Chocolate Serama Breeders - dun and blue can be included here as well

[TinyBirds]

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I feel the same way. I let mine out of their pens about half the time, but we have lost over a hundred birds this past year from doing that. It is a constant tug-of-war in my mind, wanting to give them freedom (they do like to roam free) and yet also wanting them to stay alive. With the overhead nets on the pens, we have it zip-tied to the edges of the fence every 2 ft, yet they still figure out how to get in there sometimes through a tiny corner. Sometimes they dive-bomb the middle of the net too, without success of course. As a comparison though, I would say I lose only 1 bird every 2 months that is inside a covered pen (they have 50ftx50ft netting attached to 5ft tall fence, and very secure wood coops for night-time), compared to losing sometimes 5 birds in a day if I let them out of the pens in the day. The bobcats in particular seem to take many more birds than they actually need. And I don't understand why the hawks just eat the head and neck, and leave the rest of the meat to waste.

My current problem is a welsummer mama that had 7 chicks originally, on free range in the day with her chicks, but is already down to 5 chicks (lost 2 to the hawks). I saw her chasing the hawk all the way across the yard as it carried her baby away. The chicks are so adorable on free range, scratching in the leaves like their mama, and eating huge grubs, but at this rate they will all be gone in a few weeks

I know I have to pen them up today, but it makes me sad to do it - sad either way!


ETA: In order to join the subject of chocolate seramas, here is my new boy that is likely carrying the chocolate gene (bought from PhiladelphiaPhlock). I plan to breed him with a black serama, but she's only 2 months old right now, so I have to wait awhile.

 

[muffi]

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I've heard of females spontaneously developing male characteristics, most often due to ovarian malfunction or damage.

 

[SunValleySeramas]

WOW that is crazy,, I believe it, nature is an amazing thing, i know fish and frogs do it, Ok some people do it!! But if any chicken was to do anything like that i think it would be a serama!!

 

[smoothmule]

Catwalk,
The only thing I can thing of, as a guess, is that maybe they aren't chocolate at all but a combination of color genes that appear chocolate? I have an Araucana hen that may be brown/red (same as black copper in Marans) and a dose of blue which made her look like none of the colors in her gene group, she actually looks dun to me.

I think it's nearly impossible to label a Serama as chocolate without knowing enough about the parents. Even the most basic color genes are totally changed when there are a lot of other color genes added and Serama's seem to have them all. Here is the hen that is not dun or chocolate or anything close, she may be a brown/red hen with blue. The more genes, the more challenging it is to visually determine color. Knowing the parent colors helps sometimes and seeing what they produce is helpful.....or more confusing, lol

Not dun, not chocolate....(and not Serama,

)

 

[Ok_Junebug]

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Liz,

Are you SURE that he actually is chocolate? The reason I ask is because I have something very similar that I have been calling "ginger blue". I have roughly 20 of these or similar color...I am 3 generations into the line and it is complicated...from the same line I have also isolated pure blue and a dark brown...I have about 20 or so of those also and am setting up breeding pens for each respective color to further purify (4th generation).

 

[catwalk]

Nope, not sure at all. If he was a she, I'd have no doubt. But I think that maybe it is a different set of diluters, if he is in fact from the breeding that I say he is. If I mislabeled the egg, or if I matched the wrong shell to the wrong chick, his being chocolate would not be a question, as I still have the original chocolate father and a few of his daughters. He's in the mail to his new home now, so I may never know....

 

[smoothmule]

June,
How cool! I can't wait to take a look at these new colors in person.

What do you all think of this chick? The rooster is T-Roo and the hen, I believe is Cici, they are full siblings and they had a full sibling (that I lost as a 3 month old pullet) that looked dun. There were others that hatched looking chocolate down and feathered black but I had no reason to suspect chocolate. The pullet didn't look chocolate anyway, she looked more like a silver fawn color in OEG's. This chick is only 2 days old.

I have no clue here but the feathering, juvenile and certainly not the final color, is interesting and I am hoping someone here has hatched some similar enough to have some ideas.

 

[TinyBirds]

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I think some people here in the U.S. have probably crossed seramas to the dun-chocolate old english game bantams (available from Ideal Poultry). That's probably how the dun got in to the mix in the U.S. (if it is in the mix - I don't know much about it - just guessing since I have heard some folks have crossed to OEG and JapBantams). I know there is chocolate in the seramas here too, but I'm just guessing at why we might also have dun in the seramas (if we do - again, no idea personally since I have neither! - other than 1 possible choc-carrier boy I recently bought).

 

[smoothmule]

Hatched today, rooster is T-Roo (also dad to the above chick with his full sister Cici that is pale brown color) and mother hen is Truffles, my solid chocolate hen. So, how did I get this color? I was hoping for a solid black cockerel that would be a chocolate split to breed back to Truffles but would have been happy with any split chocolate cockerel. When it first hatched, I thought possibly black but as it began to dry and fluff a little, I thought it almost looked blue but not quite right, all I was sure of was that it was some sort of diluted color. I went to town and when I got home, I took it out and looked at it in natural lighting, outside (it's plenty warm here) and couldn't believe what I saw.

Is this chocolate? Dun? Some other combinations of genes to "look" like one of these? I suppose there is always the chance that T-Roo is a split chocolate? I have more Truffles chicks to hatch soon, another single chick due to hatch tomorrow. I'm dying to see the rest now. I love these surprises. Thoughts??

 

[muffi]

It looks like an eb-based chick, probably also silver. You will need to wait and see what it feathers out as to know if the black is diluted.