Buckeye Breed Thread

[Pathfinders]

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Oh sure. I have some production White Leghorns in the Big Coop with the Buckeyes (4-H birds) and I can tell the difference due to egg color, natch. Harder to do with other brown egg layers though.

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Not specifically, no. At that point it was "I want some, from anywhere" rather than anything specific. I just wanted more! And I knew Don would be raising excellent birds (as I also knew about Matt), so getting some from him was a no-brainer. I will always be grateful to him for his help.

 

[Brick243]

Pathfinder...I love the picture of the stallion circa 1937. What a pose. That is a great looking barn also.

 

[Pathfinders]

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Thanks! The barn is still there, but sadly no one in the family has horses but my husband and me any more (and we're in KY.) I have many fond memories of riding the trails there with my grandfather as a child. ((sigh))

 

[petrelline]

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Hmmm, do you have pictures of the mottled/blotchy? I have Ideal hatchery buckeyes -- and I am fully aware they are not to standard, I bought them as a meat bird and backyard hen experiment, not to show, not to breed. But they all have scattered mottled black feathers, especially in the wings. A few of the cockerels have black hackles. I assumed this was just bad breeding and shrugged it off.

All of them have had correct combs and coloring -- although I did have two that were speckled, so I suspect Ideal has been putting sussex into the line.

 

[Pathfinders]

Here's one:

>

I am more inclined to think it comes from Partridge Chantecler that was introduced to the line at one time (by whom, I am not sure.)

Look at this pic and let me know what you think:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JDYi6gebF...APM/x9ULaaLf5Tk/s320/Partridge+Chantecler.jpg

Or this one:

http://www.llewellinsetter.com/images/Partridge Chantecler.jpg

I think much more likely Chantecler than Sussex.

 

[petrelline]

Hmmm, OK, I double-checked, and I've only got one hen with feathers like that, all on her thighs. Most of the black I've got is stripey, or solid feathers, like the wings on these sunbathers:

Or this guy's hackles:

The two buckeyes I got from Ideal that were speckled were *really* speckled. I wasn't trying to say that all buckeyes had sussex in them; I think Ideal put sussex into theirs somewhere which was why the speckles showed up. I took this picture to show the sores on this poor chick's chest in the Emergencies/Diseases topic, but you can see the speckles here. This was just completely silly.

Like I said, I only ordered the Ideal buckeyes because this was a backyard experiment and not for any kind of breeding or showing but the speckles surprised me. I'd be really disappointed if I had ordered a couple buckeyes from Ideal in a mixed order and got speckled birds.

I have no opinion of where the partridge mottling in the breed may have come from, I'll leave that to you experts.

 

[jenjscott]

Is that speckling on an adult? A lot of my chicks are speckled like that, but grown in nice adult plumage. The black in the wing feathers is normal. The dark hackle feathers are undesirable.

 

[ijon1]

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At this point I am set up with one major pen, a large coop in which the birds are locked at night; we had chickens stolen from it several years ago, it's pretty darned secure now with some extra secret weapons I don't talk about in public.

This is surrounded by about half an acre of electric poultry netting in which the birds day range. They love to hide in the trees and bushes, and seek out bugs, snakes, mice, anything that isn't nailed down they eat.

I also have several smaller pens with younger birds in them, and have two friends locally who also have my bloodlines in the event we are hit by thieves again, so we won't be completely out of birds. But my main breeders are all in the one big pen. Three cock birds with about 24 hens. About 60 youngsters who will, after the first cull, go into "The Big Coop" as we call it.

So as to your cock bird question, I don't (at this time) know which male is responsible for which chicks. I wish I had the wherewithal to create separate breeding pens, but we're actually cutting back these days a bit (selling out of all but Buckeyes) as our older daughter is going off to college this fall, and we'll be shy one chore hand and a lot of $$ to pay for tuition.

IRT what my purpose in crossing Brown to ALBC, well, when I started I got my Brown birds from Matt John, and wanted more! Matt got badly hit in a flood in '07, and lost about 70% of all his birds, several hundred were just washed away. So I contacted Don Schrider at the ALBC who sent me hatching eggs, and from there I was off!

And while I've only had Buckeyes since 2006, I've had poultry since 2000, and my family has had poultry since before the early 1900s. That's part of what drew me to the Buckeyes in the first place, I am originally from OH, and my grandfather loved to carry a Buckeye nut in his pockets, there is a large Buckeye tree in the front yard of his house on the farm (which I now own part of with other relatives.) You can see some pics of the farm from the 30s and 40s here: http://www.pathfindersfarm.com/BKF.html

Hope that answers some of your questions. Was your grandfathers stallion a American Saddlebred? He looks to be with that high arching neck.

 

[petrelline]

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Really. OK, then I am completely deluded.

The speckled chick was 4 weeks old. Unfortunately both the buckeyes chicks I had that were speckled died before they matured -- one from bad crossbeak and one from...well, I don't know what it was, but it started with those sores in the picture and got worse from there. So I never got to see if either grew out of the speckles. But this is very very useful information, thank you.

Eventually I would like to have better quality buckeyes, when I move up to breeding. Even the hatchery buckeyes I have are SO much fun.

 

[Pathfinders]

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Yes, my great-grandfather and grandfather bred American Saddlebreds. It was really cool to visit the Saddlebred Museum at the KY Horse Park and see the name of one of their studs listed there.