d'anver lovers,discuss the breed and post some pics!

[Backwoods Bntms]

Just bought some lovely Lavender Cuckoo D'anvers today! So excited. Of course, I have a question. I have porcelains d'anvers, and I was wondering if what would I bred the lavender cuckoo to porcelain? Would I get lavender, lavender barred, mottled, porcelain? My goal is to get some purely lavender birds out of it, but I don't know how

This is possible but it is a hard way to go. If you want to make pure lavenders, it would be best to get some good blacks and cross with your cuckoo's. The barring will be easier th get rid of than the mottling, because you can see it. Any your first cross will produce some solid black birds and some single factor barred black birds. Cross these and you will get some lavenders, blacks,cuckoo's, and lavender cuckoos.

 

[LavenderCrow]

This is possible but it is a hard way to go. If you want to make pure lavenders, it would be best to get some good blacks and cross with your cuckoo's. The barring will be easier th get rid of than the mottling, because you can see it. Any your first cross will produce some solid black birds and some single factor barred black birds. Cross these and you will get some lavenders, blacks,cuckoo's, and lavender cuckoos.

Hmm. I don't have any black, but I do have a blue hen. Would that work?

 

[speckledhen]

Hmm. I don't have any black, but I do have a blue hen. Would that work?

Blue would introduce a gene you don't want mixed in with your lavenders and porcelains (since porcelain is mille fleur plus lavender).

 

[Backwoods Bntms]

Speckledhen is right, it is not a good idea to mix blue and lavender. If not black or lavender, it would be best(better than using blue) to use what you have, but you will get a lot of bad colored birds. The first generation will be lavender cuckoo's split to mottled, they will probably have gold leakage (which will look like the straw color in the porcelians) in the hackles, wingbows, of the males and the hackles and breast of the females. The next generation is where it will get crazy. There will be lavender barred mottled, lavender mottled, lavender columbian, porcelain and lavender. Again in most of them will have the leakage, but of the few lavender birds you get there may be some good ones. At this point you will need some other birds to get away from inbreeding. Honestly, for the amount of culling and feed it will take to make good colored lavender birds, you would be better off getting a pair of lavenders. Then you can cross them with your cuckoos and make more of each. Additionaly, cross the barred female with a non-barred male, that way the male offspring will be barred and the females will be solid. These male offspring will be single-factored barred so when these are crossed with solid females, half the offspring (of both sexes) will be solid and half barred.

 

[LavenderCrow]

Thank you guys so much for your input. I'd have to say that it does definitely seem easier to find someone with lavender birds instead of breeding my own. Now to find some. LOL.

 

[LavenderCrow]

Alright, so, d'anver update. I lost two known hens, one was my fault and the other froze. Now, my last blue d'anver, was somehow left out last night and survived. Not only did it survive, it was unharmed. I grabbed "her" to make sure "she" was OK and... It's perfectly fine, and also a he. Just my luck. -sigh- Now to figure out what to do with the roo. :/

 

[speckledhen]

Wow, not great luck, huh? Mine seem to be doing fine, but then, I have a heat lamp in their 8x4 coop for frigid nights, so they ought to be okay no matter how low the temps go. Even if they didn't, they have well insulated walls and good, high-up ventilation so they'd be okay anyway. Their fixed windows below the vents on the front and end let in lots of sunlight and it warms up in there during the day from that.

Snapped a few pics of some of mine today since I was photographing the BRs in the pen next to theirs.


Aubrey threatening me because I have that devilish camera in his pen.

Spike's favorite sparring partner, Atlas, next door.

 

[SchipAlong]

I'm as smitten with d'Anvers as I am with Schipperkes, and at this point I've pretty much decided that if it isn't Belgian I'm not buying it. Still no eggs at five and a half months but their temperaments more than make up for that.





I hate to pick favourites, but... This little pullet is just so fabulous. She's always been smaller than the others and I nearly lost her to a vitamin deficiency when she was around 10 weeks old, so I think we bonded during the time I was hand feeding her. She's a brat. If one of them is going to jump on my head it'll be her, and she'll look smug about it too. She's also very sweet and derpy.







I want to add a black quail and self black to my little flock now. I'm a bit limited though because I've yet to find any breeders in western Canada, and I'm worried I would be too soft-hearted to cull any extra roosters I would get if I ordered hatching eggs.

 

[ChixAddict]

Nice birds SpeckledHen and SchipAlong!

 

[speckledhen]

Nice birds SpeckledHen and SchipAlong!

Thanks! The hens are the main reason I still have mine. I am not generally much for bantams, but I love the hens and have managed to get a friendly rooster as well, Spike. Now, my older rooster, Aubrey, Spike's sire, not so much. He is a pain at times, though he sure has mellowed with age (almost 4 yrs old). At least he has only flogged me once or twice in the last few months, not daily, LOL.

ShipAlong, I am familiar with Schipperkes. As a child, we raised AKC Dobes and the handler for our show dog also showed the Schips. Really cool little dogs they are.