Recent content by loveourbirds

just wanted to drop in and say hello to everyone, i know its been a while. i am officially out of the chicken business at the time, i do plan on restarting something much smaller in the spring. i miss my chickens, but everything else is going well. since i have talked to you all, i started...

again im going by heritage birds, not the mixes that most hatcheries offer. rhode island reds are darker in color, typically smaller framed and a little better feed to egg ratio than the new hampshiers. overall yearly egg production is only different by 20 or so eggs, not that much of a...

rhode island reds (heritage) are a little territorial. when you buy from pretty much any hatchery they arent real rhode island reds, but production reds (crosses of rhode island and new hampshire). just guessing in about 4 out of 10 cases the roosters will be aggressive towards other breeds...

if your order from them, make sure to wash your hands after handling the chicks. (this goes for any hatchery). a couple of years ago they had sent out some chicks that were contaminated with salmonella. it can happen to anyone, even if your hatching your own chicks. but it has happened more...

i am going to do this as an article, i will post a link as i get it started.

please note that i made a correction to the explanation of how the sex linking genes work. it is in bold under the black sex link heading.

i have never tried this sex link, but yes if you use a barred rock hen under a black copper marans rooster it should sex link. the males will have a white dot, females will not. the male offspring will be barred similar to a barred rock with a little more darkness in color. the females will...

here is a thought for you, a sportsman incubator has a 200-225 watt heating element. theoretically one heat lamp will be sufficient. to much heat is a bad thing, i knew a guy who tried to replace a heating element with an oven heating element, he ended up cooking his top layer of eggs, the...

the light bulbs work pretty well too, but a heating element will last usually 500,000 hours longer. on the plus side of light bulbs you will know if one is out, where if you're not paying close attention -you wont notice a heating element out. i used a temp alert system for a greenhouse on my...

your best bet is to go to a chicken show and find the birds you are looking for- keeping in mind they are sometimes vaccinated and carriers of disease. (keep them seperate from other chickens). OEGB's are probably the most widely shown breed, it shouldnt be hard to find a good trio for around...