B.Y.C. Dorking Club!

[ki4got]

I am also interested in this 13 wk point. I dont think dorkings were ever used for production in the modern sense that we think of now a days as YHF mentions, by commercial or production I meant small farm. I know some older folks that I have met who remember small mixed farms ranging dorkings on pasture for eventual sale as meat birds, but that is in a totally different realm than even the pasture raised poultry of today. Most of these people I am referring to were basically subsistence farmers so they were not even supplementally feeding the birds with grains or planting special forage crops for them, so even today's pasture raising methods are a entirely different deal than in the 20's or 30's.

you mean i'm supposed to plant crops for my free ranged birds, and feed them to boot?

well, i do toss a scoop of grain for them in the morning, and they have a feeder in the coop in case i sleep in... but i'll be darned if i'm going to plant them a garden, when i don't plant myself one to begin with. LOL

picked up 3 girls today, 2 dark dorkings (i think) and one that's dark dark brown, almost black with pale straw shafts on about 1/3-1/2 of her body. they're all a bit rough, and it was getting dark when i got them in their new coop, so i'll see about getting pics soon. one girl is mostly bald due to agressive coop-mates, and another had an over-eager roo, so she's partly bald too LOL the darkest girl though, has grey legs, so i'm wondering about her being a dorking, or pure at least. tho she came from sand hill last april i'm told.

 

[ronott1]

This is a picture of Kim's(CapayValleyChick) SG Dorkings I hatched for her. This is the hatch she posted about where the electricity was off from 9-3 one day to replace a power transformer. All eleven that made it to lockdown hatched.

 

[ronott1]

Hi Emma

Six of the dozen eggs I bought from your are developing.

Can't wait to see them hatch

Ron

to 007medic: Dorkings in general are a slow developing breed and in general from what I have heard most dorkings are on the low side of the standard weights nowadays. Also according to most old poultry books white dorkings were always lighter than silver-grays or reds. I dont expect my silver grays to make a certain weight by a certain age but instead weight the birds at certain intervals and keep track of which ones are the heaviest. I have not found that my birds that grow the quickest end up being the heaviest. Some of the quicker growers seem to stop growing earlier and the slower growers eventually pass them in weight. There are many breeds of poultry, such as muscovy ducks that can take up to 18 months to reach standard weights and given that dorkings are a dual purpose breed and have not been used as a commercial or production type breed for a long time I think that they should not be expected to reach their standard weights as fast as breeds that are bred more for meat. I personally am selecting for size heavily at this point in my breeding program but I am not doing this at the expense of all other traits. My current policy is to cull the lower 50% of weights and then cull from there based on multiple different characteristics including weight but only as one of several characteristics. In just two years using this technique I have seen an increase in size accompanied by better color and type. I think that in two more years almost 100% all of the birds i will be hatching will be within the acceptable range for standard weight, with many at or above the standard weight. I think about 85% of the birds I kept from last year will make the minimum standard weight although i am not sure they will make their cockerel/pullet weights on the same schedule that one would expect from a faster developing breed. Most are about 8 months old now and some have made minimum weight and others have not. They are definitely still growing though and the birds from my 2010 hatch kept growing until they were 18 monthes old.

 

[DaveK]

Joe, I am LMAO! The first time we had Dorkings on the table my wife said "well, you can sure tell we're not eating the Cochins this time". We decided you eat a Dorking as is but make the Cochins in to something else where their stringy quality (but good taste) doesn't matter. There are earlier posts from me where I mention phasing out a line of Dorkings that grew well and matured very early for something that we always expected to keep developing for a couple of years. Like you Canadian friend has said they show a lot of promise when very young but are not real earth stomping Dorkings until their second autumn. Those early ones we had were impressive their first fall and might have made nice cockerels and pullets for show under some judges. But that's all they ever got to be. Impressive at 8 months didn't cut it when at close to 2 years of age you were looking at the 8 month old impression. We stuck to those that grew well but put on the appearance of maturity slowly and steadily. They were good at 2, wonderful at 3 and still good as long as they could walk. And I'm usually willing to keep and use an old bird that is producing what I want to see, especially when the get are better than the parent. Fast maturing stock may not be good lasters either. This happens with other stock but we didn't put it to the test with the fast maturing strain we had. Just ate them and were done with it. What we looked for at that young age mentioned was length of both top and UNDER line. A long keel, parallel to the back line augers well for type and usually size once the bird is all growed up. Width matters too but we found developed later.

 

[poultrypalacewhidbey]

Great Ron, i would have hoped for a better fertility rate than that but since you mentioned that the post office did their best to scramble the air sacs before delivering them I guess that is probably a good fertility rate. Best of luck and I hope they all hatch for you.

 

[ronott1]

Great Ron, i would have hoped for a better fertility rate than that but since you mentioned that the post office did their best to scramble the air sacs before delivering them I guess that is probably a good fertility rate. Best of luck and I hope they all hatch for you.

Yes, I am happy to get that fertility rate. The post office has been bad to me this year

Last hatch, all that developed hatched.

 

[ki4got]

well today is day 6 for stephanie's colored eggs... of the 24 sent, i only tossed 1 !!!! WOW!

one did take a bit of damage, it's got a slight crack over the air cell, but it's growing so i'm hopeful. and as soon as hubby solders the wires for the fans, I have 2 more incubators going with MORE eggs. i got nearly 5 dozen red, red/colored and colored/dominique (only 3 of those) eggs.. had to go to tsc and buy another egg turner. my lucky day, they had one that was returned without the box, i got it for $20.

so 3 hovabaotrs running, one with colored and a few of my sg's, one with reds, the other with more reds, the mixes, my sg, and a few silver duckwing oegb/sg dorking eggs. (experiment)

i don't dare count the total... plus i had 25 quail hatch out over the weekend, picked up 3 more cochins (1 is frizzled), and sold a cochin/dorking cross chick today. LOL and there's the possiblility i'll get my sandhill order any time now too...

(but where the HECK am i gonna put them all???)

 

[ki4got]

Yes, I am happy to get that fertility rate. The post office has been bad to me this year

Last hatch, all that developed hatched.

i ordered some bantam cochin eggs, 2 dozen of them... 3 developed, none hatched. while my own cochins and mutts hatched at about 90%. there's a reason i always set my own eggs with shipped ones. 8) then i can be sure it's not the incubator.

this last dorking hatch, it was the incubator.

 

[007medic]

VOILA!

I found out what the heck was going wrong with my hatches... dern hygrometer is wonky. Cleaned out from the last attempted hatch and ran it dry for a few days and it actually read "0%" in a basement that hasn't seen less than 55% humidity since I don't know when. So apparently I've been drowning everything

...anywho at least I know what the culprit is now and I'm glad not to have drowned any fertile dorking eggs. I've been blessed with broodies lately so I got one clutch due this weekend and I'll probably get another next weekend. The upside of course is that the broodies will do all the work of raising the fuzzy-butts for me. How is everyone else's experience with dorkings and broodiness? Often? Rarely? Fair-to-middlein'?

J

 

[dorkings]

VOILA!

I found out what the heck was going wrong with my hatches... dern hygrometer is wonky. Cleaned out from the last attempted hatch and ran it dry for a few days and it actually read "0%" in a basement that hasn't seen less than 55% humidity since I don't know when. So apparently I've been drowning everything

...anywho at least I know what the culprit is now and I'm glad not to have drowned any fertile dorking eggs. I've been blessed with broodies lately so I got one clutch due this weekend and I'll probably get another next weekend. The upside of course is that the broodies will do all the work of raising the fuzzy-butts for me. How is everyone else's experience with dorkings and broodiness? Often? Rarely? Fair-to-middlein'?

J

We have 12 Silver Gray Dorking girls that are not quit 1 year old but I'm hoping at least 2 of them will get the broodiness bug come April, if not I'm going to try and encourage them. I will let you know then, I have my fingers crossed.