This Godfather Two or just G2 - (Brahma Dad/ Leghorn mom) which would equate to a light brown egg gene
This is Red 2 or R2 ( Looks exactly like his father Easter Egger/mom RIR) which would equate to a light green egg laying gene
The unnamed rooster...
Damage from the wind event in Upland on Monday Oct 26. No chicken or no damage to roof sustained from the falling branch.
Here is what the wind felt like.....
Over the course of the summer beginning in March, the mice population exploded. I lost count, having caught over 45 mice through April. I can't explain how it has ended but the mice population is gone. Be it due to our resident Ferrel cat, or the number of mouse contraptions I placed in the coop, but the numbers are down near zero.
A couple of things happened over the course of the summer. First, as I previously mentioned we now have a Ferrel cat hanging around the coop that appears to only be going after the mice. With that said, I did lose some one-week-old chicks suddenly, and to this day I do not know what happened to them. This happened back in June. No corpses, no grouping of feathers, but one that did survive did have a wound, so something got to it. They were in a cage, that I did find an opening under a board that could have allowed them to get out into the larger coop, or something small to get into where they were. I digress.
Second, in a shipping container located next to the coop, I did notice that the mice had got into a bag of fertilizer/chemical I use to accelerate composting. They ate the entire bag. this could have had an affect on them.
Third, through the use of the traps, most recently I began using two small rectangular galvanized metal box traps. On the first day of their use, without having placed any food inside the trap I caught 10 mice in the two traps. One other night I also caught a large number of mice in them. Since then I rarely see mice and I have caught maybe one or two over the past two weeks. The product is from Southern Homeware .
On Saturday October 24 I drove to the McDonalds on Magic Mountain Parkway to purchase a dozen eggs of Marans. Later that day I placed the eggs into the incubator. Temperature set at 99.5 50% humidity.
Upland experienced heavy winds on Monday, Oct 26 causing some power outages. As a precaution, I placed the incubator on a battery-powered device. I hooked it up to a power converter that was attached to a deep cell 12V battery. When I arrived at class on Tuesday morning, the power alarm was on meaning the battery has gone dead.
I quickly placed the incubator back on city power. At the start, the temp of the incubator read 70 degrees and the humidity was 92 %. Within the hour I had the temperature back to 99 degrees and humidity to 65%. I will be waiting a few days and then I will candle the eggs to see if they are viable. I am really bummed that this happened
Since the loss of Godfather, one rooster has risen to the occasion to be the new leader of the flock. I am proud to say that rooster is the Godfather 2. There are a few roosters following in his footsteps. More on them later.
The Godfather 2 has a better temperament than G1. He does not chase after teachers or guests like G1 did. He is very gentle on the hens. In May 2020 at the time of The Godfather 1's death to a coyote I was a bit concerned about the lass and the succession that might take place. G2 was only 9 months old and really did not know how to be a leader. He still would take food with the hens, he would not stand up to me. But over the months he has become a gentle giant leader. It is now the 3 underlings that I worry about. We have Red 2, the son of a former rooster we had here that went to Havers farm in Fresno. We have another Godfather relative hanging around as well.
G2 did have some competition at the start. We had The Rock, a Barred Rock Rooster that was hatched at the same time as G2. The two had come from the Aug 2019 hatching where we had 9 to 11 roosters. Two were spared going to the circus because we ran out of sunshine. G2 and The Rock.
Unfortunately, I recently found The Rock dead in the coop, It happened in the evening, the cage was locked up. I found him dead where he normally sat at night. It was a 105-degree day and a very warm evening. I could find no evidence of foul play. He passed in early October 2020.
RIP The Rock
So I can live with the three roosters we currently have, though I will say they are on a short leash. I have been studying chicken genetics and may have to pass on them to get to the place I see for this flock.
But for now, we have The Godfather 2, Red 2, and an unnamed Brahma/ rooster.
Today I drove to Magic Mountain and purchased from a 3rd party a dozen Copper Maran Eggs that are supposed to be fertile. I found the seller online through Craigslist. There are several sellers online. He was the only one that specifically had the Copper Marans that was within an hour's drive from my house. Many sellers have backyard mix breeds and have many colorful eggs. I am specifically interested in dark chocolate eggs. I want to add color to our flock. I am hoping I made a reasonable choice. The seller seemed very knowledgeable about chicken and breeds. This is the first time I have ever purchased eggs.
Along with the 12 eggs I purchased the seller included a few extra Maran eggs and a few olive color eggs, and a gray egg, for a total of 19 eggs. They went into the Incubator today 10/24 expected hatch date will be Nov 14th.
The eggs on the top carton in the image below are the current range of egg colors we have on the HHS farm.
