Breeding Cuckoo d'Anvers

[Amer]

I normally desperate my chickens when breeding, but we not planning on breeding anything. So all of our free range chickens were in a mixed flock and a bantam Dominique hen Zealand and her bantam Dominique hen partner in crime Dominique decided to make a nest in secret. They layed eggs, along with a few other hens, in the nest. Anyway Zealand hatched a great amount of them. We narrowed down the chicks to what seemed to be purebred and figured out two looked like Dominique bantams, but one had a beard like a d'Anver. We have noticed the cuckoo d'Anvers have smutty barring and have noticed the decidedly d'Anver roo, Dominique hen cross is showing nice Dominique coloring as well as a vigor d'Anver chicks never have, because of hybrid vigor. Due to it being part Dominique bantam, it will be slightly bigger and have larger battles, but d'Anver breeders do you think breeding this bird would be good for my d'Anver lines? Please understand I am still only a hobbyist and can be flexible in breeding with different breeds.

 

[Sneebsey]

Don't breed anything other than d'Anvers into your d'Anvers lines. If you need extra vigor I would suggest finding a black pure d'Anvers pullet and breeding her to a cuckoo roo and only keeping the pullets from this cross (they will all be cuckoo but the males will only have one copy of the gene so will be dark barred). Remember that barring is smoother on a Dominique as they are a fast feathering breed; cuckoo birds should have patchier barring anyway.

Do not use the Dominique cross in your breeding as d'Anvers have a totally different body shape and conformation. They can be yard pets, sure; I have a lot of mixes that are just for eggs and beauty, but will only muddy the breed in the long run if bred into your penned lines. You also cannot be certain that any of the chicks you hatched are pure, therefore I would not use any in pure-breeding, even if they look like pure-breeds.

 

[Amer]

That's what I thought of doing, but our only cuckoo roo is single barred, so there are lots of black feathers.

 

[Amer]

We are still going to keep ours until they grow up, though. We have a Buckeye that seems pure, and I hope it will stay that way. Otherwise, if it is a male mix it's dinner, if it is a female mix it is male. All the breeds we have otherwise (that were laying were Ameraucanas, bantam Dominiques, and d'Anvers. It would look very different if it was one of those. We also have a rir, but she wasn't laying at the time.

 

[Amer]

Bump