Oregon

[rlh1]

I am gonna be raising LF Faverolles for my meat chickens. Docile and large with a lot of meat yield. Breeding Silkies for pets and showing. Gonna work on Blue Wheaten Marans Project to get it recognized.

I may look you up for a Faverolles. I'm just interested in pets at this point and I LOVE the way they look. Maybe once I get some land up there and get settled I'll play around with the idea of breading.

 

[OR4-hmom]

I have no objection to paying for quality show birds if we (DD & I), could do them justice. It is 4 hours drive to Portland, we went to the Red Bluff, CA show 5.5 hours from us. Being this far south it is rough to locate shows that don't involve a 3 day trip. I'm not set up to travel with birds and 3 big dogs, DH gets his nose out of joint also.

 

[Lorilyn Farms]

I do only the D'uccle for show. Everything else is just a backyard chicken for egg production for my neighbors. I do have a color project going. it's bringing the lemon coloration to the d'uccles. Here is the color I'm striving for, and what is currently in the d'uccles at present. The bright yellow roo is a 1st gen cross, so it needs to go back a few more times to get my d'uccles back to SOP. But here they are.

these are badly faded buffs, all breeds. I'm trying for a non-fading buff, as well as the lemon.




this is a beautiful, non-fading buff.



This is the lemon factor...



lemon roo with faded buff

all lemons, with a silver dun

comparison shot

more lemons with the non fading color. The light one isn't faded, just has a high degree of white mixed in. t\This is him as a baby, very bright yellow, even as a chick!







more comparisons

my lemons with reg mille fleurs.

 

[rlh1]

Very interesting. And pretty!i love learning new things about chickens but most of the color genetics confuse me. Although, I haven't really worked very hard trying to understand it, since I can't do any breeding right now anyway. But someday! I will be picking everyone's brains for info.

 

[Tammy N]

Asked in Washington thread too, but want to get my friends across the river's thoughts too. Lately I've been pondering what breeds and varieties are most desirable to the backyard/homesteading/pet chicken folk? I've made no secret that I'm a show person with a huge interest in maintaining high production qualities, but that often leads to a disconnect with the strictly backyard/homestead/pet folks. No agenda here, just have had more time than usual to think due to surgery recovery keepin me inactive, so hoping for some honest answers and discussion.

I have show brahmas they are amazing and we need more breeders .

 

[Lorilyn Farms]

Do they have turkeys at shows? I know they weigh a ton and so it is difficult to bring them, but after recieving over half of my turkey poults with split wing, I'm thinking some of these hatcheries that claim to be heritage, need to work on their quality.

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

I don't know a lot about what happened with Farwest, but what I do know is this...

One of his huge 15,000 egg incubators fried a ton of eggs this year and completely screwed up his ability to fill orders, and he shut the doors.

He is currently working with a lady that I do NOT trust, who is trying to buy up birds from anyone she can, to supply eggs for the hatchery, so he can reopen next season.

That is very good information, if rather sad. I'd love to see a local business succeed with quality product and service. It would be great to have that resource within driving distance. But ... a lot of damage could be done with bad product.

Is there a hatchery in the area you'd trust?

Nope. I never recommend people buy from hatcheries. They breed for quantity, not quality. It costs exactly the same to feed a quality bird that is a good representation of the breed you want, as it does to feed a hatchery bird that may not even resemble the breed it's supposed to be.

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

Do they have turkeys at shows? I know they weigh a ton and so it is difficult to bring them, but after recieving over half of my turkey poults with split wing, I'm thinking some of these hatcheries that claim to be heritage, need to work on their quality.

Hatcheries don't care about quality. They never will. They don't cull for faults, they breed for production. Period. The more birds they crank out, the more money they make. If you want good quality stock, you simply have to buy from a breeder that cares about the birds and the standards.

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

And yes, some people do show turkeys, but there aren't usually very many at the shows.

 

[Karenmyrrh]

Asked in Washington thread too, but want to get my friends across the river's thoughts too. Lately I've been pondering what breeds and varieties are most desirable to the backyard/homesteading/pet chicken folk? I've made no secret that I'm a show person with a huge interest in maintaining high production qualities, but that often leads to a disconnect with the strictly backyard/homestead/pet folks. No agenda here, just have had more time than usual to think due to surgery recovery keepin me inactive, so hoping for some honest answers and discussion.

I have 6 chickens in my back yard. I wanted pets. So nothing fancy or for show. I researched quiet and docile since I have very small kids. I wanted them a different breeds too. So that was my consideration. My next flock may be more heritage birds since I can see the beauty in those breeds now.