellent for children and great for 4H. (This photo is from the 2006 Crossroads National Show in Indianapolis. Hard the believe it was that long ago, but after the last one in October, it seems like just yesterday.