Larkwell Valley (2023)

[JacinLarkwell]

A rant first

I'm so sick of this whole 'commercial feed is a garbage excuse to make birds sick and small and keep us under the thumb of oppression' that comes around every few months.

Is commercial feed perfect? Probably not. But it is studied and it does, believe it or not, provide good nutrition for the most part. I have had birds live over a decade with Layer as their main (probably over 90%) diet. It let's people actually have birds where they couldn't if they had to grow their own feed and hope it gave their birds everything they needed.

Plain and simple? If I had to grow my own feed for my birds or tried to get them to get everything themselves from free ranging, my birds wouldn't last the winter. Even if I had all the time amd energy in the world, it wouldn't work where I live.

Commercial feed isn't the evil people seem to love screaming that it is.

Rant over

 

[JacinLarkwell]

And now for something better, Y'all remember Ody, my game looking Phoenix?

He's so handsome now!!!

He's so friendly, and not in a 'cockerel testing the limits' way.

 

[fuzzi]

And now for something better, Y'all remember Ody, my game looking Phoenix?

He's so handsome now!!!
View attachment 3758235View attachment 3758237
He's so friendly, and not in a 'cockerel testing the limits' way.

What a handsome boy!

 

[WallyG74]

View attachment 3758190

 

[WallyG74]

I couldn’t find him saying, “Oh I’ll never leave Montana, brother.”

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I couldn’t find him saying, “Oh I’ll never leave Montana, brother.”

I tried, I'll hunt on the actual interweb after work though

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Think I'm going to try and get rid of 3 males this weekend. Maybe 4, but I don't think I can do more than that right now. Even if they're extras and not ones I'm attached to, it's still very hard to do. I really wish I could just give them away to someone else, even if they ended up processing them. When I move, I'm only bringing in eggs from places other than super major hatcheries. I can't go through mareks again.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Tumor Wing will probably go. I love his colors, but A, he's a mixed male and B, I don't know for certain that his tumor isn't a genetic thing. Parents don't have it, but he hatched with it or developed it within the first 48 hours of life and that's awfully fast.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Then probably my big Plymouth mix male. He's loud and annoying sounding, and just big. His mama throws nice babies. I'm considering seeing if she can handle Big Boy and if she can, moving her into that pair's pen with Big Boy's sister too.

Then probably my cochinXphoenix males. I have two, and they're okay. Turds, but not in a bad way. They just are extra and male, so that's already two things against them.

Or I'll do my spitz cross male and my barred cochin female. She's not staying, I've just had more pressing ones to go through since no one is setting in her group and she's not causing issues. I wish she wasn't such a bad mama. Even if she just didn't brood, I'd probably keep her to be honest.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I have to look at my pullets again. I have more than I need, especially since they're all related in one group at least by mama. But each one is different looking, so it's hard cause I wanna collect them all. I think I've picked one to go, plus a late sister that just stopped growing once winter hit. She needs to go, she won't be able to lay if she sticks around because of her size.