Buckeye Breed Thread

[tuthillny]

Hi,
With the incubators help my Broodies hatched out 10 buckeye chicks. One was culled early and 2 were killed by a marauding hen who has spent time in solitary confinement. So I am left with 3 broody mamas and 7 chicks. I have noticed that 2 chicks have single combs and another chick is chipmunk striped and I mean brown with dark brown stripping. Needless to say, I am confused. Research has found information saying the single combs could be due to crossing one line with another. Is that right? Thanks A

 

[cgmccary]

Quote:
I have not heard this information before. Most "lines" lead back to one of a few strains anyway: Urch, Rhodes, Brown, ALBC. All of these strains have been crossed by a number individual breeders with no such outcome, including myself.

 

[knox_co]

Hi,
With the incubators help my Broodies hatched out 10 buckeye chicks. One was culled early and 2 were killed by a marauding hen who has spent time in solitary confinement. So I am left with 3 broody mamas and 7 chicks. I have noticed that 2 chicks have single combs and another chick is chipmunk striped and I mean brown with dark brown stripping. Needless to say, I am confused. Research has found information saying the single combs could be due to crossing one line with another. Is that right? Thanks A

I am in my third year with Buckeyes and my original birds came from a reputable breeder. I believe I am up to 5 single combed birds in three years. It simply means the recessive gene for single combs is present in my sample of Buckeyes and single combs will crop up from time to time when carriers of the recessive gene are mated with one another.

As for the chipmunk striped chicks, if it is very pronounced I would have to wonder if a rooster of another breed flew over a fence or some eggs of another breed got mislabeled. But someone with more experience could better comment on this one. I just know I have not seen pronounced stripes in my Buckeye chicks.

 

[bobbi-j]

I'm wondering if there is any chance that this could be a Buckeye cockerel, or if it looks more like something may have jumped the fence. I got this guy in a variety pack of chicks from a breeder. There were 10 Buckeyes and 15 of misc. breeds (I only wanted Buckeyes, but she only had 2 hens and 10 was what she had available when I wanted the chicks to arrive). If he is a Buckeye, I'd like to keep him since he's so pretty. It's hard to see in the pictures, but the feathers are mostly iridescent with reddish-brown flecks. I couldn't get a good picture of that because he was in a hurry to be let out to forage. I will also post pics of the ones I'm sure are Buckeyes. Thank you for your help! Oh, I don't know if it matters or not, but the Buckeyes are from the Urch line.

 

[bobbi-j]

Here are a couple of pics of the others:

Pullets?

 

[Barred4Life]

I've been thinking I had RIR for the past 18 weeks...but now I'm wondering if my birds aren't Buckeye. I looked on the Buckeye website mentionned in this thread, and they sure are looking like Buckeyes. The guy I got my chicks from had both RIR and Buckeyes...so I'm thinking he must of gotten his eggs mixed up, hehe.
I was wondering what was typical Buckeye behavior? Physically my birds look like Buckeye, but I was wondering how their behavior was? I notice a huge difference between these birds and the rest of my birds (Barred Rock, EE, Bantam Mille-Fleur D'Uccle). I find they are fearless. They are the first ones out the coop EVERYTIME! They run, and run, and run, after little birds, butterflies, frogs, mice. I found a dead mouse the other day (and I don't have cats)!! They are the most curious birds I've had yet. Does this sound like typical Buckeye?
I definitly want more of these, really beautiful and entertaining chicken
Here are my beauties at 18 weeks :

 

[bobbi-j]

And since the tail isn't very visible, I can only guess by comb and wattles that the one on the right is a cockerel, and the one on the left is a pullet.

A better picture of the tail:

 

[bobbi-j]

Here is a group of my Buckeyes among the rest of the menagerie. The two closest ones are bigger than the others, with larger and redder combs and wattles, so I'm thinking they are cockerels. I know the photos aren't very good, but like I said before, they were in a hurry to get out of the run. Thank you all for your patience and help. I'm not breeding for show, just eggs and meat. So if they're not perfect, I'm not concerned about that, but would like to try to keep the breed true. That's why I asked about the odd-looking one in the first place. If he's not a Buckeye, he's on the list for butcher.

 

[hiwasseenursery]

The wattles and comb of this cockerel seem excessively large and the feathering seems somewhat mottled for a buckeye. Although some of the pullets in the following posts look like decent birds. Ma y have just been one chick that was a cross breed.

 

[cgmccary]

Barred4Life: yes, your bird looks like a Buckeye cockerel & yes, that sounds about right for their demeanor. They run to you in the morning and are always jumping at the door. Then they take off running and chasing every thing that moves -- Buckeyes are a very active fowl, the most active of the American breeds. I sometimes think it looks like a Jurassic Park with them scattering and running around.