2018

We Moved! Follow us at @birdgeppetto !

[birdgeppetto2018]

I got this blog back, but I really like that my new blog is also my main and I don’t have all the bad stuff from this year on it

I’m planning on leaving this blog up so anyone who wants can still look at it, but relocating to my new blog. This one is going to be @birdgeppetto2018 and my new one will just be @birdgeppetto again!

[birdgeppetto2018]

I got this blog back, but I really like that my new blog is also my main and I don’t have all the bad stuff from this year on it

I’m planning on leaving this blog up so anyone who wants can still look at it, but relocating to my new blog. This one is going to be @birdgeppetto2018 and my new one will just be @birdgeppetto again!

[birdgeppetto2018]

I GOT MY BLOG BACK!!!

[birdgeppetto2018]

Here are some pictures of the building I’m going to be turning into the pigeon house! It’s pretty nice and it has a concrete floor already!

The side with the nest boxes is where I’m going to build three-four cages that I can breed pairs in to make sure they’re having show quality babies. They won’t be in there all the time, just to breed and raise their babies.

The cages are going to be as long as the whole wall and two and a half feet out, 1 and a half feet (minimum) tall each.

The other side will be shelves and nesting areas for pairs when they’re not in the cages or pairs I don’t mind breeding with whoever.

The building currently has chickens in it, but they’ll be moving out before spring and I’ll just have to clean it out and build!

Hopefully I’ll eventually be able to build something much bigger so I can keep more birds, but for now this will be more than enough space for the 5-6 pairs I want to get this spring!

[requiem-4-a-drink-deactivated20]

hope your pets stay healthy in 2017

[rotg-fan-page]

I almost didn’t blog this and felt guilty

[ckascade-deactivated20170413]

Not risking it

[unorthodox-views]

hope ya pets even healthier in 2018

[christenhelm]

26 steps to self sufficiency

(Taken from thehomesteadingboards.com)

1. Plant a garden : This is the basic building block for anyone looking to walk a simpler path in life in the modern world. Especially with rising fuel costs and resulting food costs increases it is imperative to minimize the impact on a families financial situation. More and more of the average families monthly income is slowly being eroded by the cost of just putting food on the table. I understand a lot of people do not have a lot of land to totally grow their own food but there are many options available to grow in small footprint and help at least offset the cost of groceries. Besides it also helps develop ones skills for any future plans.

2. Learn how to can your own food : This goes hand in hand with planting a garden, a garden will produce way to much food at one time for any family to consume it all before it goes to waste. Having the skills to be able to preserve what you produce is imperative for a families long term self sufficiency. If your garden is to small at the moment to produce enough food to put  away in the pantry there are other options available. Search out and visit farmers markets, talk to the farmers about buying in bulk which can save you some money. Ask the farmers about gleaning the fields after harvest time. A lot of farmers will allow people to harvest produce that has been leftover and missed after the commercial harvesting is done. Look into a local produce supplier for restaurants. Most of them have a walk in window where people can go in and buy bulk produce. You can buy a 25 pound case of tomatoes for about 18 dollars right now which is a huge cost savings over the grocery store and that would make quite a few jars of spaghetti sauce.

3. Plant a herb garden : Have you seen how much both fresh and dried herbs are at the grocery store are? It’s insane. The amount of space needed to raise a small herb garden is minimal and there is nothing like fresh herbs.

4. Get a dehydrator : Dehydrating Food and Canning go hand in hand. The options you have with a dehydrator  is only limited by your imagination. You can make jerky, fruit roll ups, dehydrate eggs, etc. Fruits make a tasty healthy snack for young and old. Most locations in the country have local orchards that are a great place to buy fruits cheaply and dehydrated apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon last a long time on the pantry shelf  and are delicious.

5. Plant Perennials you can eat : Growing up as a child in a small city in western New York we did not have a very large yard, but we did have a garden space and perennials that supplied a food source each year with no work on our part. Asparagus, Rhubarb, Strawberries, Jerusalem Artichokes. etc.

6. Plant soft fruits : Along with strawberries also plant raspberries, blackberries, blueberries etc.. They do no take up a lot of space and will produce fresh and tasty fruits year after year

7. Plant a few fruit trees : with modern day dwarf varieties that are available on the market today you can plant a few fruit trees that with pruning and training will be bountiful in several years without taking up much room at all.

8. Learn to save seeds : Buy heirloom open-pollinated seeds and learn to save the seeds from this years produce to be able to plant next year. I know of families that have been passing their seed stock down through the family for over 100 years and haven’t had to buy a seed ever.

9. Raise a few small backyard animals : The amount of space required by a small flock of chickens or rabbit hutch is minimal and is a great source for nutrients for you and your backyard farm. There is nothing better than making breakfast or a cake with eggs fresh from the source. Plus they are a great asset with help keeping bugs and insects in check and will gladly take care of any extra vegetables or fruit from the garden for you.

10. Compost everything : People think compost is smelly and disgusting. If your compost is creating a nuisance smell, you are doing it wrong. It is estimated that 30 to 40 percent of food Americans buy ends up in the trash heap. Any waste from leftovers either goes into to the compost pile by either being fed to the chickens and after working its way through the chickens ends up in the compost bin or we will put it directly in the piles. All raked leaves, newspaper, cardboard, weeds, grass clippings etc goes directly into our compost pile.

11. Waste not want not : Touching on the estimate of amount of food thrown out, learn to cook only what someone is able to eat. Unless you are making a big pot of chili to can and put in the pantry, why use all the time, energy and money to make something that you will end up throwing away.

12. Cook from scratch : The average American has lost touch with what food actually is. Most people think that food comes out of a box and sadly it usually does for a large percentage of Americans in today’s world. Pick up several basic cookbooks and experiment with turning your backyard bounty into healthy, nutritious and tasty meals for your family.

Keep reading

[birdgeppetto2018]

My mom wants me to go downstairs but I can’t

[birdgeppetto2018]

I laid down and stopped paying attention to her for five minutes so she moved to my legs and fell asleep

[birdgeppetto2018]

[birdgeppetto2018]

I laid down and stopped paying attention to her for five minutes so she moved to my legs and fell asleep

[birdgeppetto2018]

I’m covered in pigeon poop

[birdgeppetto2018]

Wait. Is that a freagkign birf?

[birdgeppetto2018]

She’s invading my personal space to kiss me

[chickie-birdies]

Hershey’s new way of comforting me is wedging himself underneath my laptop when I’m holding it on my lap (probably because it’s warm), puffing out his neck, and making noises like a frog being strangled until I pet him (and then he starts hooting loudly if I don’t pay attention to him)

I got some good laughs from it this evening, bless this bird

[birdgeppetto2018]

I love Hershey so much! What color are his eyes now? Are they yellow like his dad’s?

[theramseyloft]

What’s the difference between grizzle and splash? And do you know what would happen if you bred a grizzle hen to a splash cock? Thank you!

Grizzle is a dominant pigment mutation that blocks pigment formation.

A lot of the birds referred to as Splash, are, in fact, heterozygous grizzles, or the Tiger allele of Grizzle.

True Splashes are a lightly marked variation of Pied. There are a LOT of different genetic variations of Pied in pigeons, most of which are recessive, but some appear to be partial dominant.

Rotkopf

And his son, Pitch are Heterozygous Grizzle.

Pitch is Spread, which drastically diminishes the effect of Grizzle.

He’s molting in this photo, and the pattern you can see at the base of his closest flight has the tell-tale grizzle flecking.

Many of his feathers look that way at the base, but being covered over by other feathers makes him look almost all black.

Rotkopf is Recessive Red, which acts like, and is epistatic to spread, Meaning that a recessive red bird will look Spread, whether it actually is or not.

Spread is dominant, and 

Astrid is genetically Spread, so he could have gotten it from her with out Rotkopf  needing to be.

Astrid’s Shield pattern is an expression of Pibaldism, which Rotcopf does not carry.

As evidenced by his other son, Cheeks, who is not pied either.

Cheeks is also heterozygous grizzle.

As you can see in this photo of a much younger Cheeks, that grizzling is damn near full body.

This is what Grizzle looks like with out the interference of Spread or Recessive Red

Pugsly is a good example of Homozygous Grizzle and Spread:

Look how much ticking he started out with!

Here he is a month older. You can already see new, darker feathers coming in on his wing shields.

Half a month older yet, and nearly all his big boy feathers are almost entirely black.

Mostly grown, and most of his adult feathers are deep, glossy pitch black.

And here he is fully grown.

His adult feathers grew progressively less and less white, until only the most stubborn white ticks remain.

Birds who are not spread develop in the opposite direction.

Hoya is a fantastic example of a non-spread Homozygous Grizzle.

He most likely started out looking more like Cheeks.

With out the Spread gene insisting MORE COLOR!!! louder than the grizzle gene’s “Hey! Let’s add more white ticking!” with every molt, you get a bird that loses more color as it grows, until only its neck, tail, and the densest color on the wings remain.

This is not the only form of Grizzle!

This German Beauty Homer, mislabled as Splash, is actually a Grizzle varient called Tiger, which turns entire feathers white instead ticking a colored feather.

Being an allele of the same gene, it inherits and develops in the same way.

This Hungarian Giant House Pigeon, mislabeled a Black Splash, is actually a really striking combination of both Grizzle variants!

True Splash is a specific pattern of Pied:

Pied is WILDLY variable!

Splash tends to be defined by small, scattered, uneven white patches on an otherwise colored bird.

They are most common on the face, and can range anywhere from an overmarked prototype bald head like this bird above

To some white flights and a freckled face, like this Homer cock.

Cara could be considered a Splash.

So could Papillion

Cookie

And Biscuit!

These four birds are results of the Bald Head pied pattern 

From Bobbi

And Ferdi, specifically

Blended with non pied parents:

Sun Tsu

And Money Penny, respectively.

And this ties back to the fascinating genetic variabilty of pied patterns!

You recall Rotkopf (Grizzled, not pied) and Astrid (pied, not grizzled)s children are Grizzled and carry pied, but are not pied: The typical recessive inheritance of pied.

Ferdi and Bobbi’s Bald head pattern of pied inherits like a partial dominant.

You could argue that Penny and Sun Tsu carry it, except that that pattern has not been bred into either the Show Type Racing Homer OR the Chinese Owl.

It’s typically a trait of rollers and tumblers, with the notable exception of the Old Dutch Capuchine and Jacobin, because it enhances the aesthetic of their huge, maned crests.

There are pied homers and Chinese owls, but they are usually in the form or white flights, patches on the wing shield, and freckles about the head.

And when two pied varients are mated together, you usually get a blend of those patterns:

For example, Ferdi x 

Schatzi, whose pied expression is bleeding into her Shield on one side

Threw Pinto

Who is, charmingly enough, uneven on exactly the same side as his Mother.

You see the same uneven pattern in his little sister.

Less marked on the same side.

Out of Astrid, who is perfectly even in the shield, Ferdi has thrown

Mia

And her little sister, who are each, in their own right, perfect blends of 

his pattern 

and hers.

But in the case of the Splash children out of Bald Head x Full Colored parents, you just see a half-expressed Bald Head pattern:

Bobbi

Blended with Sun Tsu

to make 

Cara, in whom you see the half expressed Bald Head pattern 

in exactly the same way you see her Father

Ferdi

Blended with Money Penny

to make

Papillion

Cookie

And biscuit, 

Who all display a variation of half expressed Bald Head.

So, a Grizzle mated to a pied would DEFINITELY throw Grizzled children, but whether or not they were also pied would depend on the variant of pibald.

Mostly, that pairing would throw grizzled children who carry, but don’t express pied. (Like Pitch and Cheeks)

But you could also get heterogygous grizzled children with partially expressed pied traits.

A blend of both traits fully expressed would most likely resemble this German Beauty Homer over all:

(Though you can tell he’s most likely a blend of the two grizzles by his lack of white flights.)

[birdgeppetto2018]

I’m starting to plan out the building, does anyone have nesting recommendations?

[birdgeppetto2018]

I think we’re going to go with the solid blacks and black and white Danzigs first!

They’re my mom’s favorites and plenty of other people love them as well! Plus, they’re fairly cheap compared to the ones I really want so it’s a good place to start!

[birdgeppetto2018]

Ok! Long post ahead!

So, been thinking about the building I want for my pigeons, I’ve also been getting in contact with people and trying to figure out what I want to get in the spring. So far I’m in contact with three breeders.

The first breeder has INCREDIBLE show quality Danzigs. By far the prettiest I’ve ever seen. His birds are pretty expensive though. He asks $75 a pair and shipping will be a minimum of $70. I really want a few pairs from him in the spring but I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford them.

He mainly has solid reds and solid whites, but he told me he also breeds a few other patterns and colors that he might have available in the spring.

THIS stunning bird is one of his! I just can’t even believe how beautiful and perfect it is, wow.

Another breeder I’m in contact with breeds solid blacks, solid whites, and black and white Danzigs. He also has beautiful birds, but definitely not as beautiful at the first guy’s. I believe he asks $20 a bird with a minimum of $60 shipping.

I am absolutely in love with his solid black Danzigs!

The third person is Tesla’s breeder! I talked to him a bit and it sounds like he mainly has solid whites and red grizzles. He asks $20 per bird and between $60-$80 shipping depending on the number of birds.

I absolutely love red grizzles so I’m pretty sure I’ll end up getting a pair from him!

The dream would be for me to get a pair of solid whites and a pair of solid reds from the first breeder, a pair of solid blacks and a pair of black and whites from the second breeder, and a pair of red grizzles from Tesla’s breeder to start off my new flock. I’d hand raise their babies once they weaned and sell them as pets.

The issue is that that would cost me about $475 just for the birds and I can NOT afford that right now, especially with having to build an entirely new building for them.

I’d like the building to be insulated, have electricity, have a concrete or plywood floor, and have an outdoor area. This is all going to be super expensive, but I’m going to work really hard for it. And hopefully I’ll be able to make it happen!

Hopefully we’ll make enough money from the snakes this year for me to at least afford the building and a few birds.

[birdgeppetto2018]

What color(s) do you think I should get first?