B.Y.C. Dorking Club!

[poultrypalacewhidbey]

Hi all,
Just waned to chime in on the hatchery dorkings from mcmurry. Unfortunately they are not purebred. They show evidence of crossing with araucanas and something else. Also their quality has declined rapidly over the last couple of years. Their birds have extremely low fertility and very poor breed conformation. Please do not buy their dorkings as it is a deplorable business practice to sell crossbreed chicks as purebred and is severely hurting the efforts of those who are trying to save the dorking breed and keep it from being lost. I know dick horstman advertises chicks and hatching eggs for both red and silver-gray dorkings. If you want his email send me a message and I will give it to you. Also search on the internet for the dorking breeders club and join. they aer just about to put out their first breeders directory which will be a great resource for finding purebred dorking chicks. As soon as I know that the breeders directory is out I will post about it here.

 

[poultrypalacewhidbey]

to jgervis, int eh top picture the bird on the left appears to have good color. the hackle looks clear and the breast does not show and white in it. I would check the primaries, secondaries and tailfeathers on all your birds for and white that is misplaced. What variety is the rooster in the second photo supposed to be? looks like a mix between two varieties. the silver gray hen looks like she has nice body width. her head color and breast color are on the light side, but this is something that can be corrected and is less important than getting rid of any misplaced white in the main wing feathers and tailfeathers if you have any. the top of the head color and the breast color in hens are linked. the darker the bresast the darker the top of the head. it can go as far as having brown in the top of the head when you have a very dark breasted bird. do watch however that when you breed the light silver-gray hen that you dont get white in the breast of the male offspring. this is one of the downsides of lighter females. I ahve to go but I will try to post a bit more about your birds soon.

A few pics of my Dorkings - I have no idea what 'standards' are - any feedback would be great (positive or negative on their 'quality' very appreciated)

 

[capayvalleychick]

can we see the Pic's???

Where have you been???

It's going to take me awhile to put them in an online album, I'll let you know.

They are still a work in progress.

Kim

 

[capayvalleychick]

I know dick horstman advertises chicks and hatching eggs for both red and silver-gray dorkings.

You can find him here on BYC. Look back through this thread a bit.

He does not have Silvers at this time, neither does Urch, neither does Stromberg's. Choices are very limited this year.

Last I spoke with Jeanne Fingar in MT, she had/has Silver Grays.

Kim

 

[poultrypalacewhidbey]

thanks for the update about horstman. strombergs just drop ships dorkings from breeders last i heard so they often dont have them and the quality varies a lot. I will have silver-gray for sale this spring but i have not gotten npip certification yet (too expensive) so i cant ship. for those who might be near monroe or stevenson, wa i might have silver-gray chicks for sale by the time the cascade spring show and northeswst national roll around. i just set my first dorking eggs last week. I cant wait for the breeders directory to come out.

 

[jgervais]

Thank you so much poultrypalacewhidbey ! I did not know any of those specifications, that was very helpful.
The male on the right I thought was some sort of colored, I kept him mostly because he is so big.
The male on the left was by far the largest silver male I had and so he also made the cut.
That female is the only silver I got out of the batch and even though she isnt as big as my black hens I thought I would keep her to breed with the big silver one, but really mine are more for the table than show. I dont have a lot of desire to show them - but they are really lovely birds to have.

 

[capayvalleychick]

I put pics of all my SGD hens here:

http://flic.kr/s/aHsjy9U63M

They are not to Standard or even close, they all have faults. But they are what I have to work with at this point. There's also a photo set with my roosters, for those who have not seen them already.

Kim

 

[Mrs MIA]

Hi all,
Just waned to chime in on the hatchery dorkings from mcmurry. Unfortunately they are not purebred. They show evidence of crossing with araucanas and something else. Also their quality has declined rapidly over the last couple of years. Their birds have extremely low fertility and very poor breed conformation. Please do not buy their dorkings as it is a deplorable business practice to sell crossbreed chicks as purebred and is severely hurting the efforts of those who are trying to save the dorking breed and keep it from being lost. I know dick horstman advertises chicks and hatching eggs for both red and silver-gray dorkings. If you want his email send me a message and I will give it to you. Also search on the internet for the dorking breeders club and join. they aer just about to put out their first breeders directory which will be a great resource for finding purebred dorking chicks. As soon as I know that the breeders directory is out I will post about it here.

I tried to place an order with MMH last night, and they will only allow 5 pullets at a time. With the shipping costs up here, I wasn't going to do multiple shipments anyway. I ordered some from Ideal for the first week of April. I'll be sure to post a review.

I'm almost starting all over again. After fertility issues this past year, and now losses due to extreme cold while I was away from the farm, I'm down to about 3 girls and 2 boys. One of each is thawing (literally) in the garage after this weekend's sudden drop to -30F. They seem to be doing ok, minimal swelling of the feet, but the combs are going to be toast. I have travelling to do at the end of June, so I may be out of luck for shipping eggs in for hatching this year.

 

[ki4got]

Hi all,
Just waned to chime in on the hatchery dorkings from mcmurry. Unfortunately they are not purebred. They show evidence of crossing with araucanas and something else. Also their quality has declined rapidly over the last couple of years. Their birds have extremely low fertility and very poor breed conformation. Please do not buy their dorkings as it is a deplorable business practice to sell crossbreed chicks as purebred and is severely hurting the efforts of those who are trying to save the dorking breed and keep it from being lost. I know dick horstman advertises chicks and hatching eggs for both red and silver-gray dorkings. If you want his email send me a message and I will give it to you. Also search on the internet for the dorking breeders club and join. they aer just about to put out their first breeders directory which will be a great resource for finding purebred dorking chicks. As soon as I know that the breeders directory is out I will post about it here.

granted I haven't seen all the birds produced from mcmurray, but the ones I have are without a doubt pure dorkings. I'm not sure where you get the evidence of araucanas, as they are typically tailless, have a totally different body stance, darker skin, pea combs and lay blue green eggs. many of these traits are dominant over the dorkings'.

While my own birds may not be show quality, they are without a doubt dorkings. as for fertility, i'm getting near 100% fertility (when the roo actually breeds his own girls and not the 'boyfriend stealing' bantams LOL), but losing a number of them between 14 and 18 days for unknown reasons.

In my research, I found mention of hatchability issues back in the 50's, and it was linked with a lethal gene causing what sounds like dwarfism to me... shortened beak/neck/legs and spinal deformities. but I only found description of the results found in the dead chicks, but never a named reason. so my assessment is from what's been found in other species with similar characteristics. whatever the cause, it was said to have been eliminated but I have my doubts, since it's nearly impossible to ever completely eradicate recessive genes, and all it takes is 1 bird carrying the gene to pass it along to the offspring, just waiting for 2 that carry it to meet up. In my opinion, that is probably closer to what's happenning with hatchability than anything else.

Dick Horstman has also chimed in on this thread in the past, and I believe it's already been mentioned that he's only selling reds this year. I'm working with a couple other breeders myself regarding eggs and chicks for reds and coloreds, in addition to the silver grey i already have. once my birds are mature and laying well, I will be making eggs available to those seriously interested in working with dorkings as well, but that probably won't be until late 2012 or early '13.

 

[ki4got]

Quote:

I tried to place an order with MMH last night, and they will only allow 5 pullets at a time. With the shipping costs up here, I wasn't going to do multiple shipments anyway. I ordered some from Ideal for the first week of April. I'll be sure to post a review.

I'm almost starting all over again. After fertility issues this past year, and now losses due to extreme cold while I was away from the farm, I'm down to about 3 girls and 2 boys. One of each is thawing (literally) in the garage after this weekend's sudden drop to -30F. They seem to be doing ok, minimal swelling of the feet, but the combs are going to be toast. I have travelling to do at the end of June, so I may be out of luck for shipping eggs in for hatching this year.

sorry to hear about the cold getting your dorkings... i'll

for them that they have a speedy recovery. SO glad sw VA doesn't get near that cold... it was 17 when i got up this morning, and was up to 45 by noon. daytime averages should only go up from now on. tho I wonder about mominlaw's part of the county. the forsythia's been blooming since christmas eve, the irises are growing and her daffodils are in bloom... which tells me we should probably plan for a hard winter next year. that's what happenned 2-3 years ago. super mild winter followed by the worst snow/cold the area's seen in decades. but I'm ready for it now. (which means it won't happen. right?)