New to sillies and light Sussex.

[Bower bird]

Hey all, I'm getting into breeding different colour pure looking silkies and light Sussex.

We just sold up most of our bitser chooks and rooster George, they will be missed and kept our great mumma bantum and light Sussex girl and replaced our light Sussex boy we lost to someone's wandering dog along with 3 hens in Dec 2017, nearly lost George our main rooster as well but the person looking after them caught the mongrel in the act as it attacked him, he recovered well and grew back the back half of missing feathers.

I have bred and successfully raised by their parents, incubator and brooder or clucky Bantum normal and jumbo Japanese quails, King quails and bitser chooks the last year and nearly half and had previously kept Jap quails indoors when we lived in a unit.

Now going to focus on Goliath sized Jap quails, light Sussex and various colours of silkie chooks in different enclosures and pens for selling fertile eggs and young from and as pets.

The chooks will get to take turns free ranging out in our 2/3rds of a acre back yard as well when I'm or my wife and I are home and our dog Harley is upstairs with us or away in his grass pen (usually only use if both will be out for more than a few hours or put in by my wife before work early in the morning for me to let out once I'm up).

 

[007Sean]

Howdy
Welcome to Backyard Chickens. Nice to meet you and a great intro!

 

[Joeschooks]

Welcome to BYC! Great to have you here

 

[Kiki]

We are glad you joined this flock!
Jump right in and make yourself at home.

This video will help you learn how to navigate this site:

Coop Ideas:
Chicken Coops

 

[Teila]

G'Day from down under Bower bird Welcome!

I hope you enjoy being a BYC member. There are lots of friendly and very helpful folks here so not only is it overflowing with useful information it is also a great place to make friends and have some fun.

BYC has Topic of the Week discussions which I have found to be a great resource, informative and sometimes entertaining; so definitely worth checking out.

If you would like to share Pictures and Stories of your flock, you have come to the right place. BYC’ers never tire of these and do not back away slowly or commence eye rolling when the photo album or home videos come out

Including your general location on your profile will assist others. Location, climate, season etc can be important factors when members are responding to any questions you may have and vice versa.

You might want to also Find Your State Thread and pop in and say hello.

You may be interested in these links:

• Quail Forum
• Silkie Thread

 

[drumstick diva]

Welcome to the Backyard chickens community

 

[Bower bird]

Thanks for the welcomes, here was our flock before we sold most of them to focus on the light Sussex, still have Mary (one of the black ones) and Blondie (white one) to give to a friend.

Which will leave us with the 2 light sussex and super mum Match the Bantum that hatched and raised those young ones and a 5 of their siblings that went to friends and more that we sold.

When that dog attack happened she and some of the others took off to the neighbours yard, the rest returned with her showing up for food and water here and there then escaping again.

She somehow incubated a large nest of 24 eggs of varying size from the others and herself, 17 hatched, a bunch she hatched herself leaving the rest to return home with the bubs in tow, we hatched the rest in the 4ft brooder tank after we caught and housed her and the bubs.

 

[Bower bird]

Here are the 3 silkies, the boys both have the blue and white cheeks and are father and son and get along great.
I will be getting a white rooster dropped off tomorrow and some buff girls on the weekend, he has blue cheeks as well.

Got to get some diatomaceous earth and apple cider vinegar tomorrow to treat them and enclosure etc as found that Snow White has mites which she likely spread to the buffs by now (got her on the weekend), I've nicely (not sarcasm) let the people I got her off know and that their poultry are due for mite treatment.

 

[Bower bird]

OK, today I put out minced garlic for the 3 silkies for them to eat to do daily for a few days to start getting the mites off Snow White. Didn't look like they touched it, so I mixed in some of their food and checked later on and still hadn't touched it.

In between those checks I sprayed inside and outside of their night enclosure, the side of compost bin next to to the dust bath and a spot she's been sitting in a bit with suitable insect barrier spray after removing them and the food and water dishes from the night enclosure.

Then a bit after my wife got home with the diatomaceous earth and Apple cider vinegar, we caught and powdered each of the silkies with the DE and fed some baby liquid vitamin I use for poultry to Snow White to aid in healing up and perk her up.
Then spread the DE through the night enclosure and the rest of the pen.

Will see how she is tomorrow and try to feed her some spinach to boost her iron back up and spray her legs with olive oil as it also looks like she came with scale leg mites the poor girl.

The buffs look fine and are a lot more active than her still, backing up that she bought the mites with her as we've never had any issues with them and had housed a flock of young chooks and Match in that pen with the buffs before getting Snow White and didn't notice any or sickness symptoms.