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

[KristenG]

JJ- I love your pens I am behind on my pen building too and my time is almost up for the summer. Next week classes start for the last year of my masters program I am taking on the side for work. So that's pretty much going to be the last you hear from me for a while again. Meh....Deep breath.

Also, your BBR pullets are very nice.Most of my cockerels ended up looking like your top two. The only ones I got with good color looked like bearded OE.

Speaking of crossed beak/scissor beaked chicks, I always do feel bad for them. Mine are usually pretty friendly because they are dependent on me providing a deep food dish. They seem to do well with deep feeders so I can fatten them up. I can't help but be curious about the percentage of scissor beaks other breeders hatch out though. I want to know where mine stand on the average. I usually get about a 1% occurrence rate - focused mostly in my Silver Quails. Anyone else?

 

[speckledhen]

I posted this here because ya'll know so much about the breed in general. Sorry won't do it again.

It's okay, it's just that when you do, sometimes the post gets lost and Emergencies gets more immediate attention. Usually injuries are not breed related. That's all I meant by that-sorry it sounded so short.

 

[4HDad]

My son had a good year at fair with his Quail d'Anvers. He showed an old trio and a young trio.

The young trio didn't place due to them only being about 3.5 months old and not fully developed. These were birds that we hatched so he was happy to show them off any way.

The old trio placed 5th for Clean Legged Bantams though so he is happy about his chickens again.

He also placed 6th in Poultry Skillathon for his age group (probably 30-40 kids) which made me very happy.

While at the fair, he fell in love with some Lavender d'Anvers. The parents of the kid showing them didn't want to take them home so we ended up buying them as a reward for Nick's work.

Here is a quick pic of the new birds:



Roger

 

[MsBagawkbagawk]

Wow! I love how the roos comb stands out!

 

[speckledhen]

The five chicks are 7 weeks old now and no raised combs on any of them. Even the one with some pink in the comb has a flat-as-a-pancake comb. Here are a few pics I managed to snap, but I need to get my chick-wrangler to help for better ones of specific chicks. Their new owner is coming tomorrow, unless she changes her mind. I'm keeping Heather and one other, the new owner's choice whether she takes our suspected cockerel or the one with the Kentucky Leg Fungus.

Top left of the first picture is the heating pad chick "Heather". Her whole back end is sure dark compared to the other four.

 

[NanaKat]

Thought I'd post an update on the little blue quail I was given that ended up with a slight cross-beak. Every two weeks, I file down the edge of the top beak and trim the tip of the lower beak. (Thanks again for the advice Cetawin) He seems to be doing much better. Since this is a trait that can be passed on to offspring, Blue Boy won't be used for breeding. He is a great little guy.
Now

Baby pics from back in January

 

[KristenG]

Just on an interesting note, I was curious about the genetics of scissorbeak so I did an experiment and bred a couple of scissorbeaked birds together to see if I would get scissorbeaked babies. I figured if I knew a bit more about the genetics of it I might be able to get rid of it. Much to my surprise, I got the same proportion of scissorbeaked offspring from the scissorbeaked pair as I would have had I bred two normal beaked birds together from the same line. Clearly there is some genetic heredity, but it must have a lot of genes involved and maybe even an environmental trigger of sorts from early on in development to behave so. Curious. I ended up more mystified about scissorbeak than before I attempted that.

 

[2StrayRoos]

Thought I'd post an update on the little blue quail I was given that ended up with a slight cross-beak. Every two weeks, I file down the edge of the top beak and trim the tip of the lower beak. (Thanks again for the advice Cetawin) He seems to be doing much better. Since this is a trait that can be passed on to offspring, Blue Boy won't be used for breeding. He is a great little guy.
Now

Baby pics from back in January

When you trim the bottom beak does it bleed every time? The first time we did ours I didn't think it would ever stop. Had a styptic pencil too. We file every week, but the bottom needs trimming again.

 

[speckledhen]

Just on an interesting note, I was curious about the genetics of scissorbeak so I did an experiment and bred a couple of scissorbeaked birds together to see if I would get scissorbeaked babies. I figured if I knew a bit more about the genetics of it I might be able to get rid of it. Much to my surprise, I got the same proportion of scissorbeaked offspring from the scissorbeaked pair as I would have had I bred two normal beaked birds together from the same line. Clearly there is some genetic heredity, but it must have a lot of genes involved and maybe even an environmental trigger of sorts from early on in development to behave so. Curious. I ended up more mystified about scissorbeak than before I attempted that.

Sometimes, genes can be quite mystifying, can't they?

Kathryn, he's a cute little guy!


I tried to take more pictures of the 7 week old suspected cockerel and though he has a pinkish comb, it's still flat (though wide) and NO hackle color. Is that really weird? He's colored like all the pullets hatched with him. Sorry, my chick wrangler's back is out today or he'd help-my camera needs two hands on it to focus well.





Couple more pics-I think that's him on the left end of the bar in the first pic, too:

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

Kristen,
that's been what I have seen and heard too, that it's more, enviromental or damage to embryo or lack of dietary type stuff in the parents, and less about genetics of the birds. Though I have never done any intentional breeding of them myself to back any of it. Just what I have read on others who have.
I tend to get maybe 5 or so a year out of several thousand hatched. I have noticed they seem to be more on the rarer colors side of things. Stuff that isnt very commonly kept, so I'm betting inbreeding over many generations due to lack of new unrelated blood to work with has more to do with it than anything. Again, this is just a theory of mine. Stuff like silver quail for sure would fall into that group. Only a handful have them, and most are all related. That's why I started color crossing ( JJ too) with blues, lavenders, duns, etc. By getting a new color, you are also adding in new blood to an otherwise watered down color. The natural colored birds that are produced from this crossing can then be added to the flock and maybe help with this. My silvers so far , havent made any that I know of, but I do get some from the black mottled from time to time.

I have also noticed on the ones I see, they look perfectly normal for the first week or so, and the cross beak only starts showing later on. Do yall see the same thing?? This is what leads me to wonder about a dietary deficiency, that coupled with line breeding for too long I'm betting is the base cause of it.... again, just my thoughts.