Barred Holland breed of chickens

[Pocket Farmer]

Ok, so I have been working on egg color and these are from our spring hatch girls. I like the size, color and shape. I've noticed the Gracie Mae line tends to be more linear vs round, so this is a nice hybrid. Anyone else have eggs we could compare?

 

[Beanhead]

Here's some updated pics of our kids at 13 Weeks. I would like some pointers/critiques. I have read the standard, but being my first barred breed, ( and our first year in chickens keeping) , I don't have anything to compare them too. A few things I've noticed,

-Pullets do not have pure yellow legs, they are slate on the front, but yellow on the back and bottoms.
-I have 2 different shades of Cockerels

I will be culling 2-3 males soon, and would like opinions on who to keep. Also, I would be willing to give away the ones I cull to anyone interested. I'd rather do that to help someone else further the breed, than just put them in a pot!

If other or better pictures help, let me know. Thanks!



2 Pullets, a 3rd in the Background


3 Cockerels









4th Cockerel

 

[Cheralee]

I have held off writing this as I wasn't sure what we are going to do or how we will be handling our current situation. I still don't know, but I hope someone can share something that might help. Approximately two weeks ago, I noticed a pullet with bloody stool. I treated all of the birds in her little pen with Corid. I also examined the other pens and treated one other group. She was an AustralorpxHolland with 4 sisters. The other pen had a Holland cockerel (mhollow's) an OrpxHolland cockerel and 4 pullets. All of these birds were from my June hatch.

The day before, I had shared a cockerel and 3 pullets from my late July hatch with a girl whom I have been working with since last fall. These were her first chickens and we were both very excited.

Things quickly took a turn for the worse. I have lost 30 of the 36 birds I had after culling my extra cockerels. A brand new coop for my friend is now probably contaminated and she lost all of her birds. There were a handful of odd symptoms, but most of our findings pointed to Marek's Disease. I was around many chickens this summer, and many farms. I don't know where or how it came from. It only affected my young ones, although after calculating, I realized that I don't know if all of my grown birds had been vaccinated. This is so frustrating and heartbreaking and so.....WASTEFUL, that I don't know what to think. The remaining 2 AustralorpxHolland pullets & one pure Holland trio are all that I have left from an entire year's worth of work. MHollow's pair that he shared in August also never became sick.

The vaccination for Marek's costs $16 (that I saw) and does 1000 birds. I read that some people thought that was a waste of money for throwing 99% of it away afterwards. I'll tell you one thing, I would pay $16 in a heartbeat to have those birds now. We have discussed having a closed flock and breeding for resilience because obviously somebody had it to pass it on to the trio. The grown Holland roo, father to all of them, wasn't affected, either.

I am sorry this is so long. I wanted to share the information I received in August, but to be honest, I am just wiped out. Devastated. I haven't had a bird go down in 48 hours - a miracle. If anyone has experience with this, I would appreciate anything you can tell me.

Thanks for listening.

 

[kiwijean83]

Oh Cheralee, I am so sorry What a devastating loss

Have you sent any birds in for necropsy/testing to confirm cause of death? That was a very fast disease progression with ridiculously high mortality. I wish there was something I could do to help

 

[Cheralee]

We do have them out. There were other symptoms that made us think cocci that segued into necrotic enteritis. We also changed feed, and my husband thought it may have been a mold toxicity. I did an amateur necropsy, but I saw no lesions, no enlarged organs and the nerves didn't appear to be altered. There were a couple of other things that don't fit, too.

 

[kiwijean83]

We do have them out. There were other symptoms that made us think cocci that segued into necrotic enteritis. We also changed feed, and my husband thought it may have been a mold toxicity. I did an amateur necropsy, but I saw no lesions, no enlarged organs and the nerves didn't appear to be altered. There were a couple of other things that don't fit, too.

I hope you get some answers, not knowing is more torture than having a diagnosis (in my opinion). Thoughts are with you!

 

[Cross Creek]

I woke up this morning to my first homebred Barred Holland chicks. Five, and another one pipping now, with hopefully more to come.
Many thanks to mhollow for getting me started in this wonderful breed.

 

[mhollow]

How exciting. It's great to hear things are going well. Post some picks soon please. Barred Holland chick pics never get old. I'll be in touch.

 

[mhollow]

correction "pics" not "picks"

 

[Cross Creek]

How about if I post pics of my picks? So many k's, so many places to use them. Knife for example. Who came up with that spelling?