Well there's always the chance of the current bird flu making it into the human population. That would cull a few.
We had a lot of birds die off here, end of last year. The Corp of Engineers sent out a warning to stay away from the corpses and gave a number to call so they could be handled. I think the health department sent out something similar.
I had ant see anything about the feed being altered until this thread, more that people think they got bad feed in general. That’s indicative of the level of ignorance in the “homesteader” craze. People don’t do any research or listen to what one of the thousand “experts” write on their blog.
One of the three pullets that hatched a while back up and died for some unknown reason, just as they were starting to lay. If I had to guess she could have been egg bound but the way the weather has been here the past month or so, who the hell knows. I'm probably gonna pick up a half dozen chicks from Tractor Supply or something, unless I get another hatchery catalog which almost always spells trouble. I haven't gotten a singe one yet though, nor any seed catalogs. Strange.
Did you do (or would you be up for) a necropsy to check? When I had an adult die I was kind of shocked and didn't think to do one. I was more watching the rest of the flock for signs of sickness. I kind of wish I had done a necropsy at the time because it was so random.
Welp, I think the seal broke, 4 eggs this morning. I have 9 hens and I think in less than a month we will be at full production. I am very excited. The girls had a very, very long break. I will be waterglassing eggs from the get to rather than waiting for ridiculous numbers of eggs to build up.
Christ, I went to put together an order for a 8-12 chicks and the hatchery I've always ordered from is completely wiped out on pullets until at least mid-summer. well, unless you want some designer hybrid at 15-20 bucks a chick. Screw that. I don't normally like to have them shipped anytime past late May, but it's looking like I'll have no choice.
I was about to post a link to the two hatcheries we've used in the past to get chicks from, but I went on both sites and you are right, they are completely out of stock on almost all of the basic chicken breeds until late June early July. That's pretty crazy. It seems though they are breeding hundreds of males for some reason, not really sure what the deal is with that.
That seemed rather odd to me as well. If I had to guess, they know they will have X amount of each breed available in a given time, and out of that number, a percentage is likely to be male. But I'd wager if you tried to order all, say, 2000 males they have listed, you wouldn't get that number, OR, they would make up the difference with another breed. I could order straight run, but I bet there'd be a high number of males in that batch. In which case, I'd be better off just firing up an incubator myself. But I don't even want to feed birds that aren't going to produce. Part of me says to hell with it, and just stick with what the seven hens I have now are offering up. But I've always managed to cycle in new birds so that there's a steady supply of eggs, at least until this year. So I'll probably have to winter the three year old hens while the young ones mature and start laying. I guess I should have seen this coming and planned ahead a little better. Oh well.
I'm about over these welsh harlequin ducks. They are gorgeous but appear to be rather crappy layers compared to my black mutts. When they matured, they didn't lay for forever, and as adults they seem part time at best. I am getting 7 eggs a day and am pretty certain I know who isn't laying. I am also having to kennel at night and daytime separate the WH drake because in the two weeks I was gone, he has completely torn up the back of the heads and wing feathers from the 4 OG black ducks. He appears to only mate them, and to just overall be really sexually aggressive towards them. The WHs are from Dave Holderread who literally wrote the book on raising ducks. He is supposed to be THE duck guy. I don't know if he didn't focus on egg production when he bred his WHs (they are supposed to be excellent layers), or what, but I'm about to sell them as a breeding trio and bring in an Indian runner, golden 300, or khaki campbell drake. I want tiny egg machines. I don't need sexually aggressive food hogs.
Are Welsh Harlequins supposed to be heavy layers, like Khaki Campbell’s, or only seasonal? I’ve never had ducks that were heavy layers.
If you Google it, the answer is all over the place from one hatchery to another. 150-200, 200-300, over 300. That being said, the info on the holderread site says they are heavy producers, 260-350 eggs a year. I don't have numbers to back it up but I would hazard I am closer to 150 a year. And these birds dress SO small.
If that is a screen shot of your phone... PUT IT ON THE FUCKING CHARGER, WOMAN! JESUS CHRIST! 6%?!?!?!?