Quote:

Originally Posted by wjschieber 

I have been lurking here for a while checking the site out and thought you may enjoy this. It is a picture from THE BOOK OF DORKINGS by H.H. Stoddard dated 1886.

Nice illustration!
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by capayvalleychick 

You might ask Rudy about eggs.

 

Just for fun, here's a pic of my grandson, trying to get close to one of my hens. ( I know her tail angle is too high, but she does have rectangular shape ).

 

 

Kim

Thanks for sharing!

Did he catch the chicken! 

Pile O' Dorkings

Can you tell the red from the colored?  8)

Interesting that they allowed cuckoo's into the standard without allowing blacks. Don't you make cuckoo dorkings with black and white birds? Seems a good breeder would use breeding stock that met the standard before they would attempt to make a new color. Also seems that they would allow both colors used to make a new color into the standard. I guess by the time they got around to allowing cuckoo's the blacks were too far gone to consider it? Maybe this is typical? I'm still quite new to all this. I guess they probably have been using cuckoo genes from way back instead of creating the color again
from scratch.

I called Sand Hill about canceling my white dorking order and would have to take a 25% penalization fee. However they won't penalize me if I change my order so I ordered black dorkings in place of the whites. Was the color least in demand and I like blacks. I didn't want to get caught up into working with 2 colors right off the bat and still may not by the years end. We'll have plenty space for the 20 blacks and the 40 whites from Yellow House. We plan to cull hard and shoot for 50-100 whites for next year from our own eggs. We have no intentions of mixing the colors, at least for many years down the road and then who knows. It would probably take lots of time to reinvent the wheel so to speak.

Right now we just want to help preserve and breed up the whites if we can. The blacks may or may not still be here next year and if they are they won't be our main focus.

Just got a notice from Yellow House. The 40 whites will be here mid-late May, Woooohoooo!

Hello again, Dorking enthusiasts!

My first Dorking chicks are due next week, (black, dark grey, et al from Sandhill,) and I am really excited about that. After I get some "practice" on hatchery Dorkings, I will probably pick a single specific recognized color to raise. I like the artist's rendition of Silver Grey hens, but all the actual photos I see are of hens with orange-brown (I call it rust-colored) breast feathers instead of the  orange-pink (salmon!) that I expected. Is it the color rendition of my computer monitor? Is this an area where the Silver Greys need work?or is rust the actual intended color? Please forgive me if the answer to my question seems ridiculously obvious to you, as I am a definite newbie to the whole "breeding a chicken to the Standard" mentality.

Thanks for your assistance,

Angela

Popping in to say "hi" on a new thread for me. I am considering getting Dorkings for dual purpose utility and to help preserve the breed. Are Dorkings a good choice and is there anyone on here that sells Colored Dorking hatching eggs of good quality?

Thank you for your time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenhorn 

Interesting that they allowed cuckoo's into the standard without allowing blacks. Don't you make cuckoo dorkings with black and white birds? Seems a good breeder would use breeding stock that met the standard before they would attempt to make a new color. Also seems that they would allow both colors used to make a new color into the standard. I guess by the time they got around to allowing cuckoo's the blacks were too far gone to consider it? Maybe this is typical? I'm still quite new to all this. I guess they probably have been using cuckoo genes from way back instead of creating the color again
from scratch.

I called Sand Hill about canceling my white dorking order and would have to take a 25% penalization fee. However they won't penalize me if I change my order so I ordered black dorkings in place of the whites. Was the color least in demand and I like blacks. I didn't want to get caught up into working with 2 colors right off the bat and still may not by the years end. We'll have plenty space for the 20 blacks and the 40 whites from Yellow House. We plan to cull hard and shoot for 50-100 whites for next year from our own eggs. We have no intentions of mixing the colors, at least for many years down the road and then who knows. It would probably take lots of time to reinvent the wheel so to speak.

Right now we just want to help preserve and breed up the whites if we can. The blacks may or may not still be here next year and if they are they won't be our main focus.

Just got a notice from Yellow House. The 40 whites will be here mid-late May, Woooohoooo!

cuckoo involves the barring gene, which is put on a black base. so the white bird isn't involved with that... but you could use cuckoo and blacks, since barring is a dominant sex linked gene.

Quote:

Originally Posted by neopolitancrazy 

Hello again, Dorking enthusiasts!

My first Dorking chicks are due next week, (black, dark grey, et al from Sandhill,) and I am really excited about that. After I get some "practice" on hatchery Dorkings, I will probably pick a single specific recognized color to raise. I like the artist's rendition of Silver Grey hens, but all the actual photos I see are of hens with orange-brown (I call it rust-colored) breast feathers instead of the  orange-pink (salmon!) that I expected. Is it the color rendition of my computer monitor? Is this an area where the Silver Greys need work?or is rust the actual intended color? Please forgive me if the answer to my question seems ridiculously obvious to you, as I am a definite newbie to the whole "breeding a chicken to the Standard" mentality.

Thanks for your assistance,

Angela

Haha, welcome to the forums and to interpreting the standard :). To some extent the breast color on females is a matter of personal preference and what you think the standard is saying (some judges prefer the darker breasted females while others seem to prefer the lighter ones). also when using the standard always go by the text. the pictures are just one artists interpretation of the standard. I have both darker breasted birds and lighter breasted birds in my flock (two separate lines). i am actually crossing some this year to see what kind of color I get in the females. Personally I think that the really light females are not of standard color (I just dont think that the term reddish applys, but they are a light salmon color). the exact wording of the standard is reddish salmon , shading to ashy gray at the sides. Based on this I tend to favor the darker fronted females, although sometimes they do get too dark. I will try to get some pictures up on the forum tomorrow of my two different lines to show you the color difference in my flock. I would also love to hear what the other silver-gray breeders have to say about this and their experiences of what judges have told them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhiteMountainsRanch 

Popping in to say "hi" on a new thread for me. I am considering getting Dorkings for dual purpose utility and to help preserve the breed. Are Dorkings a good choice and is there anyone on here that sells Colored Dorking hatching eggs of good quality?

 

Thank you for your time.

there is a LOT of variation still in the coloring of them though, as I think the line may have been nearly lost and is now a work in progress again to get it back.  if you read back on this thread about a month ago there was discussion of what a colored currently is vs what the standard calls for... 

like it's already been said, interpretation of the standard is going to vary from breeder to breeder i think.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by neopolitancrazy 

Hello again, Dorking enthusiasts!

Is this an area where the Silver Greys need work?

the silver grey, and all other colors, need work in many areas for most strains... 

it's been explained to me, take the standard in the order it's written. size and shape need to come first, and once you have that, then you can work on the fine points like comb, color, toes... some will come along at the same time, but the initial goal needs to be what makes a dorking recognizable AS A DORKING.  my ultimate goal is for someone to see my birds at the same time, and say WOW!  what are they?? and take away a memory of the awesome birds that they should be.  or if someone knows poultry to be able to recognize them instantly.  8)