Nathan’s 2019 Breeding Season

I have had a great breeding season and with only 3 more weeks of hatching to go I am looking forward to seeing what becomes of what I have bred this season. Of course, the challenge to this breeding season is the drought. Level 5 water restrictions here in Tamworth mean an allowance of 150 litres of water per person per day. Mum and Dad have bought a water tank and have had it connected to the big shed so I am really doing rain dances and praying for rain.

This season I have finally had success hatching my large breeds in the E1 Multiquip and the pekins are hatched in the Maru hatcher. My uncle Mark came up and built me new brooders at Easter and these have been amazing. The chicks move through the different brooders and once they are fully feathered and in the last big brooder they move outside to the new grower pens that Dad has almost finished building.

This is really my first season of doing cross colour matings, for example, I have put my white pekin cockerel over a black and blue and I am hoping that this will improve the blues by removing some of the black feathers and also improving their type. I also purchased a splash cockerel from Lyn Moore at Rosewood and put him to one of my best blues and blacks and so far I am pretty excited about what has hatched from that mating.

I am going to have to be very selective in what I keep and what I move on as we just don’t have enough water here to grow out what I normally would – and boy those Orpingtons and Indians can certainly eat and drink! I have already got my eye on a few pekin growers in the grower pen and I’m hoping to find a few more potentials over the next few months.