Blue Andalusian thread!

[Marengoite]

Well, in that case, please "like" my page and say hello. It gets kinda lonely over there as hardly anybody talks to me.

I already did. I love the pics you have on there and the comments you have regarding lacing. I lost all my poultry last year when my son picked up a stray dog that looks to be part whippet or some other sight hound who decimated my flock. It's hard to get rid of what is now a "family dog" but she is now restrained and my survivors were farmed out to a neighboring farm. I plan on getting some hatching eggs for Buckeyes and Silver Spangled Hamburgs next spring to rebuild. We have a kid at our county fair who shows BA's, but his roo is getting pretty long in the spurs and his comb tips are frostbit. So until I get a barn where I can keep everyone indoors for the winter, I will only be wishing for BA's instead of adding them to the flock. But you can rest assured I'll be watching your page. Gorgeous pictures and I'm learning lots.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Marengoite, you live in the midwest don't you?

You should be able to raise Andalusians there. It's mostly drafts and moisture that cause frostbite from what I understand. My birds do ok down into the teen temperatures. Once it gets into the single digits is when they have problems. I am working on a solution to that problem though.

I have another thread showing the reconstruct of my barn roof if you want to follow along. You can find it on my profile page.

I will be building sleeping boxes for my birds this year. My goal is to get down to four large fowl males and I will be keeping them with up to a half dozen pullets/hens each once it gets really cold. Instead of having individual roosters in their own pens, I'm hoping that with the added heat of several hens sleeping next to him, the frostbite issues will go away. I'm hoping that if I can get them to snuggle down into clean shavings in a box up high (that is all closed in except for one side) every night instead of on a perch that he will be toasty warm all the way to each and every point on his comb.

 

[PDPercherons]

Lacy, from my experience here in Michigan, having the boys in roosting with the girls makes a difference. Batman didn't start getting any type of frostbite until I had to separate him from the flock. He's currently in the house for now on recovery from other things. I just keep them with a 120watt bulb for a little extra warmth. So far so good. We've already been down into the teens a few times.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Thank you. That's good to know and hopefully I can get them done before it does get that cold.

 

[Marengoite]

I will definitely be checking that out. I never thought of raised boxes. Good idea.

 

[Manningjw]

Nice example of fallacious reasoning. The first paragraph contains the "Either/Or" fallacy or the Fallacy of the Excluded Middle. While the paragraph is true on the face of it - if one breeds exclusively for X, he will not do well at Y - the underlying assumption is that one cannot breed for both simultaneously. While this is unstated, it is implied, and it is also wrong.

If one breeds for the whole package, one can achieve success in both the show ring and production. It's being done in Buckeye chickens where the most productive hens come from lines that have done the best at shows. I suspect there are other breeds that have fanciers with the same commitment to purpose as well as appearance, particularly since the SOP was supposed to support production values in addition to show standards.

I believe venom is specifically reserved for the exhibition thread. I did not say you CANNOT breed for both appearance and production, I did however clearly state if you place one(or several since we are talking about appearance/SOP) thing above another, the secondary trait generally will not be as good as someone who has bred that to be their primary requisite for their stock. To breed for all of the traits for SOP and maintain the best egg production possible would require a program that is extremely large.

Quote:
Not contradictory at all if you actually read what I wrote or took it in context. Please read what I posted before disagreeing with something I never said, you are only creating strawmen. I never said hatcheries breed show quality birds, you will usually find people saying you cannot even call them whatever breed they are labeled and sometimes that is correct(ahem, Ameraucana!). I will maintain that a bird bred specifically for increased egg production as the TOP PRIORITY and appearance second will have better egg production than a bird bred first for appearance whether it is the quality of lacing or the number of peaks on their comb. Because hatcheries make their money off of numbers, not on how well they match SOP, people will often chide hatcheries and their birds specifically relating to their appearance.

You make a good point bringing up something like the Buckeye - which I presume was maintained by people who use it as a utility fowl, not for appearance. Every part of it's appearance was an adaptation that increased it's value on a small homestead setting and I bet the few people that continued to breed them selected for their utility in their given environment first. It was never known to set records of egg laying however, which is fine it wasn't never meant to.

 

[TherryChicken]

4 out of 14 is Noth this breed. The other 10 girls are 50% Blue Andalusian. Jack is their father

 

[Gingersnap722]

Here's my boy at almost 7 months old.

 

[PDPercherons]

It's probably sad that even though my naughty rooster is very bad, I still like him. He thought he was going to get the jump on me, came running hard and fast. I turned around and he comically about landed on his rear end he was back peddling so fast.

Brought in gorgeous blue miss Millie today for grandma to see. Told her this is what I want to raise. Broke down and put a few eggs in the incubator. Worst case scenario it's a lesson.

I'm really curious to see what the Andi/Australorp crosses will be like.

Just to clarify, this is for the fun of hatching some eggs. Not intentionally breeding crosses, but I picked my largest bodied hens incase I decide to raise these out for the freezer.

 

[emily88]

I would love to see the pictures of these babies.