Backyard Brahmas!!

[HenHacienda]

Thanks for sharing. How old is your cockerel? I can't imagine people confusing a cochin with a Brahma. The Cochin shorter and stocky. Brahma is more elongated--but thats just my opinion. lol

 

[livininbrazil]

Probably should post this either on the project thread or on the breeders thread, but this thread has more action than the others.

What color is this? How did this color happen? If this is bred to either gold partridge or dark, what could be expected? @big medicine will probably know.

Pullet, about 2 months old, thunderstorm coming in so excuse the messy windblown feathers:


Edited to fix the color on the pictures.

I had one that turned out like this that I bought as a chick but I sold her. I kept her two sisters which have slightly better heads and slightly darker colouring. I bought the three as small chicks, supposedly gold partridge. They´re pretty, but not partridge. I´m going to put them back to a young cockerel that has a partridge mom in the hope that I may get something resembling partridge...fun finding out!

 

[livininbrazil]

Thanks for sharing. How old is your cockerel? I can't imagine people confusing a cochin with a Brahma. The Cochin shorter and stocky. Brahma is more elongated--but thats just my opinion. lol

Apparently there´s a Dutch guy a couple of hours away from us who breeds good Brahmas, he gets his stock from Holland, but I´ve not managed to find out exactly where he is. There are some good Brahmas around, but they cost a huge amount of money.
I´d already bought a pair of Brahmas a couple of years ago...a gold partridge hen and a supposedly gold partridge cock, but I could see he wasn´t..was more a bad buff/gold laced, but no worries, I liked them. They produced black and buff chicks, both sexes. I bred the hen back to her sons to try to get better coloured cockerels. I now have a cockerel with nice mahogany-coloured wings,
But I needed new blood to breed him with, so I drove 2 hours to a different breeder´s to get some eggs and partridge Brahma chicks. He reckoned he had various breeds of Brahma (that´s what he said), one of the 'breeds' being Splash. I had a look. They were cochins. I explained the difference. He said he didn´t know and that he´d change his ad. he didn´t. The Brahmas he reckoned were the parents of the chicks looked like partridge Brahmas, so i took just 3 of them, as I wasn´t too confident! And I took a dozen eggs.
Only two eggs hatched, both the chicks died shortly afterwards. One of the chicks was a light.... and that´s how it is most of the time here.

After that I bought a big Brahma cockerel from a bird dealer who buys in expensive ones from breeders. He´s a light, though, I couldn´t get any other colour. (I have to say, though, that some of my birds here were better than some that he had there, I had to be a bit picky, trying to remember what I´d learned on these threads) I´m going to breed him to my blacks and see what comes out. He´s just started breeding with the hens that are the sisters of the other cockerel, and they´re laying, so I´ll see what happens with both groups that I have now.
The one that has just started breeding is probably just short of a year, my other one that I bred here is about 9 months old. He hasn´t started yet, not crowing either, but it won´t be long now. The pullets that I bought aren´t ready yet either, but not far off...they´re about 8 months. They mature very slowly.... I love them, though, they´re so gentle and laid-back.

 

[big medicine]

Wow! big medicine, do you have any resources for your knowledge? I am trying to find books and web info to help me identify good breeder stock and assess F1 stock to know that I have a prayer of getting it aim towards show quality for feathering rather than pets. I have been away from chickens for a while, but now that I am trying to get my flock going I want to jump in on the right-er? side of things... I have mostly pets / food right now, but as next spring rolls around I want to get my flock going in the right direction.

Thanks for all the input!

I picked up a lot of genetic knowledge lurking on sites like
http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=3&page=1

I would recommend getting a copy of the Standard Of Perfection to help develop your eye for proper type which help you identify good breeder stock.

I believe I would start putting out feelers well in advance of when you think you might want to pick up good quality birds. Sometimes takes a laying a little groundwork to make connections.

 

[big medicine]

Lol....I was pretty sure she was penciled as well.

She seemed to me to be yellow/gold partridge, like the males would be from Gold Partridge x Dark. But as far as I know, that only shows up in the males, so I was really curious if you had seen a color like this one and maybe what the breeding to get there was? Not trying to reproduce it (although if it continues to crop up, who knows, may be a side project), but trying to figure out what will happen when (if) I cross her with a dark. The pullets would probably be darks, but would there be a dilution of the silver with the yellow/gold, if that is even what it is? I'm thinking that the cockerels would still come out yellow/gold partridge, the same as breeding the gold x dark.

One other interesting thing about this particular pullet that is not noticeable in the pictures is that in certain light, she has a very definite lavender tint, at first I thought it was maybe blue but it is definitely lavender. I'm wondering if maybe she may be a cross between a gold partridge and a lavender laced.....if you look at the breast feathers (yes she is still very young and the pattern may change) there is a hint there of incomplete lacing rather than the penciling that is evident on the wing and back feathers. If this is the case, I would have thought that the lavender wouldn't show through the gold/black, but as you said, you never really know what may pop up out of these variations.

I don't want to dilute my partridge, so I will probably try covering her with a dark (which was my plan anyway, covering all of the partridge pullets with darks once I'm sure I don't have any V/v). It might be interesting to see what F1 is going to look like and maybe even breed some of them back or to each other to see what I get. That may be a side project a few years down the road though.

Yeah the gold/silver split thing can only apply to males. I know the calculator sometimes refers to split males as yellow gold, but in my experience you definitely get what looks like a silver bird with some gold highlights. Like I said, with these projects you can see all kinds of variations pop up early on, even later if you're not careful, and I have had my share over the years. Just pick the ones that are the closest to where you want to end up and see what they can produce. Keep doing that and eventually you might get there. Every time you include something that is farther away from you goal in your breeding group, your are likely delaying getting to your goal.

To my understanding lavender is recessive, taking two copies to show itself, and would affect all areas that would normally be black, not just some areas.

 

[aart]

Anyone know what the nare color on a light brahma is supposed to be?
I have 4 hatchery grade light brahma's, 2 are 2 1/2 yo and the other 2 are 3mo.
The older birds have red combs, wattles, earlobes, faces.
The younger ones had were pinkish but one of them has turned dark in the nare and comb and I think the other may be staring to go darker in the nare too.

Just wondered if anyone knows why and what they 'should' be....just funky gene from hatchery...or other problem?

Darker comb and nare



Lighter comb but nare going dark

 

[bumpercarr]

Yeah the gold/silver split thing can only apply to males. I know the calculator sometimes refers to split males as yellow gold, but in my experience you definitely get what looks like a silver bird with some gold highlights. Like I said, with these projects you can see all kinds of variations pop up early on, even later if you're not careful, and I have had my share over the years. Just pick the ones that are the closest to where you want to end up and see what they can produce. Keep doing that and eventually you might get there. Every time you include something that is farther away from you goal in your breeding group, your are likely delaying getting to your goal.

To my understanding lavender is recessive, taking two copies to show itself, and would affect all areas that would normally be black, not just some areas.

I was thinking that lavender is recessive as well. Anyway, she's an interesting looking bird. I'll be anxious to see what she turns out like.

 

[holm25]

I know these are not Brahmas but I had to share pics!!

 

[Junibutt]

I know these are not Brahmas but I had to share pics!!

Well that must be a nice mama. My broody's chicks are 3.5 weeks and she has already started distancing herself from them.

 

[Junibutt]

Based on what I have read, Brahmas mature very slowly, however one of the two pullets I have (they are 12.5 weeks), has a red face and wattles most of the day. I am saying most of the day because sometime when I check her in the morning, its pink just like the other pullet. What could be going on? Hormonal surges? or maybe she is not a pullet after all? She looks like a pullet from every other aspect. This is her picture from 10 days ago followed by her sister's pic. Even in this pic, she had slightly darker pink on her face.