chickens I guess

It's pretty weird not to be at the Central Coast Feather Fanciers show this weekend. I'm sad about missing it, but I had to do it. I'm getting a little excited about the big National down in Ventura. I sorted through the birds today to pick out what to take to auction Sunday morning and by golly in the last week some of the birds have really blossomed! Looks like I may end up with some pretty awesome pullets to show this fall. The cockerels likely won't be feathered out til winter. There are some pretty nice black cockerels. There's one I picked out to sell because his earlobes are actually too big. Weird! That's never been a problem, but considering the outcross, it's not unexpected. I'm thinking though that someone might just flip their lid over this big-lobed bird and he would be a good breeder if someone had a bloodline needing some oomph in that department so maybe I ought to take him down to Ventura to sell. I may have a few blacks for sale, I'll get that figured out soon.

Everyone and their dog wants to buy BBReds. Hmm, ain't likely to happen. There's one cockerel I like. I have three cockerels right now. One's going to auction (awful comb). The other I don't like much but *could* sell, though I don't really feel good about selling a bird I don't like when in the past I've had an abundance of really good ones. So that leaves me with two old breeding stock males and one youngster, and I won't use a cockerel for breeding so I think I'd better hang onto all three. Less than that would be unwise. I learned my lesson with the Brassies last year when my *only* male ended up infertile. I used a Black male instead but didn't get much worth keeping. Still toying a bit with the idea of selling off that whole pen of birds (Brassy Back and Blue Brassy Back), I'm just not sure yet the right person is out there who will take them and not ruin my 11 years of hard work with those colors. If you think you're that person, drop me a line and we'll talk, but I'll require some convincing.

Time to sleep.