All the litters from Smith's HD (himi) came in. Final total in 5 litters - 11 kits. 5 himis, 5 blacks, and a siamese sable. Got 3 does bred and might breed another, but there won't be much more than rebreeds (for failures) for at least the summer.
I was worried about the poor color of the Stoneybrook's himi buck that was here on loan last year causing problems. His offspring all had poor color. Pale and blotchy. Got a couple from Bruin who is that one's son and also has poor color. These 2nd generation babies' color came up quick and dark! I'm pleased. The older one is a broody doe, but the next litter gave me a very promising little buck who is about 6 weeks old now. Breeding himi to well-colored himi works. Both are out of Chevette who only had 1 live in each of those 2 litters. She's on HD's litter of 3 himis now.
I really want to turn the rest of the birds out to free range soon, but a couple are still pretty small and valuable to me. One is the partridge silky that I don't want to lose. As a friend put it, she's a future brooding machine, and she's just so darn cute! The others are the cochin birchen/silver penciled roo and pullet, and the partridge roo. Yeah, I think I got that partridge roo I wanted so much. I can't tell if the roo is a birchen or a silver pencil. His back plumage was very slow to come out and just now covering his back. I compared my pullets to photos I found online and they do look like birchen so since the roo came from the same batch, maybe that means that's what he is. I was trying to find pix that would show me the difference but they all look the same to me. I'm calling them birchens.
I might set the silky up in a tractor so I can turn the others out sooner. I wanted to just open the gate on the pen and let them come and go as they please during the day. I've been working on converting an old 4' dog crate into a sort of chick tractor. This would just be for young birds. I'll take pix when I get it finished. It will give them full access to scratching ground, and I'm including a way to confine them in one end of the crate for moving the rig around. I'll be able to pick it up without them falling out.
The brahma who went broody under daylilies abandoned her eggs a few days ago. I noticed Whipper nosing around her nest which I hadn't seen him do before. Went over to see what he was about, and found one of her eggs had exploded. Yuck! I held my breath and disposed of it. Watched the hen to see if she was going to the nest and she didn't all that day. So I disposed of the rest of the eggs before they blew up, too. The buff cochin hen is brooding in a nestbox and I estimate hers to hatch in about a week and half. At least I'll know these are purebred cochins.
I came up with an idea for keeping track of what daylilies are where. We had our Rendevous at the Smith's this weekend, and their daylilies are even more beautiful than mine this year and that's saying a lot. I don't know why they are so happy this year, maybe it's the plentiful rain and finally recovering from the drought 2 years ago. Water, especially rain, is the best fertilizer for daylilies.
The Smith's are more organized collectors and keep their daylilies in ordered and tagged beds. Mine are part of the gardens and scattered all over. My daylilies are part of the skeleton of my gardens. The big bones are the shrubs and large ornamental grasses. Daylilies are the small bones. Everything else is specimens for diversity and filler plants. I try tagging them, but the tags always disappear over time.
So I'm taking pix of the gardens while they are blooming. Then I'll label them in my graphics software and file in a special folder along with pix of individual flowers. I'm also drawing rough "maps" of each garden so I can label their locations. These rough maps will be recreated in my new landscaping 'ware to make more detailed maps. This way I won't have to wait until they bloom (or try to remember) to know what/where they are if I want to split one right now. I keep the daylily catalogs that I've ordered from as reference as well.
Oh almost forgot. I did bring home a new daylily from the Smith's this weekend. I wasn't planning to, I have plenty of daylily transplanting of my own to do. As I was walking around the beds and chatting with Gary, I said I didn't need anything that looked like something I already had even if it wasn't exactly the same. And it just jumped out at me. So he real quick dug up a plantlet off it. It's called "Moonlight Sail" and unlike anything I have. It's big and heavy, purple with yellow ruffles, very exotic. The small split has some buds so I'll get a shot when it blooms. In the meantime, here's a link to a photo. I haven't placed it yet, it's biding time in a pot.
It's gray and drizzly today so I can spend some time on the pix I took today.
tnt
