Here is the brown egg group, all fluffed up. Hatched 14 of 14.
Here is the white egg group. Hatched 6 of 6. The two up front are my typical Spitz-crosses. The other 4 appear to be the Sicilian Buttercup-Spitz crosses I was hoping to get in this hatch
After 3.5 hours, my early bird in the white egg incubator finally got a friend. It’s now 3.5 hours later & they’re still waiting for #3 who has started to zip
The 2 roosters they spend the most time with in the pen are Spitz crosses with likely colored egg genes. I've been letting them all out of their runs to free range during the day, where they meet up with a 3rd Spitz cross and my original Spitz roo. So, if I set any buttercup eggs (which I think...
There are 6 white eggs in the incubator. I'm hoping at least a couple came from my Sicilian Buttercup hens. Here's what they looked like as chicks.
Here is what the Spitzes look like as chicks. This will be my first time *hopefully* seeing a cross between the Spitz and Buttercup.
They are Spitzhauben crosses. I've been working to create Spitz-crosses that lay blue eggs (from Cream Legbar), with a little bigger comb so they handle heat better, keeping the beautiful Spitz crest & gold spangling. The girl just to the right in the front row is a new breed I introduced this...
Sounds like a fun project! Your birds are gorgeous!! I'm hoping to get some chamois spitz chicks this year. If I do, I'm going to give up my silvers for 2025 and focus on gold base colors, with black spangling for my blue layers and white spangling for my white egg layers.
I'm interested in hearing more about your Spitz EE project. Here's something I've been working on: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/breeding-experiments-for-colorful-eggs-from-predator-savvy-clean-leg-chickens-with-fun-combs-and-crests.1507965/post-27545969
This is the first year I got...
No problem with acceptance so far. I started off trying to be sneaky getting them under the hen, but realized the hens aren't keeping track. I have 2 good broodies in the flock who are good at raising chicks, but none of them does well with the incubation for 3 weeks because there are so many...
I typically incubate the majority of eggs that I want broody hens to raise. The hatch/survival rate is much higher. I have had success with putting 1-2 live eggs under the hen at lockdown, and adding the rest as newly hatched chicks. (I always put fake eggs under her until I swap them out)
For Spring 2024 breeding, I have more blue-laying Spitz hybrids than I expected, including 1 that looks so much like a Gold Spitz hen it took me over a week of separating hens one-at-a-time from the white-laying Spitz group to find her!
This is the group where I put the younger roo from my 2023...
From the Spitz-hybrid 2023 breeding group above, I ended up with my best Spitz group yet. Here is my Spring 2024 Spitz breeding pen (all pure white layers)...
The rooster carries 1 silver and 1 gold gene, which is perfect since I only want a few silver spangled hens to see if they can avoid...
It's been a while. Not sure if you're still active @Fancychickens_Norway, but
Here is what my Spitz hybrid breeding pen looked like for Spring 2023....
The older rooster is a purebred Gold Spitz from Cackle Hatchery in 2020. The younger guy on the bale is a 3rd generation hybrid that includes...
This spring, I'm excited to experiment with a few new breeding groups. My 2021 experiments produced so many gorgeous and unique roosters that I've had trouble deciding which ones to give up. Before I let two of them go, I'm letting them produce my first round of fertile hatching eggs to sell...
Here is the formerly ugly, now quite pretty boy this morning..one of the most handsome in the flock. He's about 4.5 months old and is already too savvy for his own good (can't keep him contained anywhere he doesn't want to be) and treats the ladies like royalty...