Show off your Delawares! *PIC HEAVY*

[walkswithdog]

Nifty pictures you all!!! Thanks. I'm going to be ashamed to take pics of mine, they're covered in red clay (wet muddy or snow and ice, then mud and slush and ice, then mud again) and since being introduced to the main flock and guineas they've a ton of feather damage and half/tail feathers. WW3 here until they all learn to get along. Fortunately there are enough babies, no one chick gets any major damage. Just lots of end of feathers missing. Sigh. Guineas and turkeys can be such ------- (fill in the blank with something the editor would change to a nice word). LOL Wind Birds...

We thought Algernon would throw a LOT of color. The question NOW on my mind is, is that too much color? Wait til you see. Though to the hatchery hens, there is still a lot of color lacking in those, so I may just pursue the over smuttness and sort it out once I'm getting UNIFORM color from the keeper pullets/hens. Wait a couple or three generations before culling for too much color I think. I may take the camera out on Sunday if the weather will hold.

I hate the weather this last six months... sigh... go away cold and wet.

Hugs, Cher

 

[joletabey]

Cher, I can't wait to see yours- red clay or no red clay -

Cynthia, thanks for adding that- I have been staring at the hackle feathers on the roos and trying to figure things out- Buckshot's comb changed, some more points came in.

I have one pullet with very little color on the hackle feathers, but her body type is great - it's a lot of fun to watch them change and wonder which are going to be the breeding stock.

My slobby darlings were tipping over the chick feeders the last couple of days - so I sang a verse of "Your feets too big" and bought a big kid feeder, which I hung this morning. The Dels took to it like they knew exactly what it was - Ultrasuede, however, stalked it and gave it the Orp stink eye, refusing to eat out of it. So I put in two little bowls of feed - on in each corner. That appears to be an acceptable switch.

BTW, Orp stink eye is MUCH worse than Delaware stink eye. . . . or is it just the inherited special Suede stink eye?

 

[Germaine_11.20]

That was good to know about the guinea and Turkeys Cher, thanks. I was thinking of both to get here becaues we have hawks and grasshoppers and read that they could help with that. I think I will hold on those now.

And I was just thinking of starting a "how many days til Spring" thread in Random Ramblings. I thought I hated the cold until it thawed the other day and everyone of the chickens were covered in mud and me too. I might as well skate in it out to the coop.
The DH put in 7 faucets around the property last fall and we have no grass out there, just mud. Oh well, nothin to do about it now!

Joletabey--orp stink eye worse? I don't think so. I love my big boy. But he looks at me odd. I swear he is an old person in that chicken body. He looks at me as though I was a child and he just puts up with me--that look that makes me feel like I am about six years old and did something wrong. So what do you call that look?

 

[speckledhen]

Because the Dels change so dang much from hatch to maturity, you just have to keep an eye on them. It's not the too much overall smut I worry about as much as the character of the hackle color. You don't want a Columbian look; a bit of lacing is preferable to that. These just take so long in the culling process if you are going toward the Standard.

 

[walkswithdog]

Quote:
Oh, I wouldn't NOT have the turkeys and guineas, ever. It does take them all awhile to get used to new comers but as a group they're much safer than they were before I had them all. Sure youngins loose some feathers and get chased but that's the nature of pecking orders. It sorts out in the end. There are spats and beatings and then they all settle down til I dump another group out there. Which should happen again in about four weeks with the sizzles. LOL. And then it'll be the Dels and the established flock, kicking some new-kid-on-the-block tail feathers.

It all balances out. They're supposed to be tough, they'll manage.

It keeps the stinker roos and cockerals humble, and that's not a bad thing.

 

[speckledhen]

My guineas hated red chickens and the rooster. They never bothered any other chickens; in fact, the hens usually broke up fusses between the guineas and chased them off. The RIR hens were hounded by them, though. I rehomed them, but dang, they were funny!

 

[walkswithdog]

Quote:
The couple I have with solid columbian markings are going in the Rock/layer pen, or getting culled this year (gosh they lay pretty eggs). The minorly marked hatchery birds threw some odd and interesting juvenille feathering, kind of almost barred partridge. Funky. I'll see how they mature out. I'm going to give this whole new generation at least six months to feather and develop, probably eight or ten months. They just change so darn much. Of course I'll be tossing out all the sprig bearing birds, solid hackles and hens whose wings show that reddish tinting from the hatchery birds when mature but there's already a small group that looks like solid improvement. And NO greenish legs in this generation anywhere - yay.

 

[MTtroutwithwings]

Wow, great pics! I swear though, I don't have Dels but by the look of these pics I'm going to "look a likes" from my recent hatch of BR/pearl leghorn cross hatchlings. They're only three weeks but so far, they're yellow with black spotting on they wings.

 

[MTtroutwithwings]

Quote:
My guineas have becoming troublesome too. They've been harassing my wood ducks and mallards. Looking to relocate them as well.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

Touchy subject but what do most of you do with your young culls? And how much should I charge for the young Dels who won't make the cut? I would like to try and sell them before they become dinner.