B.Y.C. Dorking Club!

[foxflower]

When they start laying sounds pretty average. I always plan to see eggs at about 6 months. Some start before than and some after. I always have a mix of breeds because chickens and various breeds, for me are like potato chips....hard to have just one.

 

[Framac]

Has anyone besides me got any Red chicks from Dick this year?

How are they growing?

I got 12, and they are coming along nicely. One died at 3 days, but the other 11 are growing wonderful.

2 will be culled (1 with 4 toes not 5, 1 with not toes nail on one toe).

I am hoping to keep 4 females, and 2 males.

Even the 3 packing peanuts are growing out nicely. A SP Rock Pullet, A Partridge Rock Cockerel, and a Blue Orp Cockerel.

Framac

 

[Framac]

I got 5 cockerels, and 6 pullets of the 11 that are left.

Framac

 

[cukooformarans]

I bought hatching eggs from Mr. Horstman before he realized there was a fertility problem. Of 29 eggs set, I ended up with 5 red dorkings. He actually pm'd me and told me about the fertility right before hatch and so I have another 30 eggs from him in the incubator now. I am very pleased and thankful that he was upfront about the fertility and didn't just pawn it off on issues with shipping eggs. The five are free ranging and foraging during the day in addition to what we feed them. We are really happy with the way they are growing so far, too! And The Lord blessed us with four pullets and a cockerel, which is a great beginning ratio in my opinion!

 

[Kilsharion]

I bought hatching eggs from Mr. Horstman before he realized there was a fertility problem. Of 29 eggs set, I ended up with 5 red dorkings. He actually pm'd me and told me about the fertility right before hatch and so I have another 30 eggs from him in the incubator now. I am very pleased and thankful that he was upfront about the fertility and didn't just pawn it off on issues with shipping eggs. The five are free ranging and foraging during the day in addition to what we feed them. We are really happy with the way they are growing so far, too! And The Lord blessed us with four pullets and a cockerel, which is a great beginning ratio in my opinion!

I wish he'd have just reached out to me instead of waiting for me to contact him...Any time I hear from him it's because I've reached out to him to ask for an update. He's still not sent the eggs for me, so I'm guessing he's still having problems. I'd be willing to take them and take my chances. **shrugs** I'll keep waiting; but, the longer I wait with no word from him, the more I feel let down and disappointed.

 

[heritagehabitatfarms]

that is very cool... I think you should work with them and see what you can get... they would be your own strain of Cuckoo's and as bad of shape as they are in they would pro do the cuckoo's a lot of good with yours being half YHF...

Interesting thing happened. I remember a while back mentioning that I was interested in crossing the whites to the blacks and might get some Cuckoo colored birds. Then I was informed that would only happen if the birds carry the barred gene. Well guess what?....... Yep, I have black birds with white stripes. And that blue one I mentioned earlier also has barring.

 

[greenhorn]

that is very cool... I think you should work with them and see what you can get... they would be your own strain of Cuckoo's and as bad of shape as they are in they would pro do the cuckoo's a lot of good with yours being half YHF...

Hey thanks heritagehabitatfarms. Not really sure what we'll do with the cuckoo's. I hate to take on something we don't have the space to mess with. I think we should work on both whites and blacks for a while before we try this experiment again. Figure it's best to get both lines cleaned up and bred to the standard first. I was just being curious about the barred gene more than anything but wow did we end up with a lot of different colored birds from the cross. I culled all the birds from the cross except for the 2 blacks that went barred and the gray that went barred. My friend insists that the gray one is blue but i'm not exactly sure what the difference really is right now. I need to get my nose back into my chicken genetics book. Just ordered the SOP and some other books and video's from them. Should have done it earlier but I don't think we have really made many mistakes with our selection and have plenty of time to get our project whipped into shape. We are going for BIG first. I'm not going to concern myself with perfect colored birds until we get the size and shape closer to the SOP. Like they say build the barn before you paint it. Seems like all dorkings need to be worked from this angle but who am I to say how others should breed their birds...?

I do think the cuckoo color is interesting and the gray one looks pretty cool. In a way I hope it's a pullet, don't want to house another rooster unless he can become a good babysitter. On that hand it would be cool to see how he turns out if he is a rooster. Hate to waste resources though...I'll try and get pics soon.

I wonder if SH has a couple colors they breed together to make all the colors they sell. I swear we got about all the colors and then some when we crossed YH whites to SH blacks.

 

[speedy2020]

Here is my Dorking block (2 cockerel, 3 pullets). I purchased them from user Rockashelle. They hatched on 2/24/13 and 4 out of 5 are rose comb. I am working on size and shape first. The colored birds are much larger than the red.

4 colored and 1 red

 

[Rockashelle]

Hey Speedy! Welcome! Since you posted a picture, I want to ask Ki4got about the coloring of your light red pullet. Out of 77 chicks I hatched, 2 of them are this color. What gene caused this color? Is it a random dilute gene? Speedy, looks like the other chick that color is a pullet too. All the others are hatching the either obvious "Colored" and turns out one of my colored hens is a "Red" therefore, I have Red chicks. I don't plan on keeping Reds so she will be sold or....? Speedy, I hope you don't mind me reposting your picture so I can show Ki4got:

Look at my most recent hatch. You can see all the variable colors early on. I will have a ton of work ahead of me after "type" is close to perfected. I am getting some nice type chicks, legs are still a little too tall. I'll have to be super selective for next year's breeders.

 

[Rockashelle]

Here's a better picture of the chicks. The first one was after the were drying from hatching.