4 Generations

[I Love Layers]

Today while laying in bed I was thinking about my chickens, and I all of a sudden thought "Wow in the last 2 years that I've had chickens I already have up to 3 generations!"

So here's pictures of my 3 generation chicken family


This is Delilah

In September of 2014 all started when my first rooster, Ralph who was a Buff Chantecler, bred my hen Delilah who is a Partridge Chantecler. Delilah hid under a wheelbarrow, I thought she had been eaten. When the chicks started to hatch i heard them so we put hay and a kennel in the barn. She hatched out 8 chicks in there. Shortly before the chicks had hatched Ralph had drowned, so i went looking for another rooster.

As these chicks grew up i got rid of them, 4 happened to be roosters the other 4 hens. I kept just one who i had named RJ(Ralph Junior).

RJ quickly fought off the rooster I had bought after his fathers death and became the boss around the coop.
So that is the 2nd Generation.

On November 6, 2015 I heard peeping outside the coop, so I ran outside and I saw 8 chicks of all different colors and shapes, some looked like EEs others were yellow some were brown and big and small. Knowing that if they had been out here in -40F some probably wouldn't make it through the night due to hypothermia. So I gathered them in my bomber hat and took them inside the coop, there I showed them to every hen. Finally I got to a White Californian who had a frostbitten comb and looked small, and was dirty. She clucked so I figured she was the mom. I set up the cage and put the chicks in, only 3 made it through the night.
This is the 3rd Generation
This is them grown up, I ended up selling one which I now regret

Iggy

Buckbeak

Persephone

Sometime in April I forgot to look underneath Delilah while she was broody in the nest boxes, and she hatched out 2 eggs. The ironic thing is that she's the one who started it all, and RJ and Buckbeak are their father!
One is a Black Sex Link x Chantecler
The other is an Easter Egger x Chantecler

Sadly because of what I want to do in the chicken world I am going to have to sell Iggy the white rooster... And if any of the most recent chicks are roosters I will have to sell them too..

 

[rebrascora]

Hi

I really love your story but I'm not sure you have 4 generations yet. I only count 3. Those last 2 chicks are only 3rd generation, since their only link to the original parents is that RJ (2nd generation) is their father. And even if Delilah was their mother biological mother instead of the black sex link and the EE, that wouldn't change it, as she is 1st generation. Sorry to rain on your parade

but I'm a stickler for accuracy.

Good luck finding a home for Iggy. He is very fine looking!

I keep thinking I'm onto 4th generation too but then I have to remind myself that it's all about biological mothers rather than surrogate mothers and then I get confused about which broody's chicks are from which hens eggs(they have hatched 45 chicks this year and 28 last year) and having several cockerels running around the place, which are also of different generations, confuses the issue further. I think may actually still be at 3rd generation level too.

 

[I Love Layers]

Hi

I really love your story but I'm not sure you have 4 generations yet. I only count 3. Those last 2 chicks are only 3rd generation, since their only link to the original parents is that RJ (2nd generation) is their father. And even if Delilah was their mother biological mother instead of the black sex link and the EE, that wouldn't change it, as she is 1st generation. Sorry to rain on your parade  but I'm a stickler for accuracy.

Good luck finding a home for Iggy. He is very fine looking!

I keep thinking I'm onto 4th generation too but then I have to remind myself that it's all about biological mothers rather than surrogate mothers and then I get confused about which broody's chicks are from which hens eggs(they have hatched 45 chicks this year and 28 last year) and having several cockerels running around the place, which are also of different generations, confuses the issue further. I think may actually still be at 3rd generation level too.  

Thank you I will change that!