Winter Flock Check
I hope you had a lovely and restful New Year’s Day. Mine wasn’t too restful as one of my seasonal chores is a comprehensive flock check and today was the day. I go out and catch and pick up each and every one of my 100+ birds. I check them for bugs, make sure that no-one feels underweight, ensure their leg bands fit properly, take their pictures, and decide which of the grow-outs I will keep and which I will share.
It’s important to get this task done while most the hens are on laycation. If I have to treat them for worms or bugs and have a two-week egg withdrawal, it’s better to do this when there aren’t many eggs to start with than have to do it in peak lay season.
It took me two days, but I finished today and wanted to share with you some of the pics.
The first picture is of a Wheaten Ameraucana, the next two of her sisters, Blue Wheaten Ameraucanas. I love how the shots really show the blue feathering.
This pen of birds are my easiest keepers. They don’t get bugs, they don’t get sick, they only needed one-night of roost-training, they lay well, the roosters don’t squabble. All this on top of cheek floofs and pretty blue eggs.
I’ve had a rough year with my Jubilee pen. I had let the population dwindle as I was searching for new genetics — I was worried that too many Whatcom County Jubilees were all from the same original breeding trio. I had a handful of hens and my dear King Fluffybum. Then King Fluffybum had a tragic mishap and as I didn’t have a back-up rooster, just some young-uns to grow out, there were no hatching eggs and no chicks from mid-summer on. Then, on Christmas morning a neighbor’s tree fell on my run and snapped the hot fence wire. Unfortunately I didn’t notice the breakage as I was busy pulling tree out of my run and repairing the fence and hawk-cover. In the night, an opportunistic predator took my second-to-the-last hen.
Fortunately I had been able to to get some hatching eggs from Michael Sinclair in the fall and here are some of the grow-outs from them. These will be the base of a whole new genetic Jubilee population. And, I noticed Prince Fluffybum covering my one remaining hen today, so there will be a few chicks from them.
Because it is unwise to hatch pullet eggs, that one hen will be my only source of Jubilee Orpington eggs until Spring of 2024 unless I am able to find some Jubilee Orpington hens for sale, but they are scarcer than hen’s teeth.
This pretty gal is in my table egg pen. I love her pretty penciled feathers and her disposition, she is very sweet and friendly with all the other birds. Alas, she lays an egg with a thin shell, so she is not one of my breeders. Birds that don’t qualify for the breeding flock go into the Table Egg flock. I just liked this pic, so I am sharing it.
Next up are my Wheaten/Blue Wheaten Marans grow-outs. These are birds that I have refrained from selling so that I can keep my flock numbers up. I struggle to get cute photographs of the Marans, something about the eyes never seems as cute as the other breeds. But this flock has been laying the nicest dark eggs, so maybe cute pics are not that important.
This is one of my Olive Egger back-up Roosters. I keep all my spare roosters in the Roostery, where they cohabitat peacefully in the absence of hens. I liked how the colors and textures of the bird played with the old white-washed wall of the old creamery attached to my barn.
That’s it! Off to an Epsom Salt soak for me — all that catching is a work-out.
