What shall i do......... ;)

[Bramble-Poultry]

well rooting around in one of the old barns here, having a clear out i came across the following:-

half a dozen poultry crates
some more gas brooder lamps
a child size suzuki quadbike
and most importantly......

a chicktec 316 cabinet incubator. Just doing a test firing now, holds temp ok, but the autoturner needs persuading. easily sorted and then i have an incubator that holds 216 setting eggs and 100 hatching... yep 316! so what should i put in?? answer on a post card please!

if you had the space and the will to do so, what would you set? I have three trays, each holding 6 dozen eggs, so one for each week, then the bottom hatching tray that doesnt turn is for pipping and hatching and that holds a further 100......

i fancy some good utility birds like sussex and dorking, what do you fancy?? a wish list as it were.....

[Glutton4...]

Will you adopt me?

[chris]

I'd really like some Cream Legbars, maybe once the mrs has popped ! I like things a little bit different

Would also like to have some birds for grub, but never looked at it so wouldn't know which would be best! Have heard of broilers, but damn are they ugly!!

[its hilly]

Holy mackeral batman What fun you are going to have

My wishlist would have..
Brahma
Ixworth
Cuckoo Maran
North Holland Blue
Croad Langsham
Yokohama
Indian Game
Sablepoots
And more bloodlines for my Cream legbar and Silver Sussex and Barred Wyandotte banties.

I hope we will get your final decision, with picis of course

[shirlthegirl43]

Ooh, I would like to have some Araucana (excuse my spelling). I remember my uncle's chooks from when I was wee and would love some coloured egg layers.

[Glutton4...]

I would definitely choose Welsummers and Barnevelders, because I like the colours. And Araucanas for the egg colour. And... and...

[polo]

Cream legbar for the egg colour and Marans (all colours) for the eggs too. Agree with Glutton - barnevelders are lovely looking hens.

I could go on..

[Bramble-Poultry]

well. so far the consensus Jennie and I have had is:-

- Some more Indian Game Large Fowl
- More Belgian Bantams, be it Millefleur Barbu d'Uccles - yes more bloodlines, or maybe some more barbu d'anver
- light sussex
- dark brahmas
- cochins - as many colours as possible!
- pekins - again as many colours as possible
- French Copper Blue Maran

oh and the list goes on!

I feel a trip to Hereford coming on to buy up a load of eggs to test the machine with!

[frias]

You really like to tempt us don't you. I would love one of everything and I don't know the names of even a fraction of the different breeds. I have a particular liking for Partridge pekins at the moment though, having seen a couple recently that were just adorable.

[RichmondHens]

Out of interest, when you hatch in "commercial" quantities, ie several hundred at a time, which it looks like you will be doing, do you cull the males as soon as you know the sex, or do you raise to maturity and eat? I know it probably depends on breed - you could keep and eat male IGs, Dorkings, Sussex etc but what about the fancier breeds? Who wants 50 Pekin cocks for example?

I'm going to be trying some autosexing breeds (my feed supplier keeps them and can provide hatching eggs as soon as I'm ready for them) - more cream legbar, gold legbar and amrocks. Then of course I can cull the male legbar chicks at day old if I have the nerve. The amrocks are meaty so can raise both sexes, eat the boys and keep the girls to cross on with my IG and Sussex boys.

The trouble is I don't really want to cull cute fluffy healthy chicks, even if they are male (have no trouble culling them when adult though). But from past experience, legbars don't make a huge weight so is it worth raising them I ask myself.

So just wondered what you will do with your excess cocks?

[Suechooks]

What I want to know is - what does Charlotte want? My guess is that'll be a major deciding factor!

[Bramble-Poultry]

@ sue - charlotte wants anything pekin, dutch or belgian!

@ richmond - we raise all the chicks in communal pens initially, and then we separate out the hens. that leaves us with a pen full of cockerels that will live happily together as long as no new birds or hens are introduced. from these we then select the few that are going to be used in our breeding programme.

This will leave us with surplus cockerels and probably hens. so we pair or tio them up to unrelated birds of teh same breed (if we can) and offer up for sale, or alternativly, those unlucky to fall through that net get grown on and fattened.

Some other breeders sometimes ask us for the cockerels as they are a cheaper way to introduce fresh bloodlines. Why spend money on lots of hens when you can just swap out the cockerel?

some that win our hearts are allowed to wander around the farmyard. we have three distinct groups of birds wandering at the moment, each with their own cockerel, and a few "ronin" cockerels that band together. We hardly get any trouble at all.

We hardly ever end up with a situation where we are over run with cockerels. In fact we ended up rescuing a few cockerels the other day to bring in bloodlines!

And as for those pekins, it takes two to make a sunday meal......... ever heard of poussin? they are just small chickens after all.......

[RichmondHens]

You're lucky to be able to sell most of them. We just wouldn't have a market for them all round here.

When you "rescue" cocks you intend to breed from do you know their parentage then, or do you take them on, try them out and cull if fertility is poor or the offspring are rubbish? Just curious!!

I agree it's lovely to have them roaming around. I've only got one group free ranging (with two cocks) but I can't let some of them out, the cocks would seek each other out and fight to the death - and they have tried, several times! I actually have the most characterful (and temperamental) young IG cock who I'm not sure I shall use for breeding (not quite as heavy as the gorgeous Mr Jones) but show quality feathering. I've thought about selling him but it has to be to someone who could handle him, I don't think he would be for the fainthearted or inexperienced.

[chris]

How do you go on holiday, BP? do you have people in a similar situation / knowledge that can look after your animals? that's one big thing that puts me off havings lots (if we ever moved to a larger plot)..

[Bramble-Poultry]

@richmond - i we are unsure of parentage then we do as you say, a test mating to see what the result is. sometimes we take on face value if we know the people, but we never sell hatching eggs fromparents we havent tested ourselves.

The same goes for auctions (even specialist ones), if you buy from there you need to test the lineage before you can be certain.

@ chrismarks - please define a holiday? cant seem to find it in my dictionary!!!