Breeding a new chicken breed

[Arjun Masthi]

T

In case you haven't already come across this thread, it may be the crested + bearded version of a Spitz you were thinking about...
brabanters-and-spitzhaubens-the-differences-pic-heavy

Is is very interesting... Though, now I'm reconsidering a beard. Won't it impede vision? I'll see how big of a beard the strains of Faverolles provide... Thanks again!

 

[halefamily_flock]

T

Is is very interesting... Though, now I'm reconsidering a beard. Won't it impede vision? I'll see how big of a beard the strains of Faverolles provide... Thanks again!

I've never been a fan of beards or muffs, personally, but they are popular! How was the trip to get your new birds? Were they what you hoped for?

 

[Arjun Masthi]

I've never been a fan of beards or muffs, personally, but they are popular! How was the trip to get your new birds? Were they what you hoped for?

The route was busy! The birds are great. About a month old chicks. 4 salmon faverolles and 2 spitz.
Yes, I love the beard personally. But not sure about practicality

 

[wf1992]

How can anyone not love the floofy cheeks & beard?? My rooster doesn't get to keep his tho - his ladies pull it out. Not exactly an alpha-male that boy. He is quite literally hen-pecked.

Re beard genetics, my bearded ee rooster & hen produced 50/50 bearded/clean-cheeked babies, so presumably the beard is dominant. I can't imagine it serves any purpose, but I've never noticed it interfering with anyone's vision.

 

[Arjun Masthi]

How can anyone not love the floofy cheeks & beard?? My rooster doesn't get to keep his tho - his ladies pull it out. Not exactly an alpha-male that boy. He is quite literally hen-pecked.

Re beard genetics, my bearded ee rooster & hen produced 50/50 bearded/clean-cheeked babies, so presumably the beard is dominant. I can't imagine it serves any purpose, but I've never noticed it interfering with anyone's vision.

Haha. Hen pecked. Yes, they're adorable indeed. Perhaps my previous faverolles was not a pure one (I picked it out of a pet market with another that died in transit- you should see some pet markets in India, you'd be appalled). That was almost a decade ago when I didn't know better. I buy from humane breeders now. So maybe it is dominant after all.
I intend the breed to help poor and marginal farmers with a good yielding dual purpose breed- they only house the birds overnight, and for egg laying- the birds are simply let loose in the day, with some grains given as supplements if at all). Thus the breed needs to be predator savvy and resourceful.
I'm keeping the beard for now! Thanks for the info!

 

[Arjun Masthi]

I've never been a fan of beards or muffs, personally, but they are popular! How was the trip to get your new birds? Were they what you hoped for?

The other spitz is with the BSO Brahma chicks at the back. This is a quarantine cage that's away from my main birds.
(I need some sort of set up for breeders ) My current set up of keeping separate flocks in different parts of the farm is laborious. I might get large breeder cages that are good for a trio of large birds soon!)
P.S each of the Faverolles are from different parents. Attaching the pictures of the parents of the male chick, and a BSO Brahma male chick I got recently

 

[Arjun Masthi]

Thanks.

Okay sounds good. I love big birds.

Sorry about the clarity, they have just been moved here. Quite flighty.
The buff rooster is a split for Partridge. These are the medium sized birds I have. The other hen with it is a F1 cross between a Landrace and the Giriraja Breed I spoke about in the beginning. One of the largest of the batch.

 

[Arjun Masthi]

A quick question, broodiness comes from both parents, but mainly from the mothers. Am I right?
And egg laying from roosters or both sides equally?

 

[NatJ]

A quick question, broodiness comes from both parents, but mainly from the mothers. Am I right?
And egg laying from roosters or both sides equally?

I would expect them to come equally from both sides.

Because of the way chicken sex chromosomes work, there are some traits that a hen only gets from her father, not her mother. (Roosters have ZZ chromosomes, and pass Z to every chick. Hens have ZW, and pass Z to their sons and W to their daughters. So anything on the Z chromosome cannot be passed from mother to daughter.) But I don't think broodiness or number of eggs work that way.

 

[halefamily_flock]

A quick question, broodiness comes from both parents, but mainly from the mothers. Am I right?
And egg laying from roosters or both sides equally?

Based on my research, egg production of offspring should be comparable to the higher producing parent, vs. split between them. That seems to be the case in my Welsummer-Legbar crosses, which have about the same high productivity as my Welsummer hens vs. my moderate producing Legbar hens. In that cross, the higher producing parent was the rooster.

I just got my first pullet eggs from my Spitz-Dominique cross this week, just shy of 5 months old. In the coming weeks I should know whether the new girls produce like Dominique, Spitz, or something in between. In this cross, the Dominique hen was the much higher producing parent. My only Spitz hen is the poorest producer of the flock. In fact, the only reason I decided to use my Spitz rooster in so many crosses was because of the research that indicated the offspring wouldn't be seriously affected by the poor egg laying of the Spitz, as long as I crossed him with productive hens. I think I can have it all, with beauty and productivity. I hope it's true!