Rural Gardening: ...and now, the weekend hatching report, 1 by ultasol

ultasol wrote:
I do raise purebred silkies, but they are kept inside, in my shop (spoiled rotten stinkers) whereas the layers are outside.

I am actually selling all of my chickens except for the silkieX layer and my purebreds (a pair of black laced wyandottes from the natl champ breeder and my silkies).

I have someone coming today to look at my White Wyandotte roo and my Red Star hen and EE hen.

I just need to focus. There are so many amazing breeds it's difficult (well, that and I *love* poultry), but it will be better for my breeding program.

The chicks are doing very well. I haven't lost a single chick this season that has pipped and I have 20 some odd chicks in the brooder. I did hatch one lone sebastopol from a clutch that was abandoned. Didn't expect anything to hatch, so she was a surprise, but she was weak and didn't make it.

C'est la vie, you just can't win them all. Attached is picture of newly hatched silkie clearly showing the 'vaulted skull'. This probably ranks up there with the dumbest traits to ever be bred into an animal- along with the extreme conformation of the English Bulldog- but it's linked to extreme crests needed for show.