Cubalaya Thread For Sharing Pics and Discussing Our Birds

[cubakid]

4hmom, do you have pictures of some of the black bantams, i would like to see the progress.

Zach

 

[troyer]

Recent cubalaya hatch.

 

[wood&feathers]

Troyer, what color will the chipmunk ones become? My wheaten just hatched seven and we have one chipmunk colored one.

 

[troyer]

The darker striped ones will be black breasted red and the lighter ones will be silver/golden duckwings.

 

[wood&feathers]

Nice. I can't wait to see how they grow up. This hen is one of my original trio, and she is an awesome broody. This time her average out of ten eggs was seven healthy chicks, one sticky chick that died at hatch and two eggs that didn't mature.



The large fat black one and the biggest white chick are Marans/cuba crosses for a friend's laying flock. They make awesome utility birds.

My hens may not look like much but they have good sense. This hen has these chicks already eating from our hands.

 

[4hmom]

the striped chicks will become either light brown or rjf bbred depending on the back ground but since they are cubalayas i would say they will be bbred. cubakid i will post pics soon.

 

[Jungleexplorer]

Recent cubalaya hatch.

Wow! Looks like you have all kinds of colors there.

 

[Jungleexplorer]

The Standard is fairly specific, yes, but there is still room for an individual breeders artistic interpretation, as Doc so often says.. The standard calls for a short beak, but how short is short? How long are moderate legs? What angle should the back and tail be at below the horizontal? 15 degrees, or 40 degrees? In the end the adult bird is what needs to match the standard, and there is some "wiggle room" in the Standard.

So what you are saying is that there is no such thing as a Perfect cubalaya, right? I am a little confused by your statements though. You said that in your area they do not weigh birds anymore, but that birds can still be disqualified. But then you said that the standard does not precisely spell out the dimensions of the beak (4 cm, for instance), legs, angle of the back etc, etc, etc. And also there is room for breeder artistic interpretation. So, if not by weight, and all other factors being subject to individual interpretation based on personal preference, what could a bird be disqualified for?

If there were such a thing as the perfect BBRed Cubalaya, what would that bird look like? Would this be a good representation?

 

[gallorojo]

Although birds are not generally weighed anymore, a good judge will still disqualify a grossly over or underweight bird. The deal with the weight is that the standard spells out an ideal weight, but allows a 20 percent range over and under that as acceptable. Any bird can vary based on condition, age, etc, so the weights were never meant to be exactly fixed. A 6 pound cock is IDEAL, but, anything within 4.8 up to 7.2 is acceptable and within the standard. There are general disqualifications that would apply to all breeds, like wry tail, duck footed, twisted feathers, split wing, etc. Then you have breed specific DQ's , for all breeds, anything other than correct eye, skin, comb, shanks, etc, is a DQ. So on a Cuba, yellow shanks, rose comb, and brown eyes would be a DQ. Cubalayas are all disqualified by having a tail above the horizontal, since the major characteristic of the breed is the unique tail!! Finally you have the variety specific DQ's, these mostly are about color. I think if I recall correctly, in the BB Reds and Blacks, any surface feather showing more than 1/2 inch of white disqualifies the bird.

No, there is no perfect Cubalaya!!! There are no perfect birds, period. The standard is an ideal to strive towards , and a way to define a breed, but no bird is ever perfect. If they aren't disqualified, then they match the standard and are considered fairly good representatives of the breed. There is also theoretically a point system to judge birds on breed by breed, although I am not sure how often that's used anymore. The picture you show is pretty good in terms of type. The reason drawings are used in the SOP instead of photographs is that there are no perfect birds to photograph! Remember that an illustration is one persons interpretation of the standard, I think we all have a little different idea of perfection in our minds eye.

 

[4hmom]

cubakid here are some of my bantam blacks from this year.