Birds and Breeding Projects

[CharliesGarden]

I might be crazy, but I feel like the second batch of crossbreeds is growing much faster than the first. I think that's probably because I took daily photos of the first ones for about a month, and the younger ones have had weekly picture days.

I moved all the teens, crossbreed and Phoenix, into a bigger pen, and added my rescue Game hen in with them. They've all done really well together, as long as the teens don't get in the hen's way or try to square up with her.

I am surprised by the amount of red on the younger Duckwing cockerel. I can't wait to see how he turns out. We have two Duckwing pullets, but he's the first boy of the color. The older the birds get, the easier it is to tell the older Duckwing pullet from the Phoenix pullets of the same age. She's got a red breast, which makes her stand out, but she's also developing a much more Game-like posture. The other pullets generally hold their tails out semi-horizontally behind them, while this girl holds hers at an angle that makes her obvious. Otherwise they look relatively the same, although sometimes it looks as though she's got longer legs than the others, but I don't know if that's true or just a way my brain sets her apart.

At nearly 3 months, the boys are starting to get rowdy. I am a bit worried that I will need to separate them all at some point. So far, they haven't had any aggression with each other, but they've started bucking up to the older hen and attempting to breed the pullets. They are bolder and more determined than the Phoenix cockerels, which makes sense, and I'm hoping they'll calm down as time passes.

Out of our youngest chicks, three American Games, it appears we have two cockerels and one pullet. I'm not totally sure on this, as none of them have obviously roo-like characteristics, but the larger two have bad attitudes already. With the Phoenix chicks, they all looked relatively similar until around the 1 month or so mark, the crosses were fairly obvious as pullets and cockerels at a couple weeks, but I'm really not sure with these guys. I feel like the larger ones with mean streaks "should" be boys, because they stand straighter and are already trying to square up with myself and my large hens (in the next pen), but for all I know I could be completely wrong and Game pullets could be meaner and feather faster than the cockerels.

For some reason, the "pullet" is much smaller than her brothers, and only has a nub of a tail, versus her brothers who began growing out their tails almost immediately. I plan to hang onto the pullet to add more large white eggs to my evening basket, but I think I'll have to let her brothers go. I'll probably keep at least one of them until maturity, to see how they compare to their father, and then make a final decision on them then. Hopefully they calm down as well, both "boys" are already a bit aggressive to me when I feed them. They won't be staying if they can't be reasonable, no matter how pretty they become.

 

[CharliesGarden]

This is going to be a very long-winded post...

I can't believe I haven't posted here since September. My crossbreed chicks are nearly fully grown now. The pullets of the first hatch, which are now 8 months old, began laying on Christmas day. I sold the three I/i+ chicks from the second batch, and kept the two i+/i+ (Tenn and Jenny), which are now 6 months old.

I have learned so much since these chicks hatched, and got lucky enough to sell my Phoenix and crosses to a man who knew a lot more about genetics than I do, and was willing to stand around and talk to me while pointing at each bird.

These guys, and knowledgeable people willing to share with me, have taught me a lot about genes, but also left me with more questions. I now understand that my "Pyle" hen is Blue-Breasted Red with one copy of the Dominant White gene. I had my suspicions, but then she molted and now her tail sports blue specks, as does her sister's. Her I/i+ offspring also show blue. The cockerels share their mother's speckled tail, and the pullets had pale blue tails in the summer and autumn, although they look more white now.

However, knowing this led me to have the question "How is the blue being distributed?" None of my hen's wildtype siblings are blue or have any blue on them, nor do the the three i+/i+ crossbreed chicks. The blue gene somehow only exists in my I/i+ birds, which leads me to wonder if it could somehow be attached to the white gene in these birds specifically. I don't think this is possible, but genetics are strange things. There are many genes no one really knows anything about, even now.

As for the female i+/i+ offspring, I know that genetically they are identical to their Phoenix aunts (e+/e+, S/-), but the pullets show a much richer chest, like the reddish chest of their mother, instead of the salmon Phoenix breast. This made them very easy to distinguish from their pure Phoenix cousins in the growout pen. I'm not sure how this works genetically, but it's very pretty.

Another question I had when crossing these birds is "What sort of eggs will they lay?" I wondered how the large, white egg of the Gamefowl would mix with the smaller, pale tan egg of the Phoenix. So far, the crosses lay eggs that are the same pale tan as the Phoenix, but larger. They are not anywhere near the size of the Game eggs, but somewhere on the lower end of middle ground. I've also noticed over time that my Phoenix eggs tend to have a sort of "waxy" texture, which nearly always causes my date stamps to smudge, whereas the Game eggs are matte. The cross eggs tend to be more like the "waxy" Phoenix eggs. I don't know if that's a gene or something else, but if it is then it appears to be dominant, along with the color, and the size genes seem to be co-dominant and mixing.

The cockerels are really fun to look at, I absolutely love how they turned out. They look almost split down the middle, with their necks and back shape being similar to that of my Phoenix roosters, but their stance and tail feathers nearly match their Gamefowl uncle.

Now, for the things that are not Phoenix and Game cross related:

I learned a lot about Phoenix and the Silver variety from the kind man that bought my chicks. From now on, I've split my breeders into "better pullets" and "better cockerels", with the more Standard-looking hens with flared tails in the pullet pen, and the more creamy-pale hens with longer tails in the cockerel pen. I am hoping this will lead to more Standard-type pullets and cockerels than the ones I've bred before.

I have begun to plan my own "Olive Egger" line, because I want dark green eggs with heavy speckling. So far, I've messed around with the genetics calculator, and I think my final (until nature proves me wrong) plan is to have two separate cross pens: one with a BC Marans roo over Blue Ameraucana hens, and the other with a Bielefelder roo over Cream Legbar hens. These crosses "should" produce pullets that lay dark green and pale green speckled eggs, respectively. Then, from those pens, I will cross the blue F1 Marans/Ameraucana roos over the barred F1 Bielefelder/Legbar hens, and the resulting F2s should be sexlinked and lay dark green speckled eggs Of course I'll only know if this works when I try it, so it's all just speculation for now.

Something else I learned is that my rescue Game, Hazel, is from the McLean (GL)Hatch line like I expected she was. What I did not expect to learn was that she is split Partridge/Wheaten (Partridge split to Wheaten, or Wheaten split to Partridge? That I'm not sure on), with Partridge body and tail coloration and Wheaten neck and breast coloration. I am hoping to obtain a GL McLean Hatch line roo for her in the near future, possibly from the breeder that looked at her and explained her to me.

Thank you to anyone who has used their time to read all of this, I'm sorry it's so long and all over the place. If you're traveling down a similar breeding path, I hope even a little of this was helpful for you.