***Crevecoeur Thread***

[cluck-cluck]

Well, my oldest chicks are a little over 4 weeks old and it looks like 1 of the 3 is a boy (so my vent sexing was incorrect) He has slightly red wattles up under his chin, though they're not sticking out much, the other two, which are 1 and 3 days older than him have no sign of color. The two younger chicks, I can't tell anything yet. I pegged one as a boy and the other a girl when vent sexing. We shall see in a couple of more weeks what I have??

Nice thing is they seem to be growing stronger and bigger than their parents did, but that is probably wishful thinking, LOL.

 

[poularde]

Hey cluck cluck. Congrats on the chicks. I hate to ask, but is there any chance those babies are crosses? They seem to have an awful lot of yellow on their beaks and legs. Crevs should have white skin. My chicks did not have any yellow.



Been meaning to ask you. When the weather cools down would you be interested in some hens? Since I will not be breeding I would hate for the line to go to waste. I could ship you a few of the nicer ones if you pay shipping costs. Let me know.

 

[cluck-cluck]

Well, Belina's eggs are distinctly different from the leghorn eggs. They're smaller and have a creamier hue to them. It's possible I allowed one of the leghorn eggs to hatch, but I don't think so as all the chicks look alike and show no sign of odd combs. However, these are hatchery chicks from hatchery stock, so I don't doubt they'll have all sorts of troubles!

 

[rowdybear]

Is this lil guy a crevecour. He's only about seven weeks old.

 

[cluck-cluck]

Awww, he's so sweet! Nice crest there, are you sure it's a boy? Where did you get him? I got mine at Ideal poultry. I made the mistake of giving the one boy with perfect red earlobes away. I didn't know he would grow out like that, but I visited him and his earlobes ended up with no white at all. I have no idea who has him now, but I kick myself for not keeping him, LOL. The one I kept was larger and I was going for size. At the time, his earlobes only looked a little whiter, but my Bouillon has noticable white white in his earlobes making them look pink

I'm still hoping to buy eggs from exop

Oh, excuse me, I read that as a statement, not a question, LOL. It certainly looks like a crevecoeur, and if he ends up with a red face as an adult (give him 5 + months) he most likely is. They have been cross breed in the past to polish, which is the cause of the white earlobe and size problem.

Since solid black or blue Polish are not recognized by the APA, I don't think many people are breeding them this way. In Europe there are white and blue Crevecoeurs though.

The main differences between the two are:
Creves have:
Shorter legs
more compact crests, they should be able to see. Males typically have a slicked back hairdo
Red faces
Red earlobes
much larger size, though this has been virtually lost due to cross breeding. It's hard to get a creve of the right size, so don't judge your chick on this criteria alone

I made this PDF for myself mainly as I needed to cross reference to fix these things in my mind, it's a slow mind....

http://www.sweet-obsessions.com/Chickens/CreveVSPolis.pdf

I sincerely hope you are inspired to keep Crevecoeurs because of him, as we need more breeders! I'm a newb, and won't have anything, I'm sure, for many years, but I anticipate this will be quite fun

 

[rowdybear]

I'm not sure if he's a hen or a rooster. He doesn't have a comb yet if he is indeed a rooster when do they get their comb

 

[cluck-cluck]

It grows slowly. You'll see it, I believe if I remember correctly, by the 14th week. It grows bigger as they get older, but for females, it doesn't show up for quite some time. Closer to laying age, and is quite small usually. You should see larger wattles on males, but you have nothing to compare your chick to.... Here are a couple of pictures I have of my birds when they were 10 weeks old:

Here you can see the boys, you can click on the picture to enlarge them a bit



In the forground, you can see my one and only pullet. Note the wattles, there is more color in the boys.


Hope this helps. Frankly, I couldn't tell the difference in crest at this age at all... took 4 more weeks before I started seeing a difference there.

 

[rowdybear]

Thank you. So he is indeed crev?

 

[cluck-cluck]

Yes, he looks like one. Can't tell all of his points, so I can't say how well he matches the SOP, but in the USA, most black polish looking birds would be Crevecoeurs as black isn't a recognized color for Polish. However, it could be more in type of a polish when it grows out?? Or he could fit the Crevecoeur SOP perfectly?

I just took a bunch of pictures of my boy outside. His back and tail are distorted because the poor guy spends most of his time indoors with a diaper on. But if anyone would be so kind as to critique him, I would be very thankful. Don't worry about hurting my feelings, I'm trying to see what I have (he's all I have at the moment) I've bred him to my one and only girl to see what happens, and have some chicks growing out. I'm hoping I can make some better chicks using what I have until I can get some better stock.

Semi front view where he is stretching



Profile view, also "standing tall"



more relaxed front view


Relaxed front view


broken messed up tail view, but hopefully you can tell his tail spread?


He has a lopsided comb. The right side just didn't grow in like the left, and I didn't know how it would turn out when I gave my extra boys away at 14 or so weeks. This is a major problem if you can't grow your birds out to adulthood so you can make more informed choices!

So please, any comments are welcome, I'm desperately trying to learn! Thanks!

 

[auntie tee]

Nice pics