Decent Delawares?

[livininbrazil]

Hi, I have a trio of Delawares, or at least I believe them to be. Here where I live (São Paulo state) they´re referred to as Canadense (Canadians). I bought them at a week old from a bird dealer who gets a number of chicks in each week, various breeds, so I reckon these must be hatchery. I´d like opinions on whether they look reasonable as Dellies or not. I know two´re quite dark, were quite smutty as chicks, but I see they do have good legs and they´re a good size. They´ve not started laying yet, and the roo has just started to crow this past week. If you think they´re not real Dellies I´ll look somewhere else for a breeder, but I´ll still keep these as they´re lovely. Thanks for any opinions.

 

[ccmarie]

They look like Dels to me, if not quite show quality. They're nice and broad, and their legs are good and yellow (maybe a little too long?). I think Dels are the only breed to have the barred vs. solid black tail on roos vs. hens. On the other hand, they are really smutty (except the middle one), and the roo has the yellow-ish color on his hackles.

Just what I've seen from pictures and read from other posts, I'm not really an expert or anything.

 

[livininbrazil]

Thanks for the response,cc, they´ve improved a little now, the cockerel is getting lighter, the hens too, they are very hefty birds,the nyellowing could be from the fact that we are surrounded by corn fields, they get fed a lot of it!!! The male does have a tiny bit of leakage, though. A couple of feathers showing through.
I bought some more chicks from the same supplier. He says he doesn´t know of any other hatchery that produces these type birds around here. They´re certainly a mix (see post under Gender, "what dýou think this is, then?" I´ve one promising chick from another batch I bought, very Del coloured, if it´s a male I´ll keep it and use that one, so far it looks pullet, just has a slightly longer tail than pullet. I´ll wait and see.
Definitely no intentions of showing...goodness, I´ve never heard of a bird show around here! Just would like to be close-ish to the accepted standard. I´m learning which day-old chicks turn out to be more Del-like as adults, and I´ll breed those to see what results. It´s all interesting and I´m getting some very pretty chicks as a by-product!!!

 

[Mahonri]

Do they have purebred New Hampshires and Barred Rocks in Brazil?

There is a formula for making PURE Delawares with the above two breeds.. but it takes time, lots of hatching and patience. Contact Kathyinmo here on BYC... she has produced some BEAUTIFUL purebred Delawares.

 

[livininbrazil]

They have both breeds here, especially the BR. I know the Del thread, I´ve been reading Getting to a Delaware, and the Heavy Pics thread...waded through about 600 pages so far, learned a bit. I can´t imagine anyone would bother to re-create the breed in a hatchery here, there´s no need. And I can´t find any breeders of them. They breed what appears to be White Rock-types (they call them Warrens) up to 50 days old for meat, mass-produced in the thousands, pumped full of all things artificial.......so, no-ones particularly looking for Del-types for practical purposes, maybe they´d keep them in the yard just because they´re pretty and you can eat them, ...or maybe they just turned up as sports like the originals in the US! Or maybe they were imported way back when they were popular in the US, or shortly after....I´ve no idea. But they look more like Dels to me than anything else..........I plan to breed the best of what I have and try to get as close as I can to the Del standard. What a wonderful excuse to have chicks and have free-range chicken dinners!