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

[speckledhen]

My sweet Spike has really changed. He is attacking, actually flogging, my 13 week old Barred Rock pullet raised in the bantam coop. He normally is a great father, and still is, with his "own kind" but he hates the large fowl youngsters now. He's fine with the three 15 week old cockerels in that pen.

Why a rooster would attack a pullet of any size/type approaching maturity is beyond me. If he keeps this up, he may find himself elsewhere. My little d'anver hens go broody (when they decide to lay) and they raise my large fowl chicks since I'm not adding to my bantam flock anymore. So, I can't have a rooster attacking youngsters just because they're not bantams. Aubrey doesn't do that, not to my knowledge. At least, I haven't seen him attack any youngsters.

I saw Spike start to change when I had a big group of hatchlings approaching teenage size and he was running around making Olive Oyl sounds, figuratively wringing his hands because they were all bigger than he was by 8-9 weeks old, especially the cockerels. Now, he's just plain on the attack when they get bigger than tiny babies. He was hostile to Tessa when she was much younger, but then, it was just a little peck. Now, he's flogging with both feet when I let her free range with the bantam group. Guess that has to end now. She's living with the old hens until she's big enough to go in with my BR cross rooster, Deacon, and his hens, but I let her range with them and the D'Anvers since she knows both groups. Poor Tessa.

 

[SchipAlong]

Bigger Longtail rooster x d'Anvers hen ended up as a little rooster the size of the mother, with a long tail and long legs but no beard. He is rehomed.

I hadn't really considered breeding a LF to one of my hens. They're so tiny, I just assumed they would get crushed in the process. Now I think maybe my ideal cross would be a small Marans to one of my hens in hopes of getting a small-ish brown egg layer... Too many choices lol!

I was wrong about the eggs being done for the year, and Zeste has already given me three for October. Yay! I kept a tally of Zeste's egg laying for September just to see how she averages.
Dates she laid eggs: 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23. Then she went on strike.

 

[Bine]

The Longtail was a young Yokohama-Mix, I don't know his father but he is too small for a LF and too big for a bantam, so otherwise this love affair would not had ended happy, Most of the hens run screeming form him and I have no clue how he managed that one time to hopp on the hen. But who knows my mom says that love always finds a way.

 

[speckledhen]

The boys are looking pretty good at 15 weeks old. Little Rusty is still little and skittish, always going the opposite way to everyone else. In the first picture, he's the one in the rubber pan eating with Carly and then the next one, he's facing the milk crate.



I guess I'll have to name the larger males, too, since they may be with me all winter long, though I may have to find a separate area for them-with these, I have six hens to five males.

This feather legged male runs after me like a puppy, waiting for me to turn over rocks. I scoop him up and he just chatters to me, so sweet.







I noticed that the largest male is a deeper color than the other two. He has a couple of stubs on his legs like little Rusty. You can see his size in relation to daddy Spike.





And Spike, who is just now growing his tail back at the end of his molt.

 

[speckledhen]

@Backwoods Bntms @Boggy Bottom Bantams I am uploading a video of my runty D'Anver cockerel, Rusty3. I want an opinion on if, among his other weirdness, he has wry tail. He tends to hold it to the left a lot, but not always, almost like it's weak. Look for my video and let me know what you think. All others are welcome to comment, too, of course.


ETA:

Sam, big brother

 

[Backwoods Bntms]

I don't think it is wry tail. With wry tail they don't switch back and forth.

 

[speckledhen]

I don't think it is wry tail. With wry tail they don't switch back and forth.

Thank you! I didn't think so but he is so small and acts just so different sometimes, you never know what other abnormalities he might have. Seems okay, just has a lot of white on him for being so young. Hard to believe he's about 16 weeks old as small as he is.

Here are two other videos of the flock free ranging today.

 

[joydix]

i have a quail d'anver from mcmurray hatchery and she has the tail thing too....it scares me cuz mareks is very common in our parts and i had a Brabanter that had that tail thing then died from mareks....flossie is a little old for that at this point (i hope). i don't think you have that much where you are. maybe just a genetic thing....

 

[speckledhen]

i have a quail d'anver from mcmurray hatchery and she has the tail thing too....it scares me cuz mareks is very common in our parts and i had a Brabanter that had that tail thing then died from mareks....flossie is a little old for that at this point (i hope). i don't think you have that much where you are. maybe just a genetic thing....

No Marek's here, never had any youngsters (or others) symptomatic and that disease is a disease of the young, generally. Rusty is a runt, though it's hard to see in the photos unless one of the others is near him. Most of the time, if there is one issue, you will have others, but not always. I've seen wry tail many years ago in a BR male of hatchery lines and JJ is right, that guy never held his tail upright at all. So, I guess it's just a Rusty quirk.

 

[joydix]

Hoping its a Flossie quirk too!