B.Y.C. Dorking Club!

[yinepu]

I had to laugh when I read this....it played through my mind's eye like a shady, underworld deal going down.

I thought the same thing..
picturing a Far Side comic:
someone standing there in the shadows wearing a long (rather lumpy) trench coat with chickens strapped on the inside of it.. "psst.. hey buddy.. wanna buy a chicken?"

 

[Kilsharion]

picturing a Far Side comic:
someone standing there in the shadows wearing a long (rather lumpy) trench coat with chickens strapped on the inside of it.. "psst.. hey buddy.. wanna buy a chicken?"

 

[Rockashelle]

That had to be an odd sight for anyone viewing inside the restaurant.

 

[ki4got]

rose comb is dominant over single, so depending if he's homozygous or heterozygous, if homo- he'll produce all rose comb the first generation, if hetero, then you should get 50/50... and any rose combs produced will be hetero, so will in turn produce 50/50 when bred to singles.

 

[greenhorn]

So, I have just taken out an absolutely awesome hatch from the incubator. I'm thrilled.

It's been a long road of serious culling and discipline. I know I sound like a color Scrooge, but trust me, were this the 1920's and every Tom, Dick, and Henrietta on the street had chickens, I'd be the worst color-o-holic of them all! Bringing this strain around has not been easy. I had only one cull out of twenty chicks---one! A few more weeks of this and Lord knows what could happen!

Great health. Excellent hatch rate. Good color, a high percentage of the chicks have the silvery cast that is nice to see in the Whites. Toes range from good to excellent in placement. All RC, all 5-toes, the only cull for color looked a bit too much like a Red Pyle.

Giving into my inner bumpkin..."Hot diggety!"

That is some great news, congrats! Got me excited to see how it's going to go over here. I just started putting some eggs in the incubator but I need to get a better incubator. Any suggestions?

 

[ki4got]

Quote: personally i just use the hovabators... every incubator's going to have quirks, it just takes time and patience to learn the best way to work with the one(s) you have...

here's a link to the post i did detailing my setup/process...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/738943/the-great-egg-shipping-experiment/170#post_10452777

 

[Yellow House Farm]

We use GQF's. They are outstandingly reliable, which, admittedly, is costly. If Karen has the Hova-Bators down, it might be worth trying that route. Regardless, of the model used, I like having one for incubating and another for hatching. It gives me time nd space to insure hygiene.

Greenhorn, we just published our ordering information online for the 2013 season, but honestly, I don't think you need another order of chicks. In your stead I'd just hatch from the best few that you have. You know there's always a source here, but you have plenty of genes over there. I'd take the extra money and put it towards your incubators.

If your chicks turn out like ours did, you'll have very few culls.

When they hatch, check for comb, color and toes.

1. We'll probably seem a few color sports. In the last hatch I had one Red Pyle. You can tell because the yellow down is lightly chipmunked, but all of these are culls.

2. Combs so far this season are 100% rose comb, which leads me to believe that via strong culling our stock is, or is becoming, homozygous for rose comb.

3. Watch toes. Toe placement has been great this year, but the more you hatch, the more you increase your possibity of off polydactyly. Especially watch out for the possibility of a double toenail in the fifth toe.

I'm pretty firm about culling on this end. One only has so much space for raising up birds, every space given to a cull is one fewer available to a potential star. I look forward to seeing your results!

 

[pysankigirl]

rose comb is dominant over single, so depending if he's homozygous or heterozygous, if homo- he'll produce all rose comb the first generation, if hetero, then you should get 50/50... and any rose combs produced will be hetero, so will in turn produce 50/50 when bred to singles.

okay, so it will be frustrating at first, but any singles that do show up will throw true.

just another dumb thing to potentially cull for, although I would be hard pressed to really cull a chick for something that superficial (and still SOP) until I get everything else close to perfect, given I am just starting.

I weighed one of my SG hens and she is only 5.2 lbs at about 10 months old. At what age should they weigh what they are going to finally weigh?

my new big boy is scared to death of me still. I will have to win him over with food before I can grab him to weigh him.
or try to be superhumanly quick...LOL

 

[Yellow House Farm]

okay, so it will be frustrating at first, but any singles that do show up will throw true. Yes.

just another dumb thing to potentially cull for, although I would be hard pressed to really cull a chick for something that superficial (and still SOP) until I get everything else close to perfect, given I am just starting. Well, if the new cockerel is homozygous for RC, this will be a two year process; if he's heterozygous, then you can fix it this year. I wouldn't think of it as dumb; rather that it is what it is. If you're going to head down the path of Coloreds, you have your culling work cut out for you, so you might as well just resign yourself to it. There are patterns that are generally stable, there are those that are very much not. If you are getting SC and RC, by culling the RC you allow for the space needed to raise a SC chick that approaches the SOP.

I weighed one of my SG hens and she is only 5.2 lbs at about 10 months old. At what age should they weigh what they are going to finally weigh? Well, even if she's ging to put on another pound over the next year, she's under weight. If you have other pullets from which to breed tht are securely weightier than she, than she's a cull. If this is were all of your birds are at, than choose the best two females with the best two males and begin there. You should see an improvement by the end of the year. Although if you're going to try to bring up three varieties, it's going to take a lot of hatching and a lot of raising space.

my new big boy is scared to death of me still. I will have to win him over with food before I can grab him to weigh him.
or try to be superhumanly quick...LOL Do it at night with a head light with a red light. They can't see the red light well, and it allows you to pluck them off of the roost. It also makes the whole process a little disturbing as possible which is good for the whole flock.

 

[sandiklaws]

quick question regarding combs, I have 2 pullets that were sired by a straight out of rose, both are rose, bred to a straight what can I expect to see this year for combs?