Brahma Thread

[Tim63]

Hey everyone,
I was just wondering if anyone would or knows of good breeders of standard brahmas down there the are willing to ship birds to Canada? I'm looking to get some new blood in my standard buffs and darks.
Thanks for any help!
Don

I don't know of anyone who ships to Canada. It would be best to go to one of the big shows, like in Ohio, and take birds home your self. Or if you have friends or know Canadian judges coming to U.S. shows, have them bring birds back.

 

[Sjisty]

I love the color - how is their type?

This one has a dirty face from eating grapefruit. It is white when clean. She is about 15 weeks old.


I couldn't get a rear picture, yet. She does have a couple of broken tail feathers making it hard to tell if she has a "U" or not. She is about 20 weeks, give or take.

 

[big medicine]

I think any chicken would eat a broken egg. The key, like someone else said, is not to let so many build up in a nest. She may have gotten a taste decided it was good, and ate them all.

Just to add, egg eating seems to be a learned behavior. Usually accidently started, but can become a habit, that can be picked up by other flock members.

 

[big medicine]

I love the color - how is their type?

This one has a dirty face from eating grapefruit. It is white when clean. She is about 15 weeks old.


I couldn't get a rear picture, yet. She does have a couple of broken tail feathers making it hard to tell if she has a "U" or not. She is about 20 weeks, give or take.

We dealing with reccessive white here ? If so, should be relatively easy to improve type by breeding to the best typed birds regaurdless of color. In a few generations should be able to get back to all white birds again.

Curious what path you took. Judging by the hocks and foot feathering I'd guess you stayed away from Cochin blood, avoiding considerable trouble.

As to this youngster, other than needing more foot feathering, I'll hold off and waite to see how it matures. Been fooled enough times to have learned it pays to be patient.

 

[Sjisty]

Thanks, Big Medicine. The path I took was just breeding Brahma to Brahma. As I have gotten into more blues and blue splash pairing, I have occasionally gotten these white guys. I have really been working in the dark, knowing absolutely nothing about genetics, but I love these guys and would like to develop them. These came from a black hen paired with a blue splash rooster. The black hen I was told was 5 generations Brahma, but I don't know what else went into the lines before that. She does lay blue eggs. The rooster came from my own breeding, pairing blue partridge and solid blue.

I now have three solid whites, two pullets and a cockerel (I think). These are brother and sister. Again, the dirty faces are due to eating grapefruit falling to the ground. Their faces are also solid white, when clean.

 

[big medicine]

Sounds like it just about has to be recessive white, although in the back of my mind I don't want to dismiss the possibilty they could be a washed out splash. Especially in light of a discussion we had on here a while back about anomalles people have documented in breedind blue lately.

An interesting test would be to breed on to a totally urelated bird (to be sure it is not carrying a hidden single copy of recessive white) with black, say a light, and one carrying red and black, say a partridge, or gold laced.

If the chicks with the light come out white, and the gold laced come out looking kinda white laced red, then dominant white.

If they come out looking pretty much like the colored parent, then recessive white.

If they come out with blue trim, then splash.

Now the tricky part is you could have splash hidden under recessive white which would throw the same blue chicks the first generation. Off the top of my head, I would think the best way to test that would be to continue breeding from the blue chicks. In theory, (actually in theory you should not be able to get splash from a breeding involving a black parent to start with, but that goes back to the afore mentioned anomaly) breeding the blue chicks should produce 50% blue 25%black and 25% splash chicks. Now I have seen lines where splash is very hard to distiguish from white, lacking the odd blue feather, or part of feather. So I believe I would continue with the black chicks from this cross to eliminate any possibility of confusing splash with white. A percentage of these chicks should be carrying recessive white, if that is in fact what we are dealing with here. If any white chicks come from these black to black breedings, then you can be sure it is recessive white.

Just kind of thinking out loud here. Let me bounce this around in my head today and get back to you later. Might have a whole different theory by then.

 

[Sjisty]

I have also been getting splash with the same pairing -

 

[Shark Akhrrana]

Ooh

I have also been getting splash with the same pairing -

that splash I love it. Just curious. How long did it take you to reach this point?

 

[Sjisty]

Ooh
that splash I love it. Just curious. How long did it take you to reach this point?

I'm in the third generation on these guys. The splashes have just started laying. I have a 5-day-old chick from the one on the right, so he/she's the fourth generation and looks to be solid blue so far.

 

[Shark Akhrrana]

I'm in the third generation on these guys.  The splashes have just started laying.  I have a 5-day-old chick from the one on the right, so he/she's the fourth generation and looks to be solid blue so far.

All I have is the 10 chicks I got from the hatchery last week. But part of me wishes I would have known more before. I didn't know about the blues or whites or how to get quality chicks. I do have what I thought was a brahma hen. But she is shorter than the average brahma and from what I was told here, her comb indicates he has something else in her.