Columbian wyandottes

[jonih]

Yes let me be more detailed. I am new to chickens but have raised rabbits and various other livestock. I'm getting some columbian wyandottes from mcmurray just to play with. i love the breed type for them represented in the standard, so would like to learn what i can abt color genetics for when I go hunting breeding birds. in my experience wit rabbits, whites are generally very large, hardy, and well typed in breeds with several varieties. from what ive read so far, this appears to be true with wyandottes as well.

So what I'm wondering is how the white and columbian genetics will interplay if I select white roosters to add type and size to columbian hens. if you know of any thorough works on vhicken color genetics, please feel free just to point me that way. the more detailed and technical the better! Thanks

 

[Rancher3535]

Yes, you can put a white male on columbian females for one year cull out all the males and keep the best females. Then you need to breed back the next two years to a columbian male to columbian female or you will lose your slate under color and end up with total white like a light sussex has.

One thing I hate to see is someone getting on a web post and start to bash hatcheries. If you are buying from a commercial hatchery, such as you said in your post, you need to send me a private e-mail to [email protected]. I will try and give you some help with them.

 

[jonih]

Will do! My internet won't be up at home until the 8th so it will probably be then. I am SICK of posting from my phone!!!!!

 

[gilavina]

Hey Rob and Ryan, good to see you both here. I don't know where I've been ,but didn't know that they had started a thread for the Columbians. I have both large fowl and bantam Columbians. I need to get new photos, but have some of the bantams at least. I'm still on the hunt for a few more good quality large fowl for my stock, so hoping I can find some before too long.

Here's some of my bantams.




waiting to be loaded up for one of the shows while they finish drying off.

 

[flaming007]

Very nice birds!

 

[gilavina]

Very nice birds!

Thanks Ryan. I have a couple more hens I don't have photos of, but are also of good quality. Should hopefully start collecting eggs to hatch out of them soon, just waiting for them to pick up on laying. How's things down your way? We ended up with 8" overnight up here....not a pleasant surprise

 

[NanaKat]

My pen has been laying like crazy up until this past week. Several of the hens and the rooster have started a moult so the egg count has dropped significantly. Most of the chicks hatched have been pullets...a blessing and a problem if you want nice cockerels to cover the pullets you save. At 7 weeks the first to hatch are already feathered nicely and I'm beginning to be able to see tail feathers in /\ tent form....keeping my fingers crossed for those cockerels. I'm going to pull the black, blue and BCW from the pen next week and concentrate on the Columbian to boost the numbers for chick selection after their moult is completed. Our weird weather fluctuations have played havoc on the birds in the breeding pens.

Hopefully Rob, you will have some eggs later this summer.

Gilavina, your birds are lovely. Have you started your project pen? Encourage enable...

 

[gilavina]

My pen has been laying like crazy up until this past week. Several of the hens and the rooster have started a moult so the egg count has dropped significantly. Most of the chicks hatched have been pullets...a blessing and a problem if you want nice cockerels to cover the pullets you save. At 7 weeks the first to hatch are already feathered nicely and I'm beginning to be able to see tail feathers in /\ tent form....keeping my fingers crossed for those cockerels. I'm going to pull the black, blue and BCW from the pen next week and concentrate on the Columbian to boost the numbers for chick selection after their moult is completed. Our weird weather fluctuations have played havoc on the birds in the breeding pens.

Hopefully Rob, you will have some eggs later this summer.

Gilavina, your birds are lovely. Have you started your project pen? Encourage enable...

Howdy!

I am clearing some of the bantam b/b/s and some of the large fowl b/b/s at the moment so I can start working. I will probably get more active with them once I feel like the snow is out of the way for the season. I started collecting eggs last week from various pens, but the vast majority I have not. We get power outages here during bad weather, so want to avoid losing an incubator full of eggs if I can help it.

 

[flaming007]

doing good down here. You can keep that snow!!!! haha ;-) I have 11 hens now with 4 nice roosters. I got the comb problem fixed with good culling and pluss frank reese gave me his whole silverlace flock and man he had some nice ones in there. I have fertile eggs in the incubator now and eggs are starting to roll in good now.

Hows your birds doing?

 

[gilavina]

doing good down here. You can keep that snow!!!! haha ;-) I have 11 hens now with 4 nice roosters. I got the comb problem fixed with good culling and pluss frank reese gave me his whole silverlace flock and man he had some nice ones in there. I have fertile eggs in the incubator now and eggs are starting to roll in good now.

Hows your birds doing?

Well, its looking like its supposed to hit 70 today, so will help to melt off the rest of the snow and hopefully start drying out the ground, some places are a muddy mess now after all the melting snow the last couple of days.
Glad you got your comb issues sorted out! I'd love to see some of the flock since you don't see nice SLW much anymore around here. Bet you'll have your incubator filled up for a while with the SLW and Columbians. Hey, are you going to Gardner tomorrow for the sale? I'm heading down super early to get there to browse before they start the auction.
The birds here are doing well, birds are starting to lay like crazy now, and hopefully after the ground dries out will be starting my building projects for the season. Time to have more flock and breeding pens!