Pheasant Mama?

Saturday I was at the Ravenna auction waiting to bid on a dozen Maran eggs. They were a mix between blues and cuckoos, which I really didn't want, but I had to get them for a friend of mine. The eggs I gave her didn't work out. It looks like they only made it about 10 days before giving up and dying in the eggs. I say I didn't really want them because I was hoping for another breed of chicken like Americauans or Barred Rocks. I ended up buying Americauna chicks for 25 cents each and was sold some Campines (white egg layers, pretty chicken) for 25 cents each. It was a good day for buying chicks, not such a good day for selling them. There were quite a few people there, they just weren't buying the chicks. A man behind me was also bidding on the doggone eggs. The bid got up to $6.50, and I stopped. It was getting to be too much and I didn't know where the eggs came from. I wasn't 100% sure of the viability to go that high for chicken eggs. The only ones I would have gone higher for would have been black copper marans. I ended up losing on the eggs, but took home about 15 adorable chicks. I still had an egg problem. Someone reminded me I should call Randy, the guy who sells amazing chicks of all sorts, both at the auction and on Craigslist. So later that day I made the call and agreed to meet him at 6pm on Sunday.

Mother's Day went by pretty quick between church singing, the message and later the Hume Home service. Then it was back home for a quick lunch and the painting of the picnic tables. Kellie about turned green! I rototilled my garden until I nearly ran out of gas. Then I almost fell asleep in a chair in the sun. It was so beautiful.

It was time to head over to the poultry farm. As it turns out, Randy has quite a nice setup. He has about 4 rows of bird housing with everything from rare green pheasants to polish chickens in them. He is very careful about his breeding, being interested in the best of the varieties he has. In other words, out of two roosters of a particular variety, he kept the larger one to breed with his hens. He also cross-breeds color varieties of chickens to get a larger, better bird of the color he wants. He has turkeys as well: royal palms, red bourbons, blue slates and bronzes. He has high quality birds, and any chicks I've purchased from him at the auction have a very high survival-ability rate. I was impressed with his set-up. His birds are happy, not at all overcrowded, and the pens are clean and well-kept. I'm looking forward to the eggs hatching for my friend.

Chris informed me this morning that the pheasant eggs were cheeping and pecking holes in their eggs. We have 29 eggs that are getting ready to hatch. Just a minute ago, I learned that I'm a pheasant mama! I'm so excited! We're going to release them when they get bigger, and hopefully, we'll be able to see wild pheasants on the farm as well. Oh, the birds that Decker's Acres has been able to raise! Now if the calves would just get healthy and stay that way, I'd be happy!