Chocolate colored chickens

[smoothmule]

hi i love your araucana's! im just getting started on them and am interested in getting into sexlinked, how would i go about that? is there specific colours you breed to be able to get sexlinked?

There are breeds that are sex linked but mostly, it's colors that are sex linked. The recessive chocolate I've got is sex linked. a solid color rooster over barred hens makes sex linked chicks with all the cockerels being barred and all the pullets solid with some flecks of color sometimes. Some of the wild type colors, bbr, duckwing etc are sort of sex linked in that the depth of color of the down and stripes will usually indicate male or female but not so reliably unless you really know your lines.

Chocolate type sex linked isn't as easy as saying all this color are males and all that color are females. If you cross a rooster that is black and carries chocolate to a black hen, you'll get both cockerels and pullets in black and some chocolate pullets. You're guaranteed that the chocolates from this cross are pullets. Chocolate to chocolate will produce 100% chocolate chicks so that is of no help to sex chicks at hatching. There's just a lot more to it than simply breeding chocolate to something.

If you want real sex links, you have to go with the few breeds that are true sex links and the minute you cross them to anything, they are no longer that.

 

[smoothmule]

Don't know about what breed it is kinda hard to tell, but here is a pic of my choc. English Orp.

pullet.

I just Love these guys! I have some chocolate pullets now that are from a chocolate Orp/black Ameraucana cross. They are big and beautiful!

 

[ChooksChick]

I've been working on Chocolates for some time now...I've got Marans, Ameraucanas, bantam Cochins and Silkies growing out in sex-linked Chocolate. They're fun to watch as they roll around the yard...yet another smear of color in the lovely palette!

 

[smoothmule]

Here is the chocolate Araucana chick, feathering out. This one has a single tuft and she's rumpless. Better tufting and yellow skin and she would look as good or better than most true Araucana's. I'm so pleased that my F-1 chicks are looking so good.



Here is one recently hatched




Here is one I hatched a while back, after adding a couple of splash blue and a blue hen to the pen with my chocolate carrier rooster.
This one is "Mauve", a chocolate/blue. This one is on topic because she is blue but she is also chocolate. This color is extremely rare, a French breeder told me that she has just been able to hatch a handful this color and she felt the 2 genes together may have had a negative effect on hatchability but I am hatching them right and left, up to 6 so far and they are vigorous chicks.




Here are a couple more of the same chick as above as it has feathered. I was told that this chick may also be Db because the chick down was so pale and it's feathering out so much darker.











Now it's going through the ugly stage, trying to feather in more. She will be interesting to follow. She has a bit of a tail but so far, all the other chicks are fully rumpless. I'm hoping for one with tufts this color, it's possible since there are 2 hens that are splash blue with tufts, both of these hens are tailed though so more to work on there too. A couple more years and I'll have chocolates and mauves that will look like the Araucana should.

 

[smoothmule]

This is a photo to compare, there are 2 Blacks, 2 Mauves and one Chocolate and one blue



Has anyone else in the group hatched chocolate/blue's?

 

[nicalandia]

This is a photo to compare, there are 2 Blacks, 2 Mauves and one Chocolate



Has anyone else in the group hatched chocolate/blue's?

please keep us posted on the Mauve chicks.... how about the older one? how is the chicks doing and growing? pics?

 

[smoothmule]

Will do. The older one is pictured above, where I posted the 5 photo's. They are all photo's of that first chick. In the photo for comparing the different color chicks, there are 2 mauves and the older one is the larger one pictured there. I have 6 mauve chicks so far.


Here is the older chocolate pullet, taken this evening, she was trying to settle in to roost

 

[ChooksChick]

I had several Mauves in my Ameraucanas, but I had a recent tragedy involving a raccoon that figured out a slide lock and had a taste for Chocolate. All of my Mauves are gone.

I have more in the incubator, but we will see how that goes. I'm ready to take a break from hatching. I never thought I'd say it., but I am.

 

[smoothmule]

Aw dang it Renee'. You need a dog like the ones we have. I've had Texas Heelers for about 20 yrs now. They will eat, drink and sleep with the chickens, herd and heel cattle, help around the farm and Nothing gets by them to touch my chickens, turkeys, guineas and swans. At this time of year, they start coming in and I routinely have dead possums, raccoons, and even skunks in the yard to haul off but no dead chickens.

You need to make more of the Mauves. I have a feeling they will be extremely nice looking when mature. I'm starting to eat some of mine too, I'll take a break and hatch here and there but I'm working on finishing a building that I'll use for incubating hatching and brooding chicks through the winter. Limited space will dictate how many I can over winter so that may keep me out of trouble, lol

Best of luck with this hatch and I hope you get a lot of Mauves
Cathy

 

[ChooksChick]

Aw dang it Renee'. You need a dog like the ones we have. I've had Texas Heelers for about 20 yrs now. They will eat, drink and sleep with the chickens, herd and heel cattle, help around the farm and Nothing gets by them to touch my chickens, turkeys, guineas and swans. At this time of year, they start coming in and I routinely have dead possums, raccoons, and even skunks in the yard to haul off but no dead chickens.

You need to make more of the Mauves. I have a feeling they will be extremely nice looking when mature. I'm starting to eat some of mine too, I'll take a break and hatch here and there but I'm working on finishing a building that I'll use for incubating hatching and brooding chicks through the winter. Limited space will dictate how many I can over winter so that may keep me out of trouble, lol

Best of luck with this hatch and I hope you get a lot of Mauves
Cathy

I can't even begin to tell you how absurd the truth is: the birds out at the farm are safe and don't have issues...despite a strain of rare, sabre-tooted mammoth raccoons. The problem is with the birds in town, where we get hit with raccoons, hawks, possums, and eel-bellied-slickster-viper-fanged-parsuhwallops. They can fit through a pinhole and are smart and agile enough to open any lock and let in the rest of their gang. Right in the middle of a town of 100K. Not rural. I could cry sometimes.

I would have to bring them to bed with me at night to really keep them entirely safe.

I will make more Mauves. I'm just worn out right now and will have to take a break first. *sigh*

I need a predator-free island and then I'd be good!!