Dominique Thread!

[McChooky]

My friend who I split the order with dragged his feet and never submitted photos so he never got a refund then predators got his. I still feel bad about that. I have 3 of my doms and love everyone of them. They're hardy chickens but impossible to find unless you order them.Most people don't care if their chickens forage or not so we're forced to select from breeds that lay every day and die young.I ordered brown leghorns as a last resort this spring. I'm hoping they won't lay everyday and die in 3 years

 

[Sylvester017]

After losing prolific egg-layer breeds to shorter lifespans we switched from popular egg-layer breeds to hens with reputations for less eggs, have broody tendency, and with sweeter temperaments -- tops for us after a dozen years of basckyarding are:
DOMINIQUES
BEARDED SILKIES
BREDA (unfortunately this breed turned out not hardy and sort of phased out)

Doms are Cuckoo-patterned, typically mid-size averaging 5-lbs, laying small-med eggs

Bearded Silkies come in many color patterns, a larger bantam, 2 to 2.5-lbs, small eggs

Breda's are one of our favorite breeds for temperament but have a small gene pool & not hardy, around 5 lbs, small-med eggs, come in blue/black/splash, mottled, or cuckoo pattern.
Our Blue Breda is outside the pen w/ Cuckoo Breda inside pen. Breda have heavily feathered legs, vulture hocks, no comb, triangle crest on head - beautiful birds but genetics cause health problems and extremely difficult to find them now.

 

[Sylvester017]

@MenelausMontrose -- I'd love to see pics of your babies. Fun to see if we can auto-sex them early

 

[MenelausMontrose]

Alright, here's some photos I took yesterday. They're 6 days old in these photos. This batch is much friendlier than the ones I shipped in last year, and they've imprinted on me and my wife -- to the point they start alarm-peeping if we leave the room their brooder is in.

Chick 1 (seen previously):

Chick 2:

Chick 3

 

[MenelausMontrose]

You'll note that Chick 1 and 2 don't have much in the way of dark lines on the legs. Chick 1 has a few spots perhaps.
Chick 3 has notable dark patches on the legs, although not a line.

They all have dark patches on their beaks.

Right now I'm thinking 1 and 2 are roosters, and 3 might be a hen. I'm still hoping 1 might be a hen though, as he is the friendliest of the bunch, and I only need 1 more rooster at the most.

 

[Sylvester017]

@MenelausMontrose -- the first chick is very much male - lots of broad head spot splashing plus no dark streaks on front of legs or toes. Females definitely have a very visible dark streak down the front of both legs and tops of all toes.

Your next chick head shot also appears to have wide male white splashing rather than a tight white head spot that a female would have.

Chick 3 can't tell much by blurred photo of feet. Chicks move so much it's hard to get clear pics of the little buggers.

And Dom chicks are very human-friendly to the point that you can't leave a room without them screaming for you to come back! After a week in the kiddie pool our Doms would no longer stay in it. We took off the bird netting on top of the pool and just let them run around the kitchen. For a little while they jumped back in the pool to sleep but later picked other spots in the kitchen to slumber. They grew so extremely fast too!

Poor camera pics but shows the smaller white head spots and dark feet/toes of females:

5 days old -- notice the much smaller white head spot on females and dark streaks on legs

Chicks at 1-months-old -- dark front leg streak still visible - head spot disappearing

Sleepy time in the kitchen Swiffer basket

Almost 2-months old -- dark leg/toe streaks still visible and black band on beak prominent

Hope my poor pics helped a little. I'd love to know the gender you identified your chicks as either males or females to see how we did in sexing them?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

@MenelausMontrose -- the first chick is very much male - lots of broad head spot splashing plus no dark streaks on front of legs or toes. Females definitely have a very visible dark streak down the front of both legs and tops of all toes.

Your next chick head shot also appears to have wide male white splashing rather than a tight white head spot that a female would have.

Chick 3 can't tell much by blurred photo of feet. Chicks move so much it's hard to get clear pics of the little buggers.

And Dom chicks are very human-friendly to the point that you can't leave a room without them screaming for you to come back! After a week in the kiddie pool our Doms would no longer stay in it. We took off the bird netting on top of the pool and just let them run around the kitchen. For a little while they jumped back in the pool to sleep but later picked other spots in the kitchen to slumber. They grew so extremely fast too!

Poor camera pics but shows the smaller white head spots and dark feet/toes of females:

5 days old -- notice the much smaller white head spot on females and dark streaks on legs
View attachment 3751413
View attachment 3751418View attachment 3751419View attachment 3751420
View attachment 3751422View attachment 3751423

Chicks at 1-months-old -- dark front leg streak still visible - head spot disappearing
View attachment 3751428

Sleepy time in the kitchen Swiffer basket
View attachment 3751429

Almost 2-months old -- dark leg/toe streaks still visible and black band on beak prominent
View attachment 3751430

Hope my poor pics helped a little. I'd love to know the gender you identified your chicks as either males or females to see how we did in sexing them?

At this age you can sex these birds by their plumage. They are all females.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

You're right, I have not. But I had a dozen or so, about 50/50 M/F. All the F were very dark and all the M were about 50% lighter due to the extra white barring in the males. If I'm not mistaken, Barred Plymouth Rocks show this extra white barring also? Shrug. That's how I id'd my cockerels anyway. Is this not an accurate method?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

The extra wider white splashing on head and back of neck on Dom male chicks is a good indication it is a male but once in a great while a female has extra white splashing so also using the dark leg/toes method usually confirms female.

Although male and female chicks have dark spots on their top beak, a female's strip/tip will be clearer marked and not scattered. I always id'd my female chicks by all 3 features -- smaller tighter white head spot, darker beak strip, and the confirming feature was dark front legs/toe tops. This always worked for true Doms -- have no idea how this method would work on mixed Dom breeds. And as always a breeder will say there ARE exceptions to every accepted rule,

You probably had an easy job of id'ing Dom males as "lighter" because from above males' white splashing is so wide they just look lighter from the females cuz females have tighter much smaller white skull spot making them look darker than male chicks.

My female Dom chicks barely had a clear white spot but I also used the beaks and legs/toes to add to my final id. Just more white coloring is not enough to make positive id -- might be a good guess but not true confirmation and most breeders need to know up front how many males/females they have at hatch by using all 3 features. A lot of hatcheries just vent sex to be positive -- but not a method that can be used on delicate tiny bantam breeds.

BTW how did Doms work for you? Ours were about 5-1/2 lbs hens with small/med eggs and not every-day egg-laying. We didn't need lots of eggs for two of us, we don't use our birds for meat, plus we wanted friendly non-combative hens and Doms fit our need. Besides Blue Breda, Doms are people-friendly, love to chitter-chatter and talk back and forth with us, good flock temperament, have a lot of energy, and our remaining old Dom thinks she's a lap dog. Because she's older she's not in perfect coloration any more but we love her.
View attachment 3751697

I was not talking about id'ing my Doms as chicks but as adults. My first comment in this thread was in response to adult plumage, not chicks. By the time the birds are fully feathered it seems to me one no longer needs to look at subtle cues such as leg stripe, head spot and beak tips; the plumage coloration makes sexing patently obvious. IMO. Anyway, we enjoyed our Doms, and they did fit in well with our other breeds, which included EE and BA as well as I can remember. No drama in our flock, ever, I can only remember one incident of bullying and I think it was an older EE that resented a new group of younger birds moving into the hen house. I could not tell you who is the head hen, ever. Everybody is very chill. At the moment I have one SS that is very impatient with ME at treat time, but she's not bossy in the flock.

 

[Karstcast]

Dunghill fowl means all the above. In the old times they did not buy chicken feed for barnyard birds, rather they scavenged through dung hills (manure of cows, horses) and picked out half digested grain. Thus the term dunghill fowl was not a complement; and it was applied to any other lackluster fowl, like one which would not fight. It’s all the same term and the same meaning of the term. Whew.