Barnevelder breeders lets work together and improve the breed

[Jen F]

Happy, thanks so much for the advice. Ive dusted their roost, coop, and favorite dusting areas.
I didnt dust them yet. Hopefully they will dust themselves well.

 

[Happy Chooks]

You really do need to dust them as well. If they are crawling on their legs, they are going to have a bunch. Have someone hold them and dust their rears and under their wings. Use your hand to work it into the feathers. (do it at roost time so they don't shake it off)

 

[tls_ranch]

I took my bator and 12 "cornevelder" eggs into my son's kindergarten class on Monday. So far 2 chicks have hatched and all 12 made it to lock down

Hopefully there's a bator full of chicks tomorrow for the kids to see. One chick hatched this morning and the kid's got to see it hatching! Poor teacher...it must of been hard to keep the kids on task today

. It is weird not being able to check on the bator all time because it's at school. I every once in awhile I get a panicked feeling because I don't hear the bator humming

I have a few eggs (blues and cornevelders) saved up to put in the bator after the "classroom Easter hatch" is done. But, now I'm up to my ears in eating eggs because I switched roos. I need to keep the lines straight and playing "guess the daddy" is out of the question. Hopefully I'll have some pure hatching eggs soon....just have to wait for the hens to clean out...meanwhile the eating eggs are piling up in my fridge

.

Trisha

 

[mountainvieworchards]

I can give you some clues. By 4 weeks I can be pretty sure because the cockerels are showing comb development, my male birds are less feathered on the back at that age, and my boys typically have snow white breast at hatch, and girls are grayish brown in the same place. Now there are some that are in between in breast color and these are the ones where you are guessing. tag these and perhaps keep them out of the breeding pen if you want to develop more autosexing birds.

If there was some circumstance where my life depended on sexing them at hatch, I would pick the chick with the widest white breast down as a boy and the chick with no white and gray brown on the breast as the girl. (Luckily it hasn't come to that, though you never know the way some of the buyers NEED to have pullets only). My young cockerels are more upright looking too and seem to hold their heads higher and the pullets are usually more squat with lots of feathers on the back. Others tell me that their lines of Barnies don't follow the breast down reliably. But really at 4 weeks you can tell by the comb development. It is thicker looking with coarser emerging points or "teeth", whereas the pullets have very "fine toothed" combs. There is one case where the sexing by comb is hard, that is where you have all boys or all girls and you are trying to convince yourself there is a difference or you can't see a difference because there isn't one.

To help yourself learn I would band them with different bands based on your best guess and do this each week to see how well you did.

Andy

 

[tls_ranch]

Well, 11 out of 12 eggs hatched in my son's classroom! The kids were very excited and even got to hold the chicks today. I brought the chicks home this afternoon.The 12th egg failed to pip and I did an egg-topsy after I got home. It looks like the poor thing tore it's yolk and a vein while re-positioning in the egg at some point. But I'm happy with 11/12

I re-set the bator this afternoon with 32 eggs (much to my DH's dismay, LOL) . There's 12 "blues", 10 more "cornevelders" (the darkest eggs) and 10 "special" cornevelders. The special ones are from a 2nd gen cornevelder hen (one of my "originals") and a cornevelder cockerel that's about 93% Barnevelder. The hen I retired at my sister's house and I also gave her the cockerel because he wasn't getting along with my pure barnevelder roo.

The hen started back laying really dark eggs (almost like marans) and the cockerel was hatched from a really dark egg as well. The hen's not my favorite because she's looks too dark cornish but I couldn't resist trying to concentrate some dark egg genes. I've been "retiring" some of my birds at my sister's and just about all her birds came from my place (except some day-old hatchery chicks) as a backup in case I need to re-visit some genetics.

Now that he's older, this guy even looks better than he does in this pic. Such a nice roo too, non-aggressive, hardly crows and when he does has a quiet musical crow. He's the daddy of the "special" eggs. I'm hoping for some nice dark egg pullets.

 

[My Henny Hens]

Well, 11 out of 12 eggs hatched in my son's classroom! The kids were very excited and even got to hold the chicks today. I brought the chicks home this afternoon.The 12th egg failed to pip and I did an egg-topsy after I got home. It looks like the poor thing tore it's yolk and a vein while re-positioning in the egg at some point. But I'm happy with 11/12

I re-set the bator this afternoon with 32 eggs (much to my DH's dismay, LOL) . There's 12 "blues", 10 more "cornevelders" (the darkest eggs) and 10 "special" cornevelders. The special ones are from a 2nd gen cornevelder hen (one of my "originals") and a cornevelder cockerel that's about 93% Barnevelder. The hen I retired at my sister's house and I also gave her the cockerel because he wasn't getting along with my pure barnevelder roo.

The hen started back laying really dark eggs (almost like marans) and the cockerel was hatched from a really dark egg as well. The hen's not my favorite because she's looks too dark cornish but I couldn't resist trying to concentrate some dark egg genes. I've been "retiring" some of my birds at my sister's and just about all her birds came from my place (except some day-old hatchery chicks) as a backup in case I need to re-visit some genetics.

Now that he's older, this guy even looks better than he does in this pic. Such a nice roo too, non-aggressive, hardly crows and when he does has a quiet musical crow. He's the daddy of the "special" eggs. I'm hoping for some nice dark egg pullets.

Nice!!!

 

[gavinandallison]

So, are babies are now a month old and growing fast......Out of 13 it looks like we have 4 males judging by size and the combs forming. I may be wrong, but having other breeds, the growth of comb is usually a good indicator.... Lets see.....

1 week in to the "female" egg experiment so far, all are turning nicely in the incubator so fingers crossed........

 

[tls_ranch]

Here's some updated pics of some of the blue pullets that hatched Jan 1st. They are still moulting so pardon the patchy feathers and poor tails. They'll moult one more time before they lay. It's also been raining something awful here.

Trisha




This is one of my favorite pullets and I like her top line Can't wait to see these girls in their adult feathers!

Lovely head too.....

 

[enggass]

 

[faykokoWV]

Ditto!