hi y'all could someone tell me where i could get some buff orpingtons in north west victoria? they sound like they are great chooks! clonte :roll:
Hi Clonte, Although they are not in your immediate area, Abundant Layers in Macclesfield (60km east of Melbourne) would probably be willing to ship stock to you by courier or rail. They have lots of breeds and their set up is clean and well organised. All of their birds are sexed and vaccinated too and I know they've got a lovely breeding pair of Buff Orpingtons. You can contact them on 0359686765. Their address is 3 Mulhalls Rd Macclesfield. Website https://members.freshwaterco.com/abundantlayers/ Altenatively, you could try these which I found whilst perusing a few of the poultry sites: Dianne Woolfe Address: Ballarat area Email: [email protected] Homepage: https://www.wilkamdai.com John Eccles Address: North East Victoria Telephone 02-60328219 J.M.Hicks Address: Dederang Vic. 3691 Telephone: 02 60271830 Email: [email protected] Daryl Morgan Address: RMB 1130 Milawa 3678 Telephone: 03-57270286 Fax: 03-57270586 Email: [email protected] Tintern Schools (Gavin Wall) Address: Farm Services Manager Tintern Schools Ringwood East 3135 Telephone: 03-9870 4588 (bh), 0429 463 789 Email: [email protected] Judy Witney Address: 94 Allen Rd, Lardner, 3821 Telephone: 03-56261201 Email: [email protected] Jessica Macloy Email: [email protected]; If it were me, I'd be visiting your local Agricultural shows which should begin around November, and peruse the poulty pavillions there. You can chat to a lot of breeders, whether they keep Orps or not, and quite often they'll know someone who does. It's a great source of info and contacts. If you go through a reputable breeder, you'll be getting good quality stock. This might not concern you if you don't intend on showing, but good quality stock also to some degree guarantee that what you are buying is true to type and don't possess any undesirable genetic problems that could affect the health and soundness of your birds in the future. Best of luck, Tam
does any one know where to get some good breed chooks in Albany demark mt barker area that aren't ex caged hens, from the egg farm.. question two how do you age chooks. we got given three chooks with our house and they are not very productiive, at egg laying or keep weed down or even to the snails.
Buff Orps Dear Tam thank you so much for this info. you have gone to a lot of trouble and i really do appreciate it. i will look some of these links up. clonte
Hi Lillypilly, I don't know the correct method to age chooks but I do know that as they get older, the scales on their legs seem to get larger and coarser. Prior to specialising in one breed, I used to get my chooks from the market and this is how I'd age them. A really good website is The Chook Shed. Another is Andy Vardy's https://www.feathersite.com . On the home page, you can actually ask him questions but the website also has a forum which Andy contributes to too and if you posted your question there, you'd probably get heaps of suggestions. Re snails, have you tried ducks? They love snails. Re finding good quality poultry, try ringing the agricultural societies in your area. I'm not familiar with your area but here's the link for the Western Australian list from 'Oz Fanciers': https://home.iprimus.com.au/onslo/wa.htm and the link for The Australian Online Poultry Breeders Directory: https://insight.iinet.net.au/breeders/ Good luck, Tam
thanks tam, i have a look at those sites. have you ever had a soft egg, like paper skin. are they missing some thing in there diet. they have oats, cooked and raw, wheat all the time, green pick all the time, and bread and veggies as well. thanks for your help. are old chookies that are laying the best still good to breed from??
I've had a couple of chooks (at different times) in the past which had regularly laid soft shelled or shelless eggs. I gave them the flick. It seemed to be the particular individual. All the other hens were fine. I don't know much about diet other than suggesting that producing eggs would draw on their calcium resources so check the label of your commercial mix if you're using one to make sure there's adequate calcium. (Don't know how much 'adequate' is but one of those chook sites might be able to help you) If you are just feeding the grain, green pick etc, make sure it also caters for their calcium needs. Lucerne is high in calcium so all the commercial free range mixes have lucerne chaff mixed in to them. Perhaps the grain on it's own isn't sufficient. I don't know. Tam
not enough calcium? hi tam and lillypilly, you have given me an idea to vary my cooks diet - i have a bit of ground behind the orchard i might just grow some lucerne for the chooks to supplement their diet (they live in the orchard during the day) so they won't wreck the crop before it grows!! :lol: thanks for my daily chook fix clonte