Delawares from kathyinmo

[Egghead_Jr]

No, #'s are dressed weight. 1951 # is for Delaware not hybrid.

We all know hatchery birds don't conform to standard. Bred for egg laying which changes body conformation. Even with that hatchery stock obtained 3.5 lbs dressed in 12 weeks. There must be a standard bred strain that can beat that out there. Thanks for the sustainable poultry link but don't believe people want to drop 225 dollars for 25 chicks. 6 dollars a chick and $50 shipping is enough investment which is about standard costs for breeder stock chicks. Would be interesting to get weights on their birds though. Oddly enough I'v yet to have a breeder with any real data reply to my mails yet.

 

[caychris]

No, #'s are dressed weight. 1951 # is for Delaware not hybrid.

We all know hatchery birds don't conform to standard. Bred for egg laying which changes body conformation. Even with that hatchery stock obtained 3.5 lbs dressed in 12 weeks. There must be a standard bred strain that can beat that out there. Thanks for the sustainable poultry link but don't believe people want to drop 225 dollars for 25 chicks. 6 dollars a chick and $50 shipping is enough investment which is about standard costs for breeder stock chicks. Would be interesting to get weights on their birds though. Oddly enough I'v yet to have a breeder with any real data reply to my mails yet.

Part of the reason is Delawares are on the rare side even as hatchery birds. Most efforts with this bird are to essentially rescue the breed and bring it back to standard.

Eight Acre Farm has lines descended from Witmore I believe

You might have better luck getting answers at the Facebook pages
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheDelawareClubofAmerica/
and
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1496823120553335/

Though again most of the postings there seem to be people with small backyard flocks or looking for Delawares

I think the rarity of the birds has something to do with this.

Ive heard of a couple of other recreation attempts going on but have not been able to get solid information on them

I just think that there are so few of the birds in general and so few heritage meat producing breeders that the intersection of those two things makes the chance of finding the information you are looking for rather slim. At least at this point in time. It seems to me that people are interested but not willing to commit to doing it when NH and other birds are more readily available and possess close to the same properties.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

No, #'s are dressed weight. 1951 # is for Delaware not hybrid.

We all know hatchery birds don't conform to standard. Bred for egg laying which changes body conformation. Even with that hatchery stock obtained 3.5 lbs dressed in 12 weeks. There must be a standard bred strain that can beat that out there. Thanks for the sustainable poultry link but don't believe people want to drop 225 dollars for 25 chicks. 6 dollars a chick and $50 shipping is enough investment which is about standard costs for breeder stock chicks. Would be interesting to get weights on their birds though. Oddly enough I'v yet to have a breeder with any real data reply to my mails yet.

I believe you've misread the 2014 study. And the 1950 study involved no Delawares.

Here is a link to the 1950 study: http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/4/552.full.pdf+html

There currently are no standard bred Delawares. Kathy's Line comes the closest.

I don't think it is odd at all that other breeders aren't answering these questions.

 

[caychris]

Thanks @capayvalleychick Kim for being so generous and letting us come and visit and teach Mike about processing birds. The 2 pullets are lovely birds. Ill have pics in the next day or two.

If I could have taken a boy I would but I really didnt have the isolation space to deal with a 3rd boy in my back yard.

Thanks again.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

We had a great day here yesterday with our breeder/judge consultant picking breeding birds. We sorted my two cocks, 10 cockerels, 7 hens, and lots of pullets. Then we put together two breeding pens ... first the remaining hens with a cockerel, then one of the two cocks with the pullets.

It may seem odd, but I hadn't had the cocks looked at -- we didn't have a ton of options so we worked with what we had. PapaDel is holding his color well, but lacks a smidge of chest depth and we suspected and found wing issues. Mr. Fatty has a great round shape to bring depth to my flock, but his color is marginal.

We compared them side-by-side and decided to not use PapaDel again. He is now happily in charge of my laying flock.

Here is a photo of the PapaDel vs. Mr. Fatty fluff off. My birds HATE the cages, so no posing.

 

[caychris]

So far 4 of 7 dels out 1 was a sticky chick I kind of helped out and is now glued to the floor. Ill have pics once they are all out and fluffed

 

[Beer can]

No, #'s are dressed weight. 1951 # is for Delaware not hybrid.

We all know hatchery birds don't conform to standard. Bred for egg laying which changes body conformation. Even with that hatchery stock obtained 3.5 lbs dressed in 12 weeks. There must be a standard bred strain that can beat that out there. Thanks for the sustainable poultry link but don't believe people want to drop 225 dollars for 25 chicks. 6 dollars a chick and $50 shipping is enough investment which is about standard costs for breeder stock chicks. Would be interesting to get weights on their birds though. Oddly enough I'v yet to have a breeder with any real data reply to my mails yet.

Eight Acres Farm states theirs reach point of lay at 20-22 weeks. Cockerels are weighing in between 7 and 8 lbs at 24 weeks.

 

[tobystevensonjr]

Got a question. I was concerned that my Delaware rooster my have RIR in it. There are a handful of farms here in Illinois that use Delaware roosters over RIR hens for meat birds. I also have 2 chicks that my be crossed from my flock too. Is there a way to tell?

 

[caychris]

Got a question. I was concerned that my Delaware rooster my have RIR in it. There are a handful of farms here in Illinois that use Delaware roosters over RIR hens for meat birds. I also have 2 chicks that my be crossed from my flock too. Is there a way to tell?

. Really the only way to tell if you dont see obvious signs is to get a bird that may also may be a cross and not showing the genes you suspect and breed them together and look for a percentage of the resulting offspring.

In the cockerels Red should bleed through I would think. We crossed RIR Roo over white leghorn and virturally every male had some red bleed through on the wings. (now barring and delaware genetics being what they are this might not show but the pictures Ive seen of Delaware cross with NH mothers tend to get some red bleed. RIR would be worse I would think.

If he really looks like a Delaware I wouldnt be too concerned about breeding him just make sure he is bred to full Del hens and breed his Delaware conforming sons back to their mothers.

 

[tobystevensonjr]

Thats what I wanted to know. I have crosses from the roo with Australorp. All the chicks came out barred with solid black on winds and tail. I have 2 hens but are old have lost most of their barred coloring over last 2 molts. All the chicks I hatched from the trio that did not die before 14 wks were males. I have 1 pullet that is 14 days old and 1 cock that is 14 wks. I hatched 5 from Welp. I'm just wondering if I should use my old line roo with the new line from Welp? My rooster was a really wide bird. Makes really nice big bodied Delaware cocks just no pullets.