halefamily_flock
Songster
I recently left city life & corporate America after 20+ years and moved to rural southeast Missouri, to restart/rebuild the family farm where my dad grew up. I got my first chickens --4 Dominique hens and a Rooster--from Cackle Hatchery in June 2019. I thought I might expand the flock in 2020 with the goal of rainbow eggs and a few more heritage breeds. In February 2020, I picked up 25 day-old chicks after having just hatched 5 from my original mini-flock. #ChickenMath?! By August, after re-homing a few extra roos, I had a gorgeous free-ranging flock of 26 hens: Dominique, Speckled Sussex, Welsummer, Cream Legbar, Olive Egger (Welsummer x Cream Legbar), Silver Spangled Hamburg, and Golden Spangled Appenzeller Spitzhauben and 4 roosters (Cream Legbar & Gold Spitzhauben). I noticed my Cream Legbar roosters getting quite a bit of action with the Dominiques in the chicken yard, so I thought I might hatch a few mint-eggers before Easter. I hadn't put much thought into a Dominique x Gold Spitz cross, but 9 of 10 chicks ended up being black sex link Dom-Spitz. The sex link chicks just turned 5 weeks old and are ridiculously cool. 4 pullets are solid black, 2 are black with gold flames, the cockerels are barred with black backsides and green eyes, all 9 of them have chicken mohawks. I can't wait to see whether the girls end up with rose or horned combs, or some sort of blend, and what color eggs they lay (I'm expecting cream/tinted?). One of my cockerels has a horned comb and the other 2 look like they're growing rose combs. After the surprise black chicks hatched and inspired me to do a little chicken genetics research, I'm now officially hooked. I have plans to setup at least 2 fenced areas next spring so I can pair my roos more intentionally with the hens I want to cross. At a minimum, I want to try out a blue-egg black sex link (Gold Spitz Roo x Cream Legbar hen). Aspirationally, I want to create a blue egg layer, that breeds true, with horned or rose comb. Looking forward to connecting with others in the community with similar interests and experiments going on.
Glad you joined.
