Cream Legbars

[ChicKat]

Punnett said something about the Cream hackles getting darker with rooster age.

Grant Brereton in the book 'Breeding for Success' says that you shouldn't breed birds until they get to be 2-years old. In otherwords...all the hatching we have been doing is premature. hmmmmmm

 

[TherryChicken]

3 of 6 of my girls

 

[chicken pickin]

Punnett said something about the Cream hackles getting darker with rooster age.

Grant Brereton in the book 'Breeding for Success' says that you shouldn't breed birds until they get to be 2-years old. In otherwords...all the hatching we have been doing is premature. hmmmmmm

Do any of you follow this 2 year rule?

 

[enola]

I won't follow that rule. However, if the results of my breeding were not good, I would be eating a LOT of chicken. I would not cull real hard until after their second molt, with the exceptions of obvious defects. I feel like there is the possibility of a whole generation of quality chicks being a whole year late. Life is too short. .............

I also do not help chicks hatch. Everyone that I have ever helped has had to be put down later.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Not I. Now as my flock grows and I do more hatching and growing I will be able to be more selective about my hens and their age but for now I can't really do that.

Some pictures from this weekend (some of these made it onto my revamped website):
I wish I could figure out lighting/background to get truer color to the eggs. They are not as pale as they look in the pics.


I have one or two laying the greenish egg like in the top right hand corner, all the rest of my new layers have a nice blue color to their eggs. Would like more saturation to the color but they are definitely blue.

 

[Ashdoes]

Lonnyandrinda~ do a lot of your males have those solid white tail feathers? Both of my boys have them, two each, it's odd and I was wondering if that was something I have to watch out for?

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Lonnyandrinda~ do a lot of your males have those solid white tail feathers? Both of my boys have them, two each, it's odd and I was wondering if that was something I have to watch out for?

I haven't grown very many roos out, either I know by 2-3 months that they will be too colorful or I lose the ones I was hoping to keep and grow out. From what I see it seems fairly common but I don't think we've had a discussion yet on whether or not that is what we want in the tails. I would guess a partially barred feather is OK but a pure white one is not. His two sickle feathers were barred until he came out of this last molt, now they just have a little dip of barring at the tips.

 

[WHmarans]

Good question about the tail color.



That is pretty much how my rooster's tail feathers are also. He's not yet a year old.

 

[enola]

I agree Rinda, when I have lots of hens on the ground, then I will be able to wait until they are mature to use them for breeding.

 

[dretd]

Quote:
The proposed SOP calls for:
Tail: Main Tail—gray, evenly barred.
Sickle and Coverts—light gray, barred, some white feathers permissible.

The way I read this is that there is a preference for a completely barred tail but a few white feathers are perfectly ok in moderation. ie they allow white feathers but they are not required.

Sort of like the chestnut is allowed in the crest, back shoulders etc but it is not a requirement. Allows for more variation in how the cocks look.