Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Mystery Mottled Japanese Cochin Bantam Cross



Meet the newbies! They are cute, sweet, and the girls have been laying non stop since they got here! As near as I can tell, these must be a mix of Japanese and Cochin banties. What do you think? Does anyone else see other breeds mixed in? They lay eggs like crazy, so we are eager to see what hatches out. Mutts they are, but they will be a perfect start to a pet project of mine. ;)
Their egg laying ability is definitely impressive.  They are still in quarantine, but they don't seem to care. They still lay cute little cream colored eggs every day. Two of them have laid every day since they got here, one was broody, but after three days, she is laying now too. The little roo is very personable. He crows at us every time we come out the door. He is protective and very gentlemanly with this girls, clucking and cooing to them all the time and showing them the best food bits. I love his body shape and confirmation. His head was a bit picked because of competition with a few other (bigger) roosters, but the feathers are growing back already. I'll have to get some new pictures when he gets all feathered out again. Have a look at my great impromptu nest boxes! They Love them! I have bricks lining the bottom of these standard wash bins from Wally World, so they don't knock them over. Also a couple chunks of concrete in the bottom of the bigger bin. We already have these salt and pepper chicks all named. The roo is Chip. The darkest hen is Inca, the lightest is Crystal, and the medium speckled is Sprinkles. :)

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Incubator is FULL!

This is what we have been working so hard for! Hooray! :D
Finally! We now have a professional incubator, thanks to a generous donation by a very supportive benefactor (THANK YOU!) and all three trays are in operation as of today! YAY! The trays are already almost filled to capacity, but we will be adding more chicken breeds soon; so before long, we are going to have to buy incubator number two! Right now we have mostly Bielefelders, but we are also hatching out some of our Easterfelders (Our Bielefelder roos over the Easter eggers we originally got for eating eggs!) 
We also have a couple of newcomers who have a few eggs in the 'bator too! More on them in the next post! :)