BC Marans Photo collage

MORE marans, and updates on red coturnix

To the left is a true red coturnix, to the right is what I'm calling an "Orange tibetan" the oranges were litterally ORANGE at hatching their down was gorgeous! Now as they feather out they have like an orange lacing it's really pretty. The reds have an almost baby blue lacing whic his really pretty to see. I only have two true reds, 1 red tux, and 1 red golden. They are the starting point of my red flock. I hope to breed red tuxedos with such a contrast of color it leaves you breathless of how beautiful they are! That's what I love about white on any color it just brings out the color! This picture though does neither color any justice! Suffice to say true red coturnix look like smooth milk chocolate, and the orange tibes are a normal tibe with orange lacing. I also have red tibes whic basically omit the orange for red. I didn't produce ANY of these colors, however the name "red tibetan" and "orange tibetan" I have made up because they have no color name and it suits them well.

I have in my incubator, over almost 2 doz marans eggs, half of which are hatching NOW, and the other half which were just put in yesterday! Something like 7 BC marans, and 3 BBS marans (clean legged on the BBS). They are for a color project I will be doing! My BC marans flock is growing and it just swells my heart with joy!!!

Not only that, I have several turkey eggs in the bator, as well as ringneck pheasant eggs, guinea eggs,a nd ofcourse theres ALWAYS coturnix eggs in the bator. Oh and Blue Laced Red Wyandottes!!! :) I am blessed.....nothing else to it. I have such wonderful people in my life that I just owe so much to....I hope to repay each and everyone of those someday somehow! Thank you to all who read this who know the thank you is JUST FOR YOU!!! *hugs*

I will have to wait a few more days and take a picture of my growing marans outside BOY are they gorgeous!!! Esp the Funny Farms Cockerel "Boots" he's just stunning!!!

Well I want to end this here and glue my nose back to the window on my incubator (bc's hatching is the highlight of my day)! LOL!

Haven't Posted In A While

Sorry about that for anyone who does read this :) Just been busy fishing, I personally have only caught like 11 trout... really sad number compaired to what previous years had been haha. It's still fun though.

Lets see about updates here :)

I shipped out my first ever live chicks (I said I never would but now that I've recieved and sent out chicks its not bad at all nothing really to worry about as long as precautions are taken). I sent 17 chicks, and only one parished, which didn't sadden me at all (Sorry it didnt) it was more like a packing peanut and sure it would have been wonderful if it made it but you have to expect some casualties especally when going from PA to Colorado! Their new owners are very pleased with them and that's all I can ask for! It's deffinatly not about the money like someone joked to me on BYC I just really enjoy sharing my love with others....I really enjoy hatching for others....just something so fullfilling about giving what I've produced and cared for to someone else to enjoy be it eggs or chicks or adult birds. If it wasn't for needing to pay for my own hobby I'd only ask for shipping on every shipment! :) Maybe I'll get rich someday and can do that :) :P

I was called the Serial Quailer tonight made me laugh....because I'm like the coturnix quail recruiter....I drag people in with cutness and before they know it they are coturnix obsessed JUST like ME! LOL! My evil plan in the works....I don't know how many people I've caused this addiction to already but it's very fun and halarious to me. :) Well, not to mention entertaining haha. Those poor souls they don't know what hit them! My "evil plan" is to eventually have coturnix so well known that they know them as well as a normal chicken.....after all, people in cities who cannot have chickens but want to enjoy eggs daily (and meat) if they knew about coturnix they'd be very pleased with the results! If they get the right color (brown or golden) they can sex them at 3 1/2 weeks just by looking at their breast feathers (roos are rusty brown tinted and hens are black speckled in the breast) then they can cull the roos when they are 6-8 weeks and put the hens out in a rabbit hutch or something innocent looking like that and as long as the hens get daily sunlight in spring and summer they will lay almost daily (some hens take a day break after 3 days of laying etc but are right back at it the day after). Then in the winter if they still want eggs, either bring them inside in indoor rabbit cages or put lighting on them for atleast 14 hours a day and wala they will continue to lay! The hens make SOME noises but are for the most part very quiet...the roos ofcourse do crow during breeding season (spring summer and when under artificial light in winter) so ofcourse most cities that aren't allowed neighbors may complain but omit the roos and you've got great birds that barely anyone will notice! If they do just tell them they are pigeons problem solved! haha! *see how evil i am?* LOL

I will be shipping out my second shipment of quails here ina few weeks to another Pa'ian that's abtou5 hours away so too far for him to drive to meet even and shipping to him is the next day so those chicks will only be in transit for just a few hours tops! :) I am enjoying it so much! I haven't sold my first eggs yet. I sent out some testing eggs for just shipping to a couple members of BYC, and had a contest and my friend Mark won it so he got his just yesterday so soon I will get to hear about more Catawba Quails hatching from PA to Michigan and California and more! So fun! I wanted testers just to insure my birds fertility along with my own incubating. Well I am pleased to announce as of today all my pens that have been laying religiously ARE FERTILE! So all my testers should have great hatches unless the eggs were scrambled. My A & M pen I had questioned, but soon after incubating the eggs I finnally saw the roo doing his job! And today I got to see the results! So far Enceno (the roo) has 5 babies to be proud of! They will become a flock for another pen of A & Ms with a different A & M roo from another line to breed to them so I don't inbreed or atleast not too closely. :)

My BC marans are growing gorgeously! I have three chicks in the brooder from the one line they are going through their uglies right now but they are going to be gorgeous no doubt about it! On the 10th of May the last batch of Marans I have in the incubator will be due! Soon after that I should be getting another doz from a wonderful breeder in California (same breeder that the ones in my brooder are from)! I am so pleased with how wonderful other breeders are in this breed that's a hard thing to find the generosity! :) I cant wait to repay the breeder to the ones in my inc now with coturnix eggies here sometime in may! :D The bird pictured at the top is my oldest Cockerel from Funny Farms...he's "Catawbas Boot" :) Starting to get in his coppering :)

Then on the 11th I have turkeys due! One black spanish, 1 blue slate, and 3 narganesettes (sp?). Then I'm swapping several dozen coturnix eggs with a fellow Pa'ian AND BYC'er for a couple Bourbon Red turkey eggs (AND CALL DUCK EGGS)! SPOILED I AM SPOILED! :) Out of the turkey varieties there are the Bourbons are deffiantly my favorite! I plan to keep the blue slate as well, and more than likely the black spanish and a nargie but a few are either going to be sold or grown up for thanksgiving I know so sad but I can't keep them all and they'd have a great use and be much appreciated that way. I'd love to keep them all but with my other projects it's not possible.

Hubbies mallards (i call them his because he loves them dearly) are growing so gorgeously! I pinnoned them today along with several of my coturnix chicks. I felt bad but I want to ensure they dont go flying off and being killed. I tried to look at it as an ear piercing...painful for a few moments but soon after it's like nothing...and that is how it was for them and the blood was very minimal. When I first read about pinnoning I NEVER wanted to do it even the thought of it made me sad....however rather than hoping they don't molt out their clipped wings and fly off before I notice I thought this was safer in the long run...and this way they can sitll have most of their gorgeous wing feathers they just cannot fly away or atleast cannot fly off...maybe hover and fly a few feet but nothing severe. I want them safe and at home. :)

I should be getting silkie eggs in tomorrow from show quality stock! I'm getting them from a wonderful friend she knows who she is! *hugs* I can't wait to hatch them out grow them up and show them off to her and her future customers Im sure she will be pleased to see her babies! I also will be in several months from now getting Black East Indies bantam ducks from her. I have always wanted them and she has them! *jaw drops* :) Hers are too young righ tnow to lay but she promised me when they are I get some and that's more than I can ask for so I don't mind waiting they are hard to find! LOL!

OH my gosh! I almost forgot! My red, and red tuxedos hatched! I got like 1 red tuxedo, 1 red golden, 2 reds, and a few normal goldens and a few browns from that hatch. I plan to buy from the breeder again ANNND she offered to let me in on a project she's working on I will get to hatch eggs from her project breedings sometime in november I cannot wait! :)

Well I am going to end this here :)

Niki

13 BC Marans In the Bator!

Got my eggies from my one buddy! They are gorgeous just as they were the first time I got eggs from her and 13 this time! Cannot complain! I am spoiled! I also got 2 EE x Marans, and a few Orpington x Marans from her as well! Woohoo!!! Another BYCer gifted me for basically no reason other than out of the kindness of his heart, several never used water bottles AND a good bit of quail cartons!!! The generosity I find others makes me almost want to cry out of happiness. Good quality waterbottles are expensive so these ones (all weather) are very much so needed! I'm going to train 8 pens to them that way if I ever have to leave on emergency I will KNOW that my quails have water plus it also adds room to the pens for the birds omitting a bowl. :)

I also had 59 Rhode Island Reds, and RIR x WLH cross chicks hatch the other day, the hatch took 3 days to finish! Anywho my friends are coming over tomorrow to pick them up and resell them since they have MANY more customers than I do lol. I get to show them how to vent sex chicks knowing that is a real true benifit that's for sure! :) I need to vent sex my bc marans from the other breeder and mark them so I know for sure who's who. I did already, but I also sexed a bunch of other chicks as well so I honestly forget. LOL! I will probably do that after I finish this blog entry.

I kept one of the RIR chicks, a pullet...she's adorable. I mean she's cuter than all the rest just her baby doll face, to her chipmunky markings. Not sure what we're going to name her yet, but she'll get the royal suit getting to live with the BC marans when I fix up their pen for them. :) Ofcourse once she's older with feathers ;) I'll add her picture to the top here just for cuteness factor.

My coturnix chicks from that major hatch I had are growing well and looking cute as ever. They're starting to pop a lot no ones hurt themselves yet but Im going to be clipping wings soon because obviously theres some skiddish ones in there and I'd be upset to find some with broken necks from being lil spazzes for no reason. Just as I typed this two flew straight upt together luckily they fell before they bonked lol.

I sent out some test hatching coturnix eggs to 2 other BYCers to try out to see how my fertilty holds up in shipping and what not. :) It's so fun to do that. I have one more to send out after that but no eggs yet so gotta collect hopefully tomorow I get 6+.

I got my first jumbo brown chick from my own jumbo brown birds... it was the only egg I set for that hatch and it hatched. :) YAY!

My reds and red tuxedos hatch on thursday! :D

Hubby and I have been fishing everday since hte first day (saturday)... loving it!!! Caught 9 total today...and ate 6 of them :) YUM! I hated trout until I got a great recipe from a friend of mine YEP you guessed it on BYC. LOL! Now eating trout is like eating salmon to me! YUMMMERRS! Going fishing to morrow for a bit then coming home tideying up the house some and sellin and sexing some chicks LOL

Marans hatched and MORE eggs on the way!

You read the subject correctly! My gorgeous BC marans chicks from a fellow BYC'er hatched successfully yesterday, a few eggs weren't developing but I couldn't see into them and they didn't smell so I only knew AFTER I had cracked them opened once the hatch was over. I got 4 beautiful chicks, 3 are flockable (for my breeding plans) and one will have to go to either MY layer flock or someone elses layer flock as the poor thing was born with a defect making it not worthy of the pure pen. It's sad because it's so darned cute well all marans are. :) I celebrated to the breeder my new babies, and about the one that isn't perfect and she offered to send me more hatching eggs for shipping to up my chick numbers...now talk about generous!!! So next week sometime I will be getting MORE beauties from her to feed to my hungry incubator! Not to mention my other pal from BYC who said she'd be sending me another package of eggs Pmed me tonight! She's sending them tomorrow! Which means monday I'll be up bright and early estatic to no end waiting on the mail lady! I think they will mostly be BC marans from her but they may also be marans crosses so those are always fun and cute! So how am I so lucky!? I will never know, but you betcha I won't take it for granted...and plan to pay it forward as much as I can in the future. Kindness stretches far and wide in my book. :)

I don't know if I mentioned but I also now am the mother 2 mallard ducklings. They are soo darned cute! I was amazed that they are so fine outside already, it's been staying above freezing and they've been loving it! I've been keeping them outside in our one barn at night in a pet kennel thing. Then they go in one of my pens and play in their water all day long :) They are just sweet as pie.....or Cake (that's for Mark inside joke sorta thing). :p Anywho, the "male"is Chuy (said Chewy), and the "hen" is McDiver (hubby named her don't blame me)! LOL!

My beautiful coturnix chicks are growing like weeds a little bit over a week old now. :) I made a cute video you can watch of them in my brooder, watch to the very end and see the golden chick peck at the camera lense *gig* : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiTF0Iol_P0 I normally upload to photobucket but it wasn't uploading today...so I made myself a youtube account. :)

Welp I think that's all for now. :) First day of trout saturday, also due saturday is around 80 some chickens for another fellow BYCer of mine to come and pick up on sunday. :D I have some coturnix due around thentoo from my own flock! Oh and I had thought my A & M roo wasnt doing his job... found out today the wrong way to find out. I was turning eggs...pulled on the tray and wasnt paying attention the tray slid all the way out and two eggs fell and cracked on the floor of the incubator. I opened the one up it wasnt fertile... the second one was *cries*. Well atleast I know now. *drags feet*

Coturnix Hatched & Hatching

Theres way over 30 in the brooder right now, with a little under 30 still left in the incubator to hatch. Got some AMAZINGLY GORGEOUS chicks!!! The main chick in this first picture is "Patch Adams" Patch for short. Most interestingly marked chick I've seen so far (as far as tuxedos go). Half of it's face is almost all yellow, other half is splotchy marked. I don't care roo or hen it's staying. This is exactly the type of HIGH WHITE I want to go for. Now, just need more white on the wings and I'll be happy.

This cutie is a almost completely black backed chick....THIS is what I want to strive for...however omit the white on the face....I'm sure I can get there someday and this is a wonderful start to have. :D Theres a few other chicks almost identical to this but they have glints of red on their back like my chick Klown does.

It may be hard to tell but these two cuties are unlike anything I've seen before in coturnix chicks. They almost look like goldens, however they are cinnamon compaired to a golden. So they MAY be like a golden range or something. I will have to just wait and see what they mature to look like. This is an unexpected suprise for sure!

This is a group of the darks I hatched most are mismarked tibetans rather than pure tuxedos. I don't care what they are GREAT start on my darks!

Theres also a TON of A & Ms as well as browns. 15 of which are going to a BYCer in another state (forget which right now haha)! Anywho, I'm raising them up to 3 weeks then going to ship them out to her and her kiddos. So far they've had two shipments of coturnix chicks (day old chicks) and the arrivals were 100% DOA to my knowledge. So, I offered to raise up her chicks that I hatch and don't need for myself and ship out to her when they are older and more potentially able to handle being shipped. I am excited to do it! I also have Rhode Island Reds hatching tonight, they are being taken tomorrow to our Johnstown Tractor Supply to meet up with a guy who wants them for his laying plans. :) So far theres something like 7 of the 34 eggs hatched...they better hurry up ha ha because we're meeting him at 1 pm tomorrow! LOL!

Welp going to send this off...OH and there was also buttons hatched....but only looks well a cute lil cinnamon. :D

Niki

Lots due! Buttons, RIR and Coturnix!

Buttons due tomorrow, Rhode Island Reds due on friday, and Coturnix chicks due on Saturday! I'm excited about all three, the buttons are going to be grown up for a BYCer who wants them shipped to her, the RIRs are being hatched and taken on saturday to a gentlemen who wants them for his wifes future egg laying flock, and on that same day (saturday) 100+ coturnix are due! Fifteen of the coturnix are being kept for another lady who wants them grown up some and shipped out, another 25 are being held for a guy who wants them for flush training, and the rest are for me to grow out and keep woot!

A hen I had and sold a few weeks ago, I hatched out her last eggs, but sadly only one chick made it (I have several older birds from her from different sires). The chick that made it may be a red tuxedo according to a breeder I am blessed enough to converse with! :) We'll see though. Heres the cutie (on the left). Its very dark with two red lines going from it's head to it's rump which none of her other babies looked anything close to that. My goal for tuxedos right now is mostly just a VERY nice uniform bird, with as much white on the wings as possible and with nothing but a white belly. I'm slowly making headway in this area, but not 100% there yet. I am interested to see what this chickie turns out to look like white-markings-wise. Already I can tell that it's wings will not be entirely white as they'd have much more yellow on them. But the yellow on the face is REALLY nice, as is it on the chest. Every hatch I do, I am expressing more and more white so I'm actually not having to try too too hard to get where I want. This is a 3rd generation chick with a pedigree I can actaully trace back from my birds. All started with an A & M hen, she produced a Brown hen, I bred that brown hen with a not very nice marked tuxedo roo, that pairing produced a nicer marked tuxedo roo, who I bred to this chicks mama....and this chicks mama MAY have been a solid red, but I am unsure I was just calling her a rosetta but according to my breeder friend rossettas look entirely different than I had once thought.

Speaking of rosettas, I will be getting TRUE rosettas in my next purchase of eggs. These birds are supposed to be IDEAL birds for pets, bred for docile temperment (specifically bred for a mans daughter to hold) and from what I remember also very large! I am really anxious to get them! :)

I collected only two eggs today but it's not really suprising to me. Nothing but snow and clouds yesterday. I got a golden and an A& M eggie. Tomorrow I should get some more I'd think as it was deciently sunny. Some people don't realize just how much sunlight effects egg laying (atleast in coturnix quails).

Next week my Black Copper Marans from another breeder are due on thursday, you can BET I am happy! Then on the 18th almost 100 rhode island reds and rhode island red crosses are due to hatch they will be going to fellow BYCer friends of mine for them to resell since they get more customers than me. They wanted 100 but some eggs failed but theres like 97 or so eggs so not too bad as long as they all hatch haha. I shouldn't laugh though my incubator has been doing wonderful with high percentage hatches lately atleast with chickens. :)

You'd probably laugh if you saw our bedroom right now. I have two "grow-out brooders" in my room, that have mostly bc marans in them. They are mostly feathered birds but still mostly just blood feathers so they got to stay in still for a while atleast until it quits being so cold out. These birds are REALLY important to me so in here they stay. Cleaning their brooders atleast once a day is a chore though! Anywho what's funny is both brooders are actually just dog crates! LOL! 2 medium sized dog crates. They work really well as brooders actually. One is on top of my dog "Kodas" crate and then beside Kodas crate is the other brooder. Koda must think shes' a golden chicken mix instead of a golden retriever mix ha ha. Then the other brooder is a rabbit cage we bought specifically as a brooder, with 6 bantam chicks and 2 ducklings...and my 10 gallon brooder is empty as of right now. The one grow out brooder has two of Rosies older tuxedo chicks in it boy are they nice! "Flea" and another one I never named yet. I need to name the youngest one of Rosies. I'm thinking Clown. As he looks like he's got clown tears on his face. :)

Well, I think I'll end this here and type up some more pedigrees so I don't forget which birds come from which.

:)