Backyard Brahmas!!

Tim would be a much better hand at this than me, as I don't have this variety.

Seems to me to often people get in way to much of a hurry to try to judge their young stock. Sure, if they have some hideous defect, or obvious fault, and have no possibility of ever figuring into future breeding plans, those birds are out. Put down if needed, or more likely made available as a back yard layer, or eater, at one of our local little swaps. Other than that, I just keep an eye on them and keep shoveling them feed. As they grow, other things may become apparent (like a loose wing possibly, or obvious crow head), and down the road they go. If I keep doing this, I am getting down to the better birds, making room as they grow, saving a little feed. But it can be an easy mistake to be too hasty with these cuts, especially with the cockerels. Large fowl Brahma males go through some hideous stages as they mature. Most years I am pretty much convinced that there is not a single cockerel that will be worth the ton of feed that it has taken to get him to this gangly Ichabod Crane looking stage. Then one day you walk around the corner and see one and think well maybe, just maybe. What I'm trying to say is be patient and let them grow enough to be sure of what you got. Pullets usually don't surprise me near as often.



For example this #4 pullet looks to have potential, type wise, but she is still young. The things that catch my eye right off, is her tail. Her main tail feathers should be solid black, the tail coverts should be black with buff lacing. Her tail coverts look to be mostly split, buff above, and black below the shaft. No way to tell how her wings are marked, how her under color is. She has some extra dark ticking that may clean up some when she goes through a molt.


I think that is the one thing that I'm really learning and is also the one thing that is really hard to stick to. Give them a chance to grow up, unless of course you see something that is obvious. In the last flock that got killed by the dog, I swore that I didn't have one cockerel that would be worth feeding for more than it took to get them to the freezer. But they were coming along.....and I was beginning to see some sparks there right before they were killed.

I love the ugly stage....everyone that comes over to visit and stops by to see my birds always kind of go...."Oh, THIS is what you are spending so much time on" and they don't mean it in a kind way at all. It is funny though, one day they have all of the pin feathers sticking out of their necks and their wing feathers look like they went through the cement mixer and their backs are a fuzzy mess and then suddenly you look at them, they've cleaned up and you go...okay, this one might work for me. It is the reason I spend so much time just watching my chickens....looking for that one that makes me go "ah hah!".
 
Thanks. I'm only trying to figure out the accepted patterns right now....my brain only has so much storage room and I need to find some junk to throw out. So, just so I'm clear.....a dark brahma is penciled, the outer edges should be silver. If it were the opposite (the outer edges were black), then the bird would be multiple laced. Do I have it correct? And, no, I haven't looked at mine to see if this is what mine look like.......just thinking out loud sort of.

I really like that kippenjungle calls the males "roosters".
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Oh, well.....sigh.




Dark, and the gold based equivalent, partridge, are both penciled.

I believe the term multilaced is generally used to classify a group of the more complicated patterns, including both penciled, and double laced

Henk has forgotten more about poultry genetics than I can ever hope to learn. I suppose some of the terminology may lose something in the translation from his native Dutch.
 
Dark, and the gold based equivalent, partridge, are both penciled.

I believe the term multilaced is generally used to classify a group of the more complicated patterns, including both penciled, and double laced

Henk has forgotten more about poultry genetics than I can ever hope to learn. I suppose some of the terminology may lose something in the translation from his native Dutch.
I was pretty sure that both are penciled, just went and looked at the darks in the pen and indeed, the silver is the outside ring (although they are babies still, but can see the pattern fairly well).

I have noticed that in English Orpingtons they call their partridge "multi laced partridge" or "multi laced" or "partridge" and seem to be referring to the same birds. After looking at pictures of them, I think that they have both partridge and multi laced (based on the outside ring color), but lump them all under the same banner which probably just adds to my confusion.

I've read Henk's genetic information many, many times. Each time learn a little bit more. Sometimes need to stop reading to give the brain time to recover.
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Being an amateur scientist I love trying to figure out how things work and why they work that way.....
 
I promised pictures some time ago, so here they are. These are some of the chicks (25 days old) that I picked up in Texas:






Here are some of my darks that I hatched out 7 weeks ago. He's a beauty, but has vulture hocks. I just love the blackness of his black, almost like velvet with beetle sheen. She is probably a VH carrier, but we'll see.







 
And here are the pullets, they are about 3 1/2 months right now. Two gold, one blue and I'm really not sure about one of them (I posted pictures of that one a few days ago, so I'll only post the three).







Then, the two gold:




 
And last the hen... I like the tightness of the feathering, don't like the cushion. She's going through a little bit of a stress moult from the move, please excuse her (especially her tail)!



 
I so love this breed and yeah I have hatchery stock to try out the Brahma experience. My girls are huge compared to my EE bunch and their leg feathers are constantly breaking off. But I think I may switch gears next year to increase my Brahma and Cochin count and lessen the EE factor. These girls of mine are so calm and sweet I am so in love with em.
 
can I ask for your opinions on these birds? I keep thinking I have them figured out and then I'm not sure. I'd like to get rid of some of the roosters, but I'm not sure which rooster to keep. :-( And whats' with the one with a single comb?! These are two months old, stock from a Hatchery. I am FAIRLY certain that 6 and 7 are pullets, but I am not sure about 4, or 5. I THINK I have all of them numbered correctly in the last picture... but I'm not positive. Sorry, there are several that look the same to me.




Thanks in advance!!

Updated pictures... the numbering is different. I did not include one two and three from the first post in these pictures... I think we decided that they were for sure cockerels.



One = five in first post.
Two = seven in first post.
Three = four in first post.
Four = six in first post.

Any more thoughts about gender? I was noticing that the three we decided were cockerels have more black from the top than the pullets do.
 

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