Re: Peace Seeds & cannibals

[Allan Balliett]

Martha - By 'flyer' I assume you mean 'seed list'? Al Kapuler is a plant breeder, but not a marketer. Like you, it's a bare-bones world I'm not particularly comfortable with. If you need more information on plants, write and ask him. At $2.50 a packet, I'm going to buy a few and grow them out. Many of the varities speak for themselves: you'll find information on them by doing a search on the web.

As far as the chickens go, a year ago I would have thought that you did the right thing by getting all your chickens from different farms at the same time and enclosing them in a house for a couple of days The books will tell you that you can create a new flock in this fashion, that individual birds lost their flock-sense when moved and they reform it in 48 hours with the birds they they are with at that time. Unfortunately, my recent move from VA proved this to not be true. I have barred rocks myself. I also received a 'donation' from the public schools of a bunch of white hens in May. These hens never joined the Virginia flock, escaping from the pen and living in th stables. For this move I gathered white and barred and held them in the hoophouse for several days. I didn't see any 'cannabilism,' but what has happened is that the white birds have moved out of the fenced in area again and have set up life with the goats!! If birds of either variety get mixed, all sorts of pecking takes place.

I spoke to an experienced farm manager the other day who confirmed what I had witnessed. Her conclusion was that chickens will form themselves along breed lines. In her experience, roosters will not x-breeds, as well. Of course, this is not remotely the case with my birds, where I've even seen a rooster do-the-do with another rooster.

Since I do have Rhodes Islands that come and go from both groups and a couple of Ana-whatevers that live with the white birds, I have to assume that a mixed flock is possible, but maybe not with Barred Rocks, a variety that I remain very disappointed in, as far as intelligence goes.

Hopefully, someone will have insights into solving your problem.