Wow, seven months since I've posted. That's kind of crazy.
It's been a really odd season so far. With the fluctuating temperatures the chook fertility was zero all through spring, despite them laying like the clappers. The fertility came on with the start of summer but I only got two batches of chicks hatched before everyone went broody! There's one more lot in the incubator now, and then I have to hope that those who have been de-brooded decide to start laying again.
The Quail situation has been quite the reverse. We had a horrific winter with all the hens but one dying of various creative things (or in one case, of nothing obvious at all, just dropped dead) which left us with the handsome Bruce, the tibetan jumbo from Sydney, and a hen called slim, who is a yellow daughter of the previous cock, Old Yellow.
The two are completely unrelated and that has done wonderful things for our fertility. We have been up to the eyeballs in quail. Now we are deep in quail eggs. Bruce has six hens, his son Lucky (eleven cocks, wanted to keep one) also has six hens. Each hen lays an egg a day. I have also sold lots of hens and a few cocks, and we have quite a lot of fat little quail in the freezer. Mr Shairlyn is very partial to them. The birds seem to be very happy and healthy, and quite calm, being hand reared. There is even one hen in Bruce's pen known as Patting Quail because when you open the door she will come up to you for a pat. Bruce was pattable but he went a bit feral after discovering his purpose in life.
The lavender wheatens are doing well, I have three hens and three pullets as well as the indubitable Flash. There are quite a few chicks feathering out lavender wheaten so I will hopefully have some girls to sell as well as the boys. The boys are disgustingly pretty but come with the usual noise problems.
The wheaten side hasn't fared so well. Goldie passed away, at probably six years of age. I thought that she might be egg-bound as I could feel a lump in her abdomen, and for the first time I did an autopsy (as opposed to processing birds intended for the table). The lump proved to be a tumour, and I can only assume that she had others. It was sad as she was a lovely old chook and a great mum. A couple of months later Wendy passes away. She was sick as a pullet and never really pulled through properly, despite my trying everything. Failure to thrive I guess. They're survived by Apricot Tart who is Goldie's daughter and Wendy's sister, and mother of most of the wheaten-side chicks from the look of things, as there are a lot of buffs again.
Pie also passed away unexpectedly. She was always a heavy and slightly fat chook, though she lost weight after I got her; being chased around by a randy rooster will do that. She was a lovely bird and a very fine wheaten, as well as unrelated to the rest of my lot, so I had high hopes for her. Now both Crumble (cranky-bum ribbon winner) and Red Rooster himself are unwell, so the wheaten generally haven't had a good season, despite previously being very robust. I am nursing both of them along and treating them for everything I can think of, so I hold out hope for them. Crumble actually seems slightly better, Red unchanged.
The two young pullets from the end of last season, Terracotta and Sour Cream, are proving very interesting. Terracotta is very petite and a dark clay wheaten, but she's proving to be an excellent mother. She's got nine chicks about two weeks old and is taking excellent care of them. She's a vicious broody though!
Sour Cream is an intriguing little conundrum. She is the chick who started feathering wheaten and then turned white with ginger eyebrows. She's now grown out and has a white neck, white tail, and a dusting of ginger on her body. It's not really the classic wheat colour, more like very fine ginger speckling over a white base. Very odd. The closest thing to her looks is a Silver Wheaten, but I don't have Silver in my line. So I'm not quite sure what to make of her. Also a silver wheaten should still have black (or blue) in her tail and flights and she doesn't. That could change with the next moult of course. The other bird that bears some vague resemblance to her colouring is the Yokohama. I'm tempted to see whether I can find her a boyfriend with mahogany and then select a so to breed back to her. No room though. I shall have to take a picture of her.
And then there's Pumpkin the Cream Wheaten and Forest the old black hen, who just keep on keeping on. Lovely birds.
The first chicken chicks to hatch this season were a set of six (there have been uncountable numbers of quail chicks) and they are now about six weeks old. Three of them are feathering up lavender wheaten, with the details of their patterning yet to be determined. The other three are buff, or more accurately buff x wheaten. One of them actually has a lovely blue columbian necklace, but unfortunately is a large and bolshy boy. We'll see what he looks like when he gets a bit older.
Terracotta's nine chicks look to be a mixture of lavender and wheaten, with a couple of sneaky recessive whites in there. If poor old Red Rooster doesn't pull through his current illness I am going to hunt down a good,
unrelated wheaten rooster. My flock is a little too inbred and throws all kinds of weird stuff.
There are fifteen more chicken eggs in one incubator, due to hatch on the 18th. The other is full of quail eggs. There are going to be lots of quail. Again.
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