Rabbits, not suprisingly, top the list for production so far. Both does are on their second litter this year. The New Zealand has 6 healthy bunnies. The Calfornia/NZ cross had a pair of stillborn babies, but still has 8 babies who have just began to open their eyes and hop out of the nestbox. We will select two young does from that litter as future breeders and the rest will either be sold or take a one-way trip to camp freezer. I might get a chance to try making rabbit jerky this time.
The turkeys are currently busy filling two nests with eggs. We are expecting them to begin incubating them any day now. This is a great news since the first batch of eggs was lost when our pigs broke into the turkey pen for a late-night omelet. The turkeys will have the last laugh after our 4th of July pig pickin.
Not to be outdone, the chickens have been laying non-stop and the roosters have been very "cocky". We have hatched out our 2nd batch of chicks and they have proven very energetic and fast growing. We are currently producing Red Rangers (a meat bird), black sex-links (dual purpose), and something we came up with on our own, blue sex-links.
The blue sex-links are a hybrid just like the blacks. The key to these birds is that the mother carries a gene that she can only pass to her sons, not her daughters, since it is linked to the sex chromozome. In birds it's the females that have the two different sex chromosome, not the male like it is in mammals. We use barred rock hens for producing both sex-links. The male babies get the barring from their mama so they have spots on their heads. The females don't have the barring gene so they are a solid color. Check out the blue sex-links in this photo.
You can easily see that some of the blue chicks have creamy colored spots on their heads. These are the males and the spot is due to the barred gene. The solid blue chicks are the females. This allows us to sex these chicks at hatch and sell guaranteed pullets. The males have another use.
The blue sex-links are not your standard dual purpose chicken. We have bred these to produce large, gentle pullets that lay well and make a great addition to the pastry pot at the end of their laying days while the males are bred for capon production. A capon is a castrated bird. This allows them to grow much longer & larger since we don't need to worry about them getting gamey or stringy. These chicks will be caponized at 4 weeks old and will then be put into mobile pasture pens where they will slowly grow until processing time.
We are using a huge, broad chested Jersey Giant rooster who happens to have two copies of the blue dilution gene. The Jersey Giant is the largest breed of chicken in the world. They grow slowly and were bred for capon production. Our rooster has a double dose of the blue dilution gene. This makes him a light blue smokey color and guarantees that he will pass one blue gene to his offspring. This allows us and customers to differentiate from the faster growing black sex-links which serve a different purpose.
The lone dissapointment so far has been the ducks. We have 17 muscovy ducks and 4 drakes. The muscovys are known as some of the best of all poultry for naturally hatching their own eggs. I don't think my ducks have been told this little tidbit of information. Don't they know it's spring? If anyone has any calanders in the native language of ducks I would be willing to take one off your hands.
I do love spring. There is something wonderful about seeing all the new life, both plant and animal. My wife mentioned this the other day when she was talking about getting to hold her cousin's babies (twins!). I certainly don't need her getting into spring and thinking about having any babies.
Maybe I should have my wife hang out with the ducks.
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