Australorp Males: Who to keep/cull

[Chipmunk Chicks]

I am culling today and these are my top five possible keepers. They were not all hatched on the same day, between about 16 to almost 20 weeks. Same dame/sire.

Looking for unbiased feedback based on breed standards and overall good looking birds.
Thanks!

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

I can provide more pictures as well.

 

[Chive]

Are you mostly just trying to pick them based off of the Standard?
I'm not too educated in breeding to the standard, but I have been putting a lot of effort in to learn about breeding to the standard and trying to improve my knowledge. I hope that I can help a little!

The only thing that I can see that stands out to me is that #green seems to have a smaller comb than the breed should carry. Other than that, they all have the correct eye, feather, and foot color.
None of them should carry any positive white on their surface plumage.
I think that #yellow is the best looking out of the bunch. He is absolutely gorgeous. He has good form, looks like he's a decent size, and holds his tail at a really good angle.
#Blue has some nice plumage. It seems that #black and #white are younger, as they are both still growing in some of their feathers.
#Black looks like he is the biggest, no? I like to keep bigger birds, since I have found that now a days most birds are smaller than they should be (or at least used to be when they wrote the standard or when they first created the specific breed).

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

Are you mostly just trying to pick them based off of the Standard?
I'm not too educated in breeding to the standard, but I have been putting a lot of effort in to learn about breeding to the standard and trying to improve my knowledge. I hope that I can help a little!

The only thing that I can see that stands out to me is that #green seems to have a smaller comb than the breed should carry. Other than that, they all have the correct eye, feather, and foot color.
None of them should carry any positive white on their surface plumage.
I think that #yellow is the best looking out of the bunch. He is absolutely gorgeous. He has good form, looks like he's a decent size, and holds his tail at a really good angle.
#Blue has some nice plumage. It seems that #black and #white are younger, as they are both still growing in some of their feathers.
#Black looks like he is the biggest, no? I like to keep bigger birds, since I have found that now a days most birds are smaller than they should be (or at least used to be when they wrote the standard or when they first created the specific breed).

Thank you for the feedback! So black is actually the oldest. He was the first and only male from the first hatch of three chicks. He was a gorgeous chick and nice temperament and he has grown up with all the other chickens in the coop.

White was the largest from the next hatch a couple weeks later, and he rose as the alpha over all the other cockerels in the pen. He was also placed in the coop soon after Black.

White, Yellow, and Blue are all from the same hatch, so they are the exact same age. I think Yellow and Blue are both gorgeous birds, But they do have very different body types. I think Yellow looks an awful lot like Papa!!! But both Black and Yellow are shorter and wider, where Blue and White are carrying taller, I think.

The sire is an excellent SOP bred rooster, and the dame is my favorite hen from my original flock, so I really haven't had any issues in terms of just fitting the basic breed standard. But I'm just getting started so it's hard to know without the experience what else I should be selecting for.

Ideally, they would have only five or six points to the comb but up to seven is acceptable. ETA As I'm looking at white, his comb is looking all wonky donkey to me, and I'm not sure how important that is to select for right away, since he's also the biggest overall.

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

https://www.poultryshowcentral.com/Culling_Australorps.html

This article provides a bit of a guideline.

 

[CloneFly]

I think Blue and Black would be good choices to keep. Blue is absolutely gorgeous and would sire high quality chicks while Black would likely provide friendlier offspring (if that's a goal of yours)

 

[Logar]

I personally think Yellow is the best overall. He is absolutely gorgeous. But I would also make sure he has a good temperament. A roo is only as good as his attitude.

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

I personally think Yellow is the best overall. He is absolutely gorgeous. But I would also make sure he has a good temperament. A roo is only as good as his attitude.

Thank you, yes I've been partial to him too, and you can see why I didn't want to let him go! I think they all are very nice boys. I haven't had any trouble with him, or with Big Papa. I have found my Australorp roosters to have such wonderful temperaments! To where it makes me fall in love with the breed even more, bc you do hear such horror stories sometimes.

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

I think Blue and Black would be good choices to keep. Blue is absolutely gorgeous and would sire high quality chicks while Black would likely provide friendlier offspring (if that's a goal of yours)

Thank you! Yes, I love both birds for different reasons. It's really something how different all these birds can be, even from the same crossing! It's been neat to see how Big Papa and White run the show, while Black just quietly chills with the ladies. Lol Literally zero drama even in a not-that-big coop with three males.

 

[Amer]

I'm partial to Green. He has excellent length and depth and doesn't carry his tail too high. Yes, his comb is a little small but at least it is neat. He looks a bit younger than the others, is that right? Considering he looks that nice at that age, he's quite good. I'm sure his comb will grow.
Blue is too short and his tail is too high.
Now Yellow has beautiful plumage, but look at that wing. He should be carrying it more horizontally.
White looks good but it's hard to tell because the photo is being taken at a different angle. His breast looks very shallow from this angle and is his tail correct or would it be too high in profile? His comb serrations are irregular but it's not too bad. Australorps should have dark brown eyes. Are his lighter than the others or is it simply because he is in the sunlight?