B.Y.C. Dorking Club!

[pysankigirl]

Sooooo.....My usband just ordered my silver gray dorkings! 21 little babies should be here between the 27th and 30th of this month!!! WOO HOO!

Congrats!!! you will love them. they are so friendly. I am completely sold on them

 

[kimberly35042]

I haven't weighed them yet, but they feel like little bricks....much heavier than what I expected. They look so soft with their new feathers. I think they were a 2/11 hatch.
I'm very pleased. Also growing out some reds and colors from KI4got and a guy in TN. Both I think have some Sandhill in their lines and are developing differently than the Silver greys. Time will tell. I should be getting some eggs from Rudy Troxel, and that should really help improve type.

 

[kimberly35042]

Those look really nice, especially for hatchery birds, that's always a nice surprise. How is their weight coming along? They look like they're about the same size as the ones I got from Urch in late Feb.

Thanks! We'll have to compare notes! I think Urch may have sold birds to McMurray so could be similar lines. Would love to see your birds too.

 

[SoCal Dorkings]

yeah i chopped all the rabbit genetics, LOL.

birds and mammals are opposite. the hen determines the sex, thus has the XY (normally shown x/- in birds) the silver is carried on the X gene, so since a hen only has one, she can only show what's there. so it'll either be S (silver) or s+ (red).

yes the dilute, silver and blue are dominant. actually the majority of chicken mutations are dominant over the wild type. blue and silver are also both co-dominant, so have a 'step effect', where B/B or S/S will be the lightest (splash or silver), with only 1 copy of the gene somewhere in the middle. BUT the difference between them being, silver is sex linked, so the 'inbetween' can only show up in the rooster. plus blue only affects black pigments not red, silver affects red pigments, not black.

the dilute gene is also dominant, but appears the same as heterozygous or homozygous, so test breeding would need to be done to tell if it's 'split' or not. it also restricts red pigments, but not to the extent silver does. melanizing is also a dominant gene, but seems to vary in it's appearance, depending on what other mutations are present. there may also be other melanizing mutations present as well in the coloreds, possibly including charcoal. IMO the melanizing gene in dorkings intensifies the hackle striping and black tips on the breast of the hens, while the charcoal may be responsible for the black head and darkening of the body/back/wing feathers. I have one hen (i've posted her before i think) that is a standard silver grey in every way, but she has a black head. her mother was a colored from sandhill lines (possibly not pure colored but mixed with red) and her sire a silver grey. she has NO heavy hackle striping or breast tips, but does have a very black head. test breeding her to a silver grey, i'm anticipating that i'll get 50/50 black headed without any dark hackles at all.

to eliminate the dilute, simply breed her to a red. you'll get some dilute/blue some dilute/black, red/blue and red/black... presuming she's heterozygous for all of that...

keep the ones you like, cull the rest. if you're looking for red/blue, that would be what i'd use, with a nice red roo.

if i missed something let me know... take it private if you want, to spare everyone else the non-sop headaches. LOL

Actually, I have enjoyed lurking along with this conversation... On the one hand, I have no interest in trying to breed Blue laced Red Polkadotted Dorkings (lol) since they are not in the SOP (or existence for that matter, I'm jut being silly ) but I am (against very good advice) planning on embarking upon a Colored Dorking breeding project, which will necessitate becoming more familiar with all of this. I find that it is far easier for me to pick up information that would otherwise cross my eyes and make my brain hurt by absorbing it in a more narrative form such as following along on this conversation, and of course the more pictures and other visual aids the better!

 

[BGMatt]

I had heard the same thing about him selling birds to them but thought it was a long time ago and would be...well not good now. I'm glad to see nice birds available like that. I will try and take pictures, but all my birds are going through a phase right now where they seem to think the camera is going to eat them.

Edit: Mine were a late Feb hatch, don't know exact date, but last weekend weighed the males at 3.5# and ~4#, very pleased with growth rate.

 

[Kilsharion]

Urch is great....I've not ordered from McMurray; but, I've been considering it.

 

[ki4got]

I haven't weighed them yet, but they feel like little bricks....much heavier than what I expected. They look so soft with their new feathers. I think they were a 2/11 hatch.
I'm very pleased. Also growing out some reds and colors from KI4got and a guy in TN. Both I think have some Sandhill in their lines and are developing differently than the Silver greys. Time will tell. I should be getting some eggs from Rudy Troxel, and that should really help improve type.

yeah i noticed that between the sandhill and my sg's... the sg's start out looking like tanks, the sandhill birds start out like bowling pins and drop down later on... at first i was disappointed in my sandhill birds because of that, but i was pleased to see the mature results, which are closer to the sg's.

mcmurray stock isn't as large as it could be, and i have yet to have one go broody, vs ALL of my sandhill girls, but i REALLY like the way they develop... i'm finding my red/sg crosses seem to start out and grow more like the sg's do, but with better size like the reds, so i'm happy.

 

[BGMatt]

Only picture I have of my big Dorking cockerel. Sadly nothing that shows off his body. I really like his head other than a little wrinkle to comb that I'm hoping he grows out of

 

[pysankigirl]

So one of the reasons why I am excited about the blue/gold girl is I think she is a "colored" only with the addition of the blue dilution gene, which is easy to isolate because it always expresses even when heterozygous. Here is my second favorite pullet, who could be a "colored." What do you guys think?







If you look at her next to the other one, they are almost identical except for what is black on this one is grey/blue on the other one. Except this one has a black head whereas the other one if it were black would probably still have a gold head if the black dilution gene was taken away.

 

[BGMatt]

Ok. Armed with snacks and my camera I have attempted to photograph the suddenly shy Dorkings in my grow out pens. There are only three of them here that I got in an assortment from Urch via a 4-H auction.
First the big male, please ignore the photo bombing Silver Leghorn

Then both males together, and again the leghorn sneaks partly into the picture:

And finally the pullet, a lot rests on her shoulders right now since I just candled the hatching eggs from a local breeder and they were all infertile.

And lastly I know it's not a Dorking but since that darn Leghorn liked the camera SO much: