Ella & Fella and Family ~ Snow Geese ?

 We moved this past summer to a place over the mountains. The weather here is more extreme than Cedar Pond and we've had snow for almost 3 weeks. Ella & Fella and their 5 adult children seem to love the snow !When I fill their tubs with water they bathe in the ice water then settle down in the snow after eating their grain.

                                          Snow Geese ?

Ella & Fella's Goslings Are Growing Up

Sebastopol Geese Hatch Their Eggs

This is a video of my Sebastopol geese Ella & Fella as their newly hatched goslings begin to emerge from their nest.

Raising Sebastopol Geese | Farm Raised Classics With P. Allen Smith

Frizzles & Sizzles

 My paint Sizzle rooster and a bantam white cochin hen. My rooster is the offspring of a Paint Silkie rooster and bantam white cochin hen. I like the way he looks and he is the head honcho of my bantam flock of sizzles.

 He knows he's handsome and struts his stuff proudly.

 This is one of my Paint Silkie hens. She's only a few months old here. Her sire was a Paint Silkie and her mama was a white Silkie I bought from Murray MacMurray hatchery, so I don't know more about her ( mama ) than that she is a white Silkie. I am still reading up and learning about 'paint' genetics but the breeding of the rooster and several white Silkie hens has produced quite a few paints for me and I am happy with them thus far. ( Going to keep the black hen from this crossing to see what she hatched out after being bred to her paint half-brother.)

 Here is one of my white bantam frizzled cochins. She is a good mama and hatched a passel of little paint sizzles. I am having so much fun with these cute chickens !  (MY Sizzles are chickens I get from hatching eggs produced by the breeding of my Silkies with Bantam Frizzled Cochins.)

 Mama frizzle with her chicks.

 Look at this crazy Sizzle. She has a few spots and wacky feathers. Love her !

I am learning a lot raising these chickens . I am set on producing Sizzles with spots ( paint) and Silkie skin coloring, blue / black. I have a few that already fit this description. My next project in the poultry pens will be to evaluate all my Silkies and Sizzles and narrow my flock down to what I want to keep and breed. Always something to do in the poultry pens !

Doves and Frillback Pigeons

 It's been awhile since I've posted about my doves. I have two dove pens and the doves thrive in both.

 I cleaned out all the nest baskets . My doves favor these wire planters . I've changed things up and given them what I thought were better nesting sites, but they always return to and fight over these wire planters. I added my home-made burlap liners and provided a pile of Ponderosa pine needles for the doves to use as nesting material. As I expected, they went right to work making nests and fighting over the baskets. All's well there I guess.

 I am so excited about my new birds ! My husband rolled his eyes when I brought home two Frillback pigeons from a poultry swap last month. I told him not to worry about me bringing home any more birds because I have too many and took chickens and ducks to sell there. How could I have known there'd be these amazing frilly pigeons just calling my name ? I HAD to buy them, so most of my profit from the poultry swap was spent right there at the swap. Go figure. I bet most of my poultry friends would have resisted temptation to buy any more birds. ( wink wink.)

 Just LOOK at those tightly curled feathers !

 I put up a small wood nest box in my dove pen for these beauties and they moved right in.

 The lady who sold me these pigeons successfully shows pigeons,chickens, doves, and other poultry. I know they are not show quality because she keeps her really good birds for showing and breeding and sold these to me at a low price knowing I know they're pet quality. I love them !

To read more about Frillback Pigeons click here .*

Sebastopol Geese Ella & Fella

A quick video of my ( Granny Baa ) Sebastopol geese, Ella & Fella, in our pond.