Kraienkoeppe Thread!

[mcrooke45]

My BBRs are the ones that start the sparing matches. I have had to move mine out of the pen several times because of their fighting. My silver cockerels are not as bad but like you said, my pullets sometime start sparring matches with each other. I have a black langshan cockerel in the pen that is larger than the rest and he puts a stop to the fighting before it gets out of hands. It is funny to watch. They are the same age and the langshan is twice the size of the kraienkoppe. The smaller cockerels don't mess with him. The langshan is my daughters pet. It wants to be petted just like a cat and will follow you under your feet to be picked up. My first set of birds are 11 weeks old and I let them out of their coop for the first time yesterday. They went crazy. My daughter came home and freaked out when she saw all the chickens running loose. She put all of them back in the coop. I have one little kraienkoppe pullet that will not grow. I had to seperate her from the rest at an early age because the rest picked at her. I have some black sumatra bantams that I hatched out that are a month younger than her. She grew up with them and the sumatra bantams are larger than she is now. I quess I might have a start at a bantam kraienkoppe with her.

 

[DTchickens]

My BBRs are the ones that start the sparing matches. I have had to move mine out of the pen several times because of their fighting. My silver cockerels are not as bad but like you said, my pullets sometime start sparring matches with each other. I have a black langshan cockerel in the pen that is larger than the rest and he puts a stop to the fighting before it gets out of hands. It is funny to watch. They are the same age and the langshan is twice the size of the kraienkoppe. The smaller cockerels don't mess with him. The langshan is my daughters pet. It wants to be petted just like a cat and will follow you under your feet to be picked up. My first set of birds are 11 weeks old and I let them out of their coop for the first time yesterday. They went crazy. My daughter came home and freaked out when she saw all the chickens running loose. She put all of them back in the coop. I have one little kraienkoppe pullet that will not grow. I had to seperate her from the rest at an early age because the rest picked at her. I have some black sumatra bantams that I hatched out that are a month younger than her. She grew up with them and the sumatra bantams are larger than she is now. I quess I might have a start at a bantam kraienkoppe with her.

I see, do you think perhaps, that Ideal added the Malay blood only to the BBred fowl? Making them a little more aggressive, as well as larger, than the silver Kraienkoeppe?

As for the small hen: Sounds like it would be quite interesting, I think I have a small one or two (which I believe is also a pullet) and honestly had never given developing a zwerg(bantam) Kraienkoeppe much thought; I have just been developing plans to increase their size.

By the way, do you plan to keep the broody characteristic in your birds or do you intend to breed along the Dutch lines of non-broodiness? I personally have dealt with incubators and have a styrofoam incubator that I don't even use anymore, and don't plan to. Last year due to storms, temperature fluctuations, and so on I just had a difficult time raising chicks in it and now I have less time available to keep watch over it.

This year, and I plan to in the future, I have just been hen-setting eggs and for that purpose I have debated keeping the broody trait in my fowl. I am one who wants to breed towards the Dutch standard, but this one thing I differ on; I suppose I could justify it to myself as "They would have originally been broody!"

.

I've also been debating if I want to stray from the typical BBred/Silver Duckwing colors. Maybe start a strain of wheatens (or whites) eventually or Spangled Wheatens (as my Whitehackle fowl are, and both genes seem to be in the Kraienkoeppe). As of now though, I just plan on breeding the BBreds so I can put most of my focus on them and not be overwhelmed with so many projects.

God bless,
Daniel.

 

[mcrooke45]

Daniel, here are some pics on the legs of my BBR.



They are actually longer than the pictures show. They will not stay still long enough to get any good shots.

Mark

 

[DTchickens]

Daniel, here are some pics on the legs of my BBR.



They are actually longer than the pictures show. They will not stay still long enough to get any good shots.

Mark

They are some fine looking birds, bright yellow legs and I don't see any red striping either. So far none of mine show it, I wasn't sure when it should show up so I compared to the Leghorns which already have it (mine are about 8 weeks old now).

I've also noticed that though a bird may have white legs as a chick it can change, earlier I counted that I had one white legged bird; now they're all solid yellow.

God bless,
Daniel.

 

[mcrooke45]

It has not been a good week. I lost my hook beak BBR cockerel and my tiny silver pullet. The cockerel got out in a storm and got soaked and chilled. The tiny silver pullet kept acting like she was hot or gasping for breath.
Mark

 

[mcrooke45]

I see, do you think perhaps, that Ideal added the Malay blood only to the BBred fowl? Making them a little more aggressive, as well as larger, than the silver Kraienkoeppe?

As for the small hen: Sounds like it would be quite interesting, I think I have a small one or two (which I believe is also a pullet) and honestly had never given developing a zwerg(bantam) Kraienkoeppe much thought; I have just been developing plans to increase their size.

By the way, do you plan to keep the broody characteristic in your birds or do you intend to breed along the Dutch lines of non-broodiness? I personally have dealt with incubators and have a styrofoam incubator that I don't even use anymore, and don't plan to. Last year due to storms, temperature fluctuations, and so on I just had a difficult time raising chicks in it and now I have less time available to keep watch over it.

This year, and I plan to in the future, I have just been hen-setting eggs and for that purpose I have debated keeping the broody trait in my fowl. I am one who wants to breed towards the Dutch standard, but this one thing I differ on; I suppose I could justify it to myself as "They would have originally been broody!"

.

I've also been debating if I want to stray from the typical BBred/Silver Duckwing colors. Maybe start a strain of wheatens (or whites) eventually or Spangled Wheatens (as my Whitehackle fowl are, and both genes seem to be in the Kraienkoeppe). As of now though, I just plan on breeding the BBreds so I can put most of my focus on them and not be overwhelmed with so many projects.

God bless,
Daniel.

Daniel,
I thought about developing a spangled color too out of mine. As for the white color, Springfeild Preservation Center has these already if you would like to order them.
I th

 

[DTchickens]

Sorry to hear about your birds Mcrooke, I believe I know the bird you are talking about and if so I thought he was a very good bird in the photos. On the whites: I may pick up some from them one day if I decide to get into the whites, I already plan to buy their reds; but before I go to them I want to get in touch with Craig Russell, he raises all three varieties if I recall correctly.

 

[mcrooke45]

One of my silver pullets is very aggressive. She deffinatly rules the roost. She hates my silver pheonix pullets and picks on them alot. The young cockerels don't even mess with her. One of my bbr cockerels came by thier pen and she even tryed to attack him through the wire fence. She has always disliked the bbr cockerels.

 

[BennieLangdon]

 

[DTchickens]

One of my silver pullets is very aggressive. She deffinatly rules the roost. She hates my silver pheonix pullets and picks on them alot. The young cockerels don't even mess with her. One of my bbr cockerels came by thier pen and she even tryed to attack him through the wire fence. She has always disliked the bbr cockerels.

Interesting. My hens have mellowed out, they actually seem to already be squatting for the young cockerels (or you when you grab them). I'm wondering if I will be able to get a good pick of birds, I've got my eye on some but seems like the majority have white ears. Some are very difficult to tell as they all have small earlobes and are rather pale in that region, I guess time will tell.

The obvious culls (pea combed cockerels, only had two pea combed cockerels) I turned out to save on feed consumption and I am curious as to how well they can free range compared to the games which are about the same age free ranging. The cockerels tend to be more aggressive towards each other I noticed than they are other breeds; the Leghorns can even run them off and they don't even mess with the games their size and bigger (noticed they can sometimes be bullies to very young chicks) but they'll fight each other for a little while until one runs the other off.

A lot of them are gentling down some as well, I noticed when out on the free range they are somewhat calmer. The same cockerels that minutes prior wanted nothing to do with you once tuned out to free range walk all around you and I even caught one about twice. But, still not quite a gentle as they should be.