The Silver Laced Wyandotte Thread

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waddles99 said:
I'm having trouble finding any visuals of the SLW breed standard. would you happen to know where i could find them?
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The APA standard book is an essential. The first 30 or so pages offer great advice to those who own any breed. However there are older standards available online that contain SLW and photos of the ideal bird
 
forgetful said:








Here are some photos I keep saved on my phone. I can pull them up while sitting in the yard watching birds.
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Thank you for the visuals. I went to the site that i saw on the top and searched up american standard of perfection and found the full book. Very informative. It was a bit dated as it was missing a few breeds, but still very good. Thanks for that!
 
There are so many things to cull for to try to get the best birds. I hope I can explain what I wondering. My questions for everyone is when going through your birds to pick the best ones what is the order of things you look for? This is hard for me to explain what I mean. What is the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, reason you cull is leg color, comb shape (other than an obvious straight comb), body shape, head size, lacing, etc. I have the book from Foley and the APA Standard Book but they do not say in what order do you cull for or what to keep because it can be bred out.
 
sdelfe said:
There are so many things to cull for to try to get the best birds. I hope I can explain what I wondering. My questions for everyone is when going through your birds to pick the best ones what is the order of things you look for? This is hard for me to explain what I mean. What is the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, reason you cull is leg color, comb shape (other than an obvious straight comb), body shape, head size, lacing, etc. I have the book from Foley and the APA Standard Book but they do not say in what order do you cull for or what to keep because it can be bred out.
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This depends on the quality of your birds. As a very general guideline, cull for disqualifications first. Single combs, feathers on legs, duck foot, wry or squirrel tail.

Look then at temperament. No aggressive cockerels out for blood, or continuously broody hens. I want a calm bird that lays well and will occasionally brood chicks.

Then focus on body. Is their body type right, do they have the right length and slope of back, depth to their chest, good width from the front to tail. You obviously can't cull for every single trait every time, so pick a trait to focus on and cull hard for it. Work with the biggest problems first then the smaller in the next generations. After you focus on body, move to head and legs. Not comb, but the shape of the head. No crow headed birds. You want a wide skull. Get well spaced, strong legs with correct feet, and thighs that aren't loosely fluffed like a Cochin, but have moderate tightness to them.

Check your tails and wings. You want a nice teepee tail with hard feathering. Wings should be held horizontally and feathers should not be missing. No split wing or incorrectly overlapping feathers.

From there move on to color. This is not to say you completely ignore color in favor of type, and let legs be green or horrible color traits pop up, but you are not putting the same selective pressure early in the game on color. Don't use a bird with color that is much worse than the previous generation, or you'll be fighting that for years. The same goes for type. Don't use a bird with terrible low set tail just because it has good wing carriage. Either go for the overall best bird, or pick birds that are strong in areas that are needed and slightly weak in areas that can be offset with a good breeding season.
 
As an example, in my own birds I am focusing heavily on leg color this year. I feel they have decent type and that the leg color is the biggest issue. So I will pick birds that have better leg color, and at the minimum are the same quality in type as their parents. I won't sacrifice type for color
 

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