Java Thread

[bnjrob]

Same problem here. Most of my birds had some degree of yellow in their soles as chicks, and have lost the yellow as they aged.

I am grateful for wing tags. This is my first year with chicks from my own breeding pairs. I have been wing-tagging them when they are a few days old, and making notes about skin color and sole color. That history has been valuable. A dog killed all of my promising potential breeders this year. I am left with mediocrity. Despite the white-looking soles of the remaining birds, I know most of them showed some yellow in their soles when they were chicks. So I know there is some yellow in their genetic makeup and I can probably use a couple of them in a breeding program without losing that trait entirely.

I did notice that the young chicks with yellow in their soles also had yellowish combs, and the young chicks with pink soles (no yellow) had pink combs. That seemed to hold for the first week or two, until the faster-developing chicks started to grow out their combs and wattles. It is my understanding, possibly wrong, that the yellow skin gene is the same gene driving the yellow in the sole. Not sure if I am blowing smoke or not, but it seems to make sense that a young, yellow-skinned chick would have a yellow-tinted comb. I'm wondering if comb color in 1-5 day old chicks would be a reliable way of telling if a bird has that yellow-sole gene, even if the yellow in the soles is really faint? In my young chicks it was easier to tell comb color than foot color. I will have to pay more attention to this in the future, to see if there is a correlation. Has anyone else tried to use comb color in 1-5 day old black java chicks to make decisions about sole color and possible culling? Does this make any sense at all?

I have been using marigold petals sprinkled on their feed for a few months. Haven't noticed a difference. Probably not using enough to have an effect. Will probably stop when I run out of petals. A pound of marigold petals is expensive, even if it does go a long way.

Now that is interesting. I had not paid much attention to the pink comb/yellow comb thing. But I hatch more Mottleds than Blacks and I don't have as many problems with pink feet in the Mottleds as I do the Blacks either. But our Mottleds with darker coloring, especially my project birds, have more pink feet issues than the rest of the Mottleds seem to have.

I've got a dozen Black chicks that I hatched about a week and half ago and I was looking at them and thinking that I should band a few of them now so I could watch them as they grow. There are a few that have a lot more black on them than the others, and I'm thinking that either those are going to turn out to have dark eyes and be closer to what a Black should be, or they are going to be carrying the other genes that caused non-standard feather coloring to show up.

So now I'm gonna have to watch and see about this color of comb thing and see how that works out. Another thing to do.

Yes, I looked at getting marigold petals and they are not cheap. Between having multiple bloodlines and multiple colors, we've got a ton of birds and it would cost me a fortune to buy marigold petals for all of them. The hubby told me to just grow my own which I may start doing since we already garden.

Did you end up with enough birds left to be able to hatch in the spring?

 

[mottledjavafowl]

Looking forward to seeing these chicks grow out.

 

[luvnjavas]

I researched the Calendula Marigold and combed thru herbal suppliers until I found Organic Marigold Petals of that variety. I placed an order for 2 ounces as well as some alfalfa pellets from my local supply company. We will see how this goes and keep you guys posted on how things develop. Thanks so much!!

 

[luvnjavas]

What beauties!! Where did you get your original birds?

 

[luvnjavas]

Is there any way you could scan and email me a copy of that literature? Or share it here? I love the practices of the earlier generations. Most times they are dead on, and can save a lot of money by providing natural remedies to issues that they the giant Consumer Industry wants us to accept and pay top dollar for---- yet our poultry today seems significantly less healthy overall (not private hatcheries).

 

[bnjrob]

Is there any way you could scan and email me a copy of that literature? Or share it here? I love the practices of the earlier generations. Most times they are dead on, and can save a lot of money by providing natural remedies to issues that they the giant Consumer Industry wants us to accept and pay top dollar for---- yet our poultry today seems significantly less healthy overall (not private hatcheries).

Honestly, I couldn't even tell you which book it is in right now. I do a ton of research in antique literature and have been, and still am, collecting Java specific info. I have collected a lot and there is still more out there that I have not yet searched. Just happened to come across a little anecdote about leg color in adults and juveniles again while I was working on a project to turn the info I have already collected into a format that can be put up on our farm website. Am hoping that by putting up some of this old info about chickens, and specifically Javas, that it will help get more folks interested in keeping them and raising them for preservation. My goal is to try to have at least a few things up on our website by the end of the year and keep adding as I have the time to format the information, as well as continue searching for more info. There is a wealth of info out there that is just not getting passed around.

 

[mottledjavafowl]

What beauties!! Where did you get your original birds?

I hatched these Mottled Java chicks from eggs I got off ebay. The lady I received them from told me that she got her start of Mottled Javas a few years ago & that they are descendants of the Dr. Albert McGraw line.

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
Some of that "non-standard" coloring may be necessary for maintaining a glossy beetle green sheen. Last winter I hatched several birds from pairings between dark birds and birds with some "non-standard" coloring (reddish bay eyes, grey or white undercolor, and/or an occasional auburn hackle feather). Several of those chicks turned out to have spectacular black feathers with a tremendous beetle green sheen. The catch is I didn't have enough numbers to be sure that wasn't a coincidence. Was hoping to repeat the crosses next spring, but all of my darker birds have been exterminated by the rampaging neighborhood dogs. It is possible I could pull some black genes out of the mediocrity that remains, but it would take hatching more chicks than I can raise and more years than I have left. I wanted to keep Urch's line separate and I may still do that. But I am going to have to import birds if I am going to make any progress in my lifetime.

I plan to buy a trio from a friend of mine who has black javas. He does not remember where he got his original stock. It was a hatchery. He has been working with his birds for several years now and some of them have placed well in our local shows. I asked him to pick me out the best trio he could afford to give up. I plan on hatching from that trio, and separately hatching from Urch's line. I will also set up some complementary pairings to cross the lines. Wing tags and good recordkeeping are going to be essential so I don't bungle things into more of a mess than I've got now. It should be interesting.

 

[bnjrob]

Some of that "non-standard" coloring may be necessary for maintaining a glossy beetle green sheen. Last winter I hatched several birds from pairings between dark birds and birds with some "non-standard" coloring (reddish bay eyes, grey or white undercolor, and/or an occasional auburn hackle feather). Several of those chicks turned out to have spectacular black feathers with a tremendous beetle green sheen. The catch is I didn't have enough numbers to be sure that wasn't a coincidence. Was hoping to repeat the crosses next spring, but all of my darker birds have been exterminated by the rampaging neighborhood dogs. It is possible I could pull some black genes out of the mediocrity that remains, but it would take hatching more chicks than I can raise and more years than I have left. I wanted to keep Urch's line separate and I may still do that. But I am going to have to import birds if I am going to make any progress in my lifetime.

I plan to buy a trio from a friend of mine who has black javas. He does not remember where he got his original stock. It was a hatchery. He has been working with his birds for several years now and some of them have placed well in our local shows. I asked him to pick me out the best trio he could afford to give up. I plan on hatching from that trio, and separately hatching from Urch's line. I will also set up some complementary pairings to cross the lines. Wing tags and good recordkeeping are going to be essential so I don't bungle things into more of a mess than I've got now. It should be interesting.

You know, I have seen several times in the literature, the mentions of breeding back the nonstandard colors in periodically to make sure you keep the sheen and don't wind up with a matte black color, but the other day I saw another person say to do it for another reason other than to keep the green sheen......and now it escapes me what the reason he gave for it was. It's the only time remember seeing any reason other than the green sheen as a reason for breeding back in the red feathered birds though - which is annoying since I can't remember the reason. I've been looking at so many Java articles lately they are running together. But it's funny that while these other folks way-back-when said to keep the funky colors to periodically breed back into the flock, some of the APA breeders back then were quite adamant about never breeding from the ones that wind up with the red or "straw" coloring in them. Makes me wonder....which ones were right?

We do keep some of these nonstandard colored birds around - which is another reason why we have so many. The nonstandard coloring is in our Blacks and both bloodlines of our Mottleds. The cock that sired the Black chicks we just hatched is technically nonstandard too. He is black feathered, but he wound up with Crayola crayon metallic gold in his hackles/saddle/wing bows. He's pretty striking to look at with the gold against his highly sheened black feathers.

If you tag and keep track, then you can keep your Urchs and these new birds separate, but then if you need to mix them to improve things that aren't improving in the separate lines, that wouldn't be so bad. That's what we're looking at doing with our two different Mottled bloodlines. Each of our Mottled bloodlines has something better than the other one, so if a few more years of breeding doesn't get us where we want to be, then we'll continue to keep separate, but then also keep a mixed bloodline and see if we can pull the best out of both bloodlines. Which means more housing to build......

 

[mottledjavafowl]

I have pm'd you.  If you are serious about this breed make contact with Java Breeders of America.  You can find the articles bob is mentioning and much much more there.  There isn't anyone I know of, anyone, who knows more about Javas than Polaris Farm in TX.  Reach out to them but be prepared to get a truck load of information

Sounds like these are Reynolds birds.

Hi Ashandvine, can you please give me any information on Mr Reynolds that you have. Around 20 years ago I acquired a very nice Mottled Java breeding flock from Dr Albert McGraw & he told me himself that his Mottled Javas came from a Mr Reynolds out of Missouri. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you Clayton Grace