ELeVan ~ Honaker Farm Journal

[Ms. Research]

No wonder your DH fell madly in love with Daisy's little girl. Her name definitely fits. And "little boy", well you will definitely find someone to take him off your hands.

They are both adorable. So happy for your little farm and wishing those future plans (seriously already EleVan lol) brings more adorable babies like these.

K

 

[elevan]

Well the chicken illness is not over.

Found the turken hen dead in the coop this morning. DH is gonna be upset about that one. I'm just sad to lose another one when I though that we had gotten past it. But then it hasn't been a full 2 weeks. The turken hen didn't exhibit exactly the same symptoms that the other two did though :/ The only clue that something might be going on with her was that she slept on the floor last night instead of roosting...but then several of the hens have done that on occasion so we thought nothing of it.


On other news - the goat twins are still doing great. Cute as buttons.

 

[Ms. Research]

Dang! So sorry you lost another chicken.

Glad to hear Precious and "Little Boy" are doing well.

K

 

[autumnprairie]

sorry to hear about the chickens

 

[marlowmanor]

Elevan you aren't the only one who thought about the breeding plans already for Precious! I had been thinking about it last night. I knew Snickers was your pygerian buck, so I figured he would be her date when she got breeding age!

Ranger doesn't look like I thought he did. He's got some darker hair, but still wondering where the black is coming from. I know with my daddy's breeding that produced that same coloring the buck was mostly black and the mom was the same coloring as Daisy. Of course both of those kids were black too though, but only the buck in that set of twins got the augoti look.

Sorry to hear about your turken hen (I want a turken or two myself). Will you be sending her to the lab for a necropsy?

 

[elevan]

Genetics have never been a super strong point for me...but I believe that all pygmies and nigerian dwarfs carry the gene for the agouti (black, gray or brown). Black I believe is dominate over the other colors.

So why did Precious end up black agouti when neither her dam or her sire were. Daisy's brother and sire were a black agouti. Ranger doesn't have any black agouti in recent ancestry. So it would come from Daisy's sire's side I believe. But precious is the only black agouti that Daisy has had. The previous breeder that had her said she always gave twins and that they were always caramel. :/

 

[Snowhunter]

Congrats on the two beautiful kids Em! They do remind me of the kids born here earlier this year

Sorry to hear of the illness within your flock. We've had 3 bouts of stuff this year. Its not easy to deal with

 

[marlowmanor]

Genetics have never been a super strong point for me...but I believe that all pygmies and nigerian dwarfs carry the gene for the agouti (black, gray or brown). Black I believe is dominate over the other colors.

So why did Precious end up black agouti when neither her dam or her sire were. Daisy's brother and sire were a black agouti. Ranger doesn't have any black agouti in recent ancestry. So it would come from Daisy's sire's side I believe. But precious is the only black agouti that Daisy has had. The previous breeder that had her said she always gave twins and that they were always caramel. :/

Thanks for explaining it. I figured one of them had to have black in their background somewhere!

 

[elevan]

Sorry to hear about your turken hen (I want a turken or two myself). Will you be sending her to the lab for a necropsy?

I don't mean this to offend anyone that likes them but I don't like the looks of the turken breed. I'd wanted to sell her as soon as we got her but DH wouldn't let me.

As to sending her to the lab. They gave me very strict protocol to follow should we need to take one in...and they pretty much have to die during the week and during business hours. I've got to find the bird while it's still warm or before rigor sets in. I've got to put the bird in a cooler with ice but place something between the bird and the ice so that the bird never touches the ice directly. And I have to drive straight there...an hour away.

Unfortunately she must have died early in the night because she was already in full rigor.

This is just so frustrating. I could open her up myself but I don't know enough about chickens to have a clue. And I can't run labs myself. Ugh! We're gonna strip and sanitize the coop again today (when DH gets home) and continue the medicated water.

I'm hoping that the fact that she didn't exhibit the exact symptoms means that she was stronger than the other 2 but just not strong enough. If that's the case then I hope that we're far enough past the initial outbreak to have limited our losses to these 3.

 

[marlowmanor]

I know the turkens look a little odd, but I know a breeder in SC that has frizzled turkens and they are so neat looking! If we keep our chickens and DH lets me buy some hatching eggs and get an incubator I am thinking about getting some eggs from her to hatch.