I've always wondered about the techniques and knowledge behind creating new chicken breeds, such as breeding certain roosters to certain hens and picking and choosing them for certain characteristics until the desired breed with all the desired characteristics is accomplished.
Such as the Chocolate Orpington project, Mille Fleur Silkie project (I don't know if anyone is working on this but I saw a thread somewhere in this forum about it), etc...But if you want certain characteristics in a breed that you "create" yourself, how do you do that? What are the "techniques" used when trying to create a new breed? I've always found it interesting to mix completely different chicken breeds together and see what you get as the result...Just recently I mixed our standard Splash Cochin rooster with our standard Buff Orpington hen (who could have had a Barred Rock mixed in with her in the past, someone on here suggested, because she has some faint gray barring in her tail and isn't as fluffy as normal Buff Orps are suppose to be). I crossed them and what I got was this:
This is Ivory, my experiment hatch chick.
He is mostly buff colored, but has a few different feathers mixed in...He has some gray in his tail, feet, and wings, and the small wing/shoulder feathers seem to have some strange pattern on them. His wings are a darker, glossier shade of buff than the rest of his body. Someone said he looked like he had the coloring of a Blue Buff Columbian (like this: http://www.cleulow.com/mediac/400_0/media/Blue$20Buff$20cock.jpg). I think this is true, only Ivory's colors aren't as pronounced. The buff coloring seems to overpower all the rest of the other colors, such as the gray.
So what if I wanted to enhance the other colors and lessen the buff coloring? How would I know what breed to cross him with to get that result? Just curious.
Here are some profile pictures of Ivory taken today at 97 days old: (his growth was stunted, which is why he;s so small at his agefor those of you who have seen his thread with daily updates about him)
Head:
Feet: (his actual feet are a pink/gray color. His mother had white/pink feet, his feather had green/gray feet)
Body:
Wings: (notice that all of his flight feathers are half gray and buff...And I found a few feathers that are half dark gray with white mixed in and half buff, which is odd because there the only ones mainly on one wing, I noticed.
)
See the odd black/white feather?
Here's the few feathers on his wings/shoulders that I was talking about...They almost look a little barred.
So what do you think I could do for a little project to get a unique and different breed from Ivory? Any ideas? We may be getting some hens for him soon and I want to think about what breeds would result in breeding Ivory with a certain breed. Does Ivory qualify for a little breeding project? What breeds might go well with his characteristics? Thanks!
Thanks!
This is Ivory, my experiment hatch chick.
So what if I wanted to enhance the other colors and lessen the buff coloring? How would I know what breed to cross him with to get that result? Just curious.
Here are some profile pictures of Ivory taken today at 97 days old: (his growth was stunted, which is why he;s so small at his agefor those of you who have seen his thread with daily updates about him)
Head:
Feet: (his actual feet are a pink/gray color. His mother had white/pink feet, his feather had green/gray feet)
Body:
Wings: (notice that all of his flight feathers are half gray and buff...And I found a few feathers that are half dark gray with white mixed in and half buff, which is odd because there the only ones mainly on one wing, I noticed.
See the odd black/white feather?
Here's the few feathers on his wings/shoulders that I was talking about...They almost look a little barred.
So what do you think I could do for a little project to get a unique and different breed from Ivory? Any ideas? We may be getting some hens for him soon and I want to think about what breeds would result in breeding Ivory with a certain breed. Does Ivory qualify for a little breeding project? What breeds might go well with his characteristics? Thanks!
Thanks!
