[Sca-cooks] The Bad, the Good, and the Better ;-)

[Saint Phlip]

On 3/14/07, charding at nwlink.com <charding at nwlink.com> wrote:
> Bummer on the great poultry massacre.
>
> I know that McMurray www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/ has silver grey dorkings
> (they are spendy as chicks go 3.14 per chick (straight run), 4.25 for
> females.)

Yeah. The problem isn't finding the little dears, but rather talking
my roommate into letting me have them ;-)

I'm quite familiar with McMurray and Sandhill. I placed this order
with Ideal hatchery at a neighbor's suggestion
(http://www.ideal-poultry.com/ ) because McMurray wanted me to buy
more than we needed. Was very tempting to let a few other birds fall
into the order ;-)

>
> Sandhill preservation
> http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/chickens.html#dorkings says
> that they are sold out for the entire 2007 season.
>
> There are several colors (silver grey, red, black and colored.)

Yeah, I know, but so far, silver is all I've found.

> We had colored dorkings for 3 years, they were pretty, the roosters were
> very agressive, they were OK setters, we did get some chicks.

Well, I have the cochins, and they'll hatch anything ;-)

> the first batch we had also met their end in a game of dog and
> chicken..... BUT, the 2nd batch and their chicks didn't over winter very
> well. In fact the last winter, we did not make it out of the winter with
> any (we started with 12 birds.) We think that the climate here in Olympia
> WA is not very good for them....

Huh. I haven't had a problem with losing chickens over the winter,
since Souage and the Boyz (bachelor, fully spurred roosters living
outside the pen) have convinced the local raccoons that this is NOT
their preferred dinner table.

> Now we have dominiques. and are getting 25 more in May (we alternate
> hatching and new chicks to get different bloodlines)
>
> Maeva

Yeah, I got a bunch of chickens from Freecycle, so I got a nice influx
of bloodlines last spring. And, of course, the rest of the birds I get
will likely take losses, that I'll replace next spring. But, for this
spring, since a couple of my hens who have never raised a clutch are
acting broody, I'm going to let each try to raise three eggs. Should
cover any losses throughout the year. No telling who was sire or dam
on any given egg, but last year I just hatched banties- this year,
everyone will be hatching heavies. Will likely put Princess Layer
(white cochin banty, good mama) to a duck egg or three, if the
ducklings start producing eggs later this summer. She raised a banty
baby and protected her throughout the winter, so she should be up to
the job ;-)

-- 
Saint Phlip

Heat it up
Hit it hard
Repent as necessary.

Priorities:

It's the smith who makes the tools, not the tools which make the smith.