Delawares from kathyinmo

[crazyhen]

Out of my 16 Dels only one seems not to be growing well. She is the only one with greenish legs also. I have 4 roos out of the 16 that I received. A very good num. of hens. Most are growing really well. I can not post Pic. I have tried a couple of different ways lately. Just not happening. Later I will weigh them and let everyone know the wt.s Delightful personalities so far. Very good eaters.

 

[desertmarcy]

Marcia, looks like 2 cockerels to me...bizarre on that dwarf bird...even if it does catch up to the rest (i doubt it though)...would you want to actually use it as a breeder? If it were mine, I would cull it (or find a pet home for it). that's a nice looking pullet in the last photo

No, I would not. I will be culling it. I'm glad you agree.I don't need any more layers, I've been trying to cut back and already butchered 10 layers as stewing hens. 8 of them were the last of my hatchery stock. They were good layers, but I just want the heritage birds now. I was glad to see them go. I did hold on to one Delaware that has a nice wide head. She is probably from a hatchery back down the line somewhere, don't really know since she came from Ebay eggs. I was actually hoping for more cockerels to choose from in this batch. Two does not give much choice. I do have a friend who is a chicken collector and likes to have one of this, one of that. She doesn't care if they are laying or not. She may take that small chick, she doesn't have a Delaware, but she is on vacation for two weeks now, which means hanging on to it for that long to ask her. Not sure I want to feed it that much longer.

 

[finnfur]

This is a Blu tag line KIMNIM line
Anyone noticed the double breasting on some of them. When you pick them up they also seem chunky compared to the rest.


None of the red tag line Dels have this.
And a note since we were talking about the small chick I looked again and it has caught up with growth to the next three smallest.
Maybe a late bloomer. Seems this entire line was slower to feather than the other line. Seems hey put more into growth than other things.

 

[Zanna]

This is a Blu tag line KIMNIM line
Anyone noticed the double breasting on some of them. When you pick them up they also seem chunky compared to the rest.


None of the red tag line Dels have this.
And a note since we were talking about the small chick I looked again and it has caught up with growth to the next three smallest.
Maybe a late bloomer. Seems this entire line was slower to feather than the other line. Seems hey put more into growth than other things.

What is your other line of Dels? My little girl is not catching up and she has very white legs, thinking I will most likely cull her.

 

[finnfur]

What is your other line of Dels? My little girl is not catching up and she has very white legs, thinking I will most likely cull her.

I think you are correct if its just not size.

The other Red Tag line is actually two:
3 from BYC Chickcharney in NC [ Julie who wrote the "chicken Health for Dummies" ] - she actually has two lines one of her own lines for hens and one for Cocks [ from Speckled hens ][ we have 2 pullets and 1 cockerel ]
and
8 from Wekiva in SC [ I believe her line originated from Speckled hens ] We have 2 pullets and 8 cockerels ][ these are the friendliest ]
I ordered and bought these when I didn't think there would be a chance of getting Kathys line for a long time and it gave me something to work with.
However, we will most likely keep the pullets for layers and the cockerels will be Dinner Winners unless something real unexpected happens.
But I will wait for everything to shape up first. At least 18 weeks for 1st cull. These lines are just 5 weeks older but as my previous post indicated the new line averaged 24% heavier at the 5 week tagging . Same age and same feed etc.
I am going to weigh and measure both lines at 18 weeks for another comparison

 

[desertmarcy]

I culled that little chick of mine. I had it for almost 3 weeks and it was steadily looking smaller than the rest.

 

[Beekissed]

Good decision! Tough...but good.

 

[cbnovick]

I culled that little chick of mine. I had it for almost 3 weeks and it was steadily looking smaller than the rest.

must have had something a bit off about it....hard to do, I know.

 

[capayvalleychick]

I'm putting all my cull cockerels into a pen. I put this one, of Kathy's, in there. Now, I'm looking at it and wondering if it is a cockerel. Could this be a pullet? Or was my first guess correct? I need to make sure before a pen full of cockerels realize that there is a female in their midst.

 

[Zanna]

I'm putting all my cull cockerels into a pen. I put this one, of Kathy's, in there. Now, I'm looking at it and wondering if it is a cockerel. Could this be a pullet? Or was my first guess correct? I need to make sure before a pen full of cockerels realize that there is a female in their midst.

Hmm......... I am leaning towards pullet. Mine are I think a week older than yours and I am still guessing on a few.

Debating on separating my cull cockerals as well, just haven't had the time to really go over them. Big birds but growth rate has been so slow I hate to make any decisions too soon. With the GNH I have (I believe to be originally from Kathy's line), my underdog as a youngster ended up being the biggest, most typey cockeral but it took 7 months and he was not nearly done growing/changing (unfortunately he came in with some white sickle tail feathers and was culled). My BCM are easy to weed out at 10 - 16 weeks for things like middle toe feathering, overcoloured chests, etc., as well as type. With these Dels, I definitely have some that are bigger/wider but Kathy had said that some of her birds were too big so I am going to wait before making any serious decisions. These guys are finally free-ranging better and starting to leave the feeders more so that helps in the feed bill department and they are not chasing the girls yet but are having some spats between themselves. All of the boys have nice yellow legs and none are runts so don't feel I have much to go on yet. What are you basing your preliminary culling on? Of course the colour in the one above, anything else?