They're very cute! What breed are they?Sorry but I just wanted to share my bantam babies. I sat in the coop and hung out with them yesterday. I am easily entertained.
I have been told that the silvers are girls and the golds are boys...hoping that is true.
Love the attentive dog!Introducing the pullets to the adult hens...this is two of the six adults, these two are the most interested in the babies. I put the babies in a dog crate with food and water and will leave them out there all day. Gonna do this every day that it's not raining for a while...how long should I do this for before letting the babies go out and free range with the hens?
Just catching up on this busy, busy thread -Gotta relieve my excitement.
My holland lop doe had SIX beautiful, healthy babies!Her first two litters never made it, so this is so exciting!
A lot of good points Kim. Who was it that said "Build the barn before you paint it"...?????Breeding chickens is a LOT more complicated than looking at the color calculator and putting a few birds together.
Kathy, who recreated the Delaware, had to breed hundreds of chicks in order to get the silver sports that she needed in the first couple years. I think she ended up with 4 breedable pullets out of 300.
I bought F4s from her and they have nice type but still don't have standard coloring. Most of the fifth generation chicks that I'm producing still look like they have too much barring.
So, recreating a Delaware is a long process, you don't get Delawares from just crossing a BR x NH.
Many people who raise chickens don't realize that it's the type (shape) that makes a breed a breed, not the color. If you took a giraffe and somehow made it have zebra stripes, it would still be a giraffe.It would be a very poor example of a giraffe, too!
That's exactly what's happening with many breeds of chickens. Breeders are focusing on all the colors and producing poor type birds with fancy coloring. The feathers are pretty- but underneath is a shape that does not define the true breed.
Here are some photos from the APA Standard that I modified, trying to remove the color and show the shape. (The APA Standard is copyrighted and can't be reproduced. Hope this is ok.)
This is a Dorking and a Delaware. Look at the outline shape of the birds. They are nothing alike!
My point here is that, if you want to breed purebred ie standard bred chickens, you need to pay attention to type first, and color/pattern as icing on the cake. That's really what separates the hatchery chickens from the standard bred birds. If you look at chickens from hatcheries (and many breeders), they all have a similar unspecific shape. When you go to a show and see chickens bred to their standard, you see chickens with proper type- as well as beautiful feathers. APA Standard bred chickens are in need of good breeders, btw.Lots of people are mixing breeds and making fancy colors but few are trying to preserve the historically significant breeds of poultry.
One more thing, regarding the color calculator. Chickens don't always reproduce as expected. In addition to what you see, their phenotype, is a whole lot of genes (their genotype) that you can't see. Those unseen genes pop up and create all kinds of surprises. The more you cross lines and add new birds, the more genetic surprises you create. That's why most standard bred chicken breeders linebreed- for predictability. That's why I am doing pedigree breeding. I am identifying the parents of every chick that I'm raising and keeping records of all their traits. I'm culling the traits that are undesired and selecting for the traits that I want. I never use the color calculator because it can't really tell me the genotype of my birds.
I have bred dogs and am a breeder of purebred cattle, sheep and pigs, in addition to chickens. Chicken breeding to standard is by far the most challenging.
We have a grand total of 11 babies in our mini "rabbitry".My other doe had six, but one didn't make it.
Moving to the country was definitely a positive move but also a lot more work, albeit FUN still WORK..!!!!!! LOL
I have in the past & agree they are a lot easier to process than chickens. I guess if we skinned the chickens it would be more like doing the rabbits but my husband thinks the skin is the best part even if it isn't healthy......He is NOT a good chicken eater to begin with & wouldn't even consider rabbit. He just doesn't know what is good...........a city slicker at heart being born & raised in Oakland.....LOL
I would have to study this to try. I thought there was a male/female thing going on as to the parents to the breeding for sex link. Does it have to be a barred cock or something like that or will either combination work????
Good for you......We should all take time to enjoy the fruits of our labors (or my son's labors that is..........LOL)Sorry but I just wanted to share my bantam babies. I sat in the coop and hung out with them yesterday. I am easily entertained.
I have been told that the silvers are girls and the golds are boys...hoping that is true.
I haven't tried this with chicks since I usually raise them in groups of like ages, but I have introduced grown birds that way & do it for several days. I usually just wait til they have roosted for the night & introduce new birds in then & more than one at a time if possible with good results.Introducing the pullets to the adult hens...this is two of the six adults, these two are the most interested in the babies. I put the babies in a dog crate with food and water and will leave them out there all day. Gonna do this every day that it's not raining for a while...how long should I do this for before letting the babies go out and free range with the hens?
Introducing the pullets to the adult hens...this is two of the six adults, these two are the most interested in the babies. I put the babies in a dog crate with food and water and will leave them out there all day. Gonna do this every day that it's not raining for a while...how long should I do this for before letting the babies go out and free range with the hens?
There is. the basics are: a Red Rooster over a barred/cuckoo or silver female will give you a red or black sex link. The barring is passed from a female only to her male offspring. The females will all carry the red from their dad. The cuckoo/barred mama passes black on to the female but not the barring. She will have red on her head and neck from her dad.
My last experiment was with a Barred Rock cockerel over non barred hens. They were not sex link. Going to try the reverse now. If this works, I may have a lavender cuckoo orpington pullet to experiment with soon
