Sebastopol Goslings

These are my new Sebastopol goslings, Ella & Fella. My grandson ( Bugs) is holding them. Fella , the male, is the lightest colored gosling, behind Ella. He likes my grandson. Bugs & Fella watched t.v. together, and Fella loved to tuck himself up under Bug's arm.

How to hatch more hens

I thought I would do a post on how to hatch out  a more equal percentage of chicks from the book 'Sexing All Fowl'. The proportion of male chicks hatched is important to the hatchery man, particularly if he is hatching hens for a laying flock replacement, because the cockerels don't have much value.  (Poultry Science, Vol. 33,No.2).  The older the sire , the higher percentage of male chicks hatched, according to F.A. Hays,University of Massachusetts, who analysed the sex ratio in 614 family's of  Rhode Island Reds bred for high production . The study extended over 5 years , and it involved 93 sires. Where the 1 year old males were used, the percentage of male chicks was 50.49 percent,2 years, 54.21 percent; 3 years 53.07 percent; and 4 years ,62.90 percent. Hatching rate or fertility did not seem to affect sex ratio, but the hatch ability did. Where there was low hatch ability, there was a  larger number of cockerel chicks. This agrees with work of other investigator's that female embryos are more likely to die then male embryos.  Sex ratios were unaffected by annual egg production, egg production during mating season , egg weight , and the age of the females in the breeding. Info by Roland C. Hartmen in the book 'Sexing All Fowl'. 

Porcelain chicks growing quickly

 I though I would do a  post on how fast my new Porcelain chicks are growing .  Above is my porcelain rooster Glacier who is turning out to be a nice show quality bird which is good because I originally hatched out some Porcelains to get a rooster.

 This is Polar my other Porcelain rooster who isn't as nice as Glacier because his comb has one to many points.

 This is Mist flower my Porcelain hen who I might give to my sister as a show  bird.

 And this is China my hen named after China Porcelain dining ware which is how the Porcelain color got its name.  Ive also been studying some of there color genetics and the Porcelain color can be created crossing a Self Blue  and a Mille Fleur this gene is called the lavender gene and turns black to silvery blue and buff or orange to cream which is why they have a cream base color and silver barring with white dots.

This is one of the chicks at two weeks old, right now the chicks are 5 weeks old.

And this is when one of the chicks were just fluff balls and only a few days old.