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Chicken arranging~
Sep. 18th, 2010 03:42 pmPlease feel free to skip this post, it's mostly me musing about arranging my poultry in an unentertaining manner, LOL.
I got a new 10' x 10' kennel last night! *Dances* I was thinking, if I can get one or two more 10' x 6' dog kennel panels in the next few months, I can add 200 sq ft (either two 10' x 10' pens or one 10' x 20' pen) to my chicken living space. Boy would that be handy, and inexpensive, too! To be clear, I'm not adding all this chicken space because I plan on keeping a ton more chickens (as I have quite a few), but so my current chickens have more room, and so I can have birds separated into different groups for breeding or social reasons. I do plan on keeping some more seramas, but not an excessive amount and I will sell at least half or more of the ones I breed, only keeping favorites of each hatch. I only want to keep two flocks of seramas because otherwise inbreeding becomes almost inevitable if I want to keep any of the offspring of my own birds (which I do). If I have two small breeding colonies it allows for more genetic exchange.
Pen 1 (normal coop, probably not going to add on to it now): The three large ducks (+ Pen-Pen if he can integrate all right), three guinea fowl, chukar, and variety of different breeds and hybrids that I'm not trying to breed or separate at all.
Pen 2 (dog kennel #1): Currently: Call ducks, and Prince and his two girls and temporarily their offspring. For now Tawny and Tucson are in with them but I may move them later depending on if they seem to be worth breeding--I'm leaning towards no and they'll need to go into a different pen after they start laying if they aren't going to be used for breeding. I will probably move any female chicks I keep from Prince's bloodline into a different pen with unrelated bloodline roosters so there is not inbreeding, and switch the hens from not-Prince's-bloodline to Prince's pen. I also want to keep one of Prince's cockerel chicks that I have in with Prince now, gotta figure out where I want to put him where he's not partaking in inbreeding. I guess I'll see if he's breeding-worthy first, if he's not he can go in the cull pen/in with Minky. I just love his colors too much to sell him!
Pen 3 (dog kennel #2): For now will probably just be 10' x 10' until I can get more panels, and will house non-hatchery Old English Game bantams plus Coconut and Eden (who are hatchery but I like their color), maybe sumatras, and maybe Minky and Pen-Pen.
By spring/time new seramas are almost full-grown, I'm hoping to get another two panels and split into two or more pens, one for second serama breeding flock, one for serama "culls" (birds I'm not breeding because of improper type but keeping, perhaps Tawny and Tucson depending on how they fill out) or disabled birds or picked-on birds or extra roosters. (Basically, miscellaneous birds.) Either that or I will continue to keep the Old English Game Bantams in the second pen. We'll see how it goes, I could even split one of the split kennels in half because 10' x 10' is pretty large! If I do that, I can keep serama breeding group in one pen, culls/picked-on birds/extra roosters in another pen, and OEGB in another. I could even split it into four pens, but that's getting a bit ridiculous. We'll see what I end up needing, though. It'll be nice to have the option to split into four if I need to.
Of course, I'm also building the quail pen, so the quail will be in that. The current quail cage can be converted into a chick-raising cage because I will need those over the winter with Charming's eggs and the incubator eggs hatching in the end of September and the fact that serama chicks grow sloooowly.
--
( Additionally, I want to do paintings of at least the following Pokémon in the near future. )
I got a new 10' x 10' kennel last night! *Dances* I was thinking, if I can get one or two more 10' x 6' dog kennel panels in the next few months, I can add 200 sq ft (either two 10' x 10' pens or one 10' x 20' pen) to my chicken living space. Boy would that be handy, and inexpensive, too! To be clear, I'm not adding all this chicken space because I plan on keeping a ton more chickens (as I have quite a few), but so my current chickens have more room, and so I can have birds separated into different groups for breeding or social reasons. I do plan on keeping some more seramas, but not an excessive amount and I will sell at least half or more of the ones I breed, only keeping favorites of each hatch. I only want to keep two flocks of seramas because otherwise inbreeding becomes almost inevitable if I want to keep any of the offspring of my own birds (which I do). If I have two small breeding colonies it allows for more genetic exchange.
Pen 1 (normal coop, probably not going to add on to it now): The three large ducks (+ Pen-Pen if he can integrate all right), three guinea fowl, chukar, and variety of different breeds and hybrids that I'm not trying to breed or separate at all.
Pen 2 (dog kennel #1): Currently: Call ducks, and Prince and his two girls and temporarily their offspring. For now Tawny and Tucson are in with them but I may move them later depending on if they seem to be worth breeding--I'm leaning towards no and they'll need to go into a different pen after they start laying if they aren't going to be used for breeding. I will probably move any female chicks I keep from Prince's bloodline into a different pen with unrelated bloodline roosters so there is not inbreeding, and switch the hens from not-Prince's-bloodline to Prince's pen. I also want to keep one of Prince's cockerel chicks that I have in with Prince now, gotta figure out where I want to put him where he's not partaking in inbreeding. I guess I'll see if he's breeding-worthy first, if he's not he can go in the cull pen/in with Minky. I just love his colors too much to sell him!
Pen 3 (dog kennel #2): For now will probably just be 10' x 10' until I can get more panels, and will house non-hatchery Old English Game bantams plus Coconut and Eden (who are hatchery but I like their color), maybe sumatras, and maybe Minky and Pen-Pen.
By spring/time new seramas are almost full-grown, I'm hoping to get another two panels and split into two or more pens, one for second serama breeding flock, one for serama "culls" (birds I'm not breeding because of improper type but keeping, perhaps Tawny and Tucson depending on how they fill out) or disabled birds or picked-on birds or extra roosters. (Basically, miscellaneous birds.) Either that or I will continue to keep the Old English Game Bantams in the second pen. We'll see how it goes, I could even split one of the split kennels in half because 10' x 10' is pretty large! If I do that, I can keep serama breeding group in one pen, culls/picked-on birds/extra roosters in another pen, and OEGB in another. I could even split it into four pens, but that's getting a bit ridiculous. We'll see what I end up needing, though. It'll be nice to have the option to split into four if I need to.
Of course, I'm also building the quail pen, so the quail will be in that. The current quail cage can be converted into a chick-raising cage because I will need those over the winter with Charming's eggs and the incubator eggs hatching in the end of September and the fact that serama chicks grow sloooowly.
--
( Additionally, I want to do paintings of at least the following Pokémon in the near future. )
