Rich Holmes's Poultry Site
We have chickens and ducks. The numbers have fluctuated as chicks
hatch, birds are acquired or sold or given away, and (alas) predator
neighbors find holes in our defenses. We've had as many as about 80
birds at a time, but as of this writing there are nine hens, nine
drakes, and seven ducks. Chicken breeds we have or have had include
(links are to
Poultry Breeds [P],
FeatherSite [F],
and other [O] pages)
include:
- "Araucana"
[P]
[F]
(Like most chickens going by the name of "Araucana", ours are
really mongrels. Probably at least some Dorking in some of them.)
- Black Australorp
[P]
[F]
- Grey Dorking
[P]
[F]
- Cuckoo Maran
[F]
- New Hampshire Red
[P]
[F]
- Old English Game
[P]
[F]
- Barred Rock
[P]
[F]
Duck breeds include:
We've also talked about geese and guineas -- no specific breeds of
either, yet.
Pictures
of our birds are here.
Poultry links:
- FeatherSite
- Information and lots of images on poultry breeds.
- McMurray Hatchery
- Excellent selection of breeds. We've ordered once from them --
25 assorted female brown egg layers. They promised to throw in
one free "rare/exotic" chick, and they did, plus an extra couple
of brown egg layers, all arriving alive.
However, 5 chicks died in
the first few days. One was our fault (too big a waterer, and
we forgot about putting marbles in the bottom to keep chicks
from drowning), the others presumably were sick or weak or
stressed by shipping (it was cold that weekend) or
whatever. At least one was very small even as chicks go. No
information provided on how many of exactly which
breeds they gave us, but for sexed chicks at the price they
charge, I guess
I can't complain.
- Poultry Breeds (Oklahoma State University Department of Animal Science)
- Sand Hill Preservation Center
- We've gotten a batch of chicks and a batch of ducklings from them.
This is a very small operation and you need to understand their
constraints; if you need specific birds on a specific date, you
probably need to look elsewhere. But they have a truly
remarkable selection of rare breeds, at good prices, and
the birds we've gotten have generally been healthy. (We ordered
25 chicks and 12 ducklings; they sent about 28 chicks and 17
ducklings, of which one duckling died in transit and one other
duckling died in the first week.) Unlike McMurray they don't sell
sexed birds, but also unlike McMurray they identify how many of
what breeds are in the assortment you get.