Delawares from kathyinmo

[EggieRowe]

Will anyone be selling hatching eggs this fall? I'm debating on hatching more this fall or just waiting until next spring.

 

[finnfur]

Ok I looked at the pictures. Kim- Keep in mind I am Kinder garden Chicken person even though I've read about 10,000
pages on Delawares and Heritage. You guys are the pros with hands on experience.
Pictures are worth a thousand words but are only two demential. The weights where helpful but I didn't put two much into that or coloration.
My initial thumbs down are G29,B20,B17,#cull,G31, G27,G36 and G15

I kinda like W36 - G26 and G33

It seems a lot I have read in the past says on Delawares don't cull early on coloration as these birds change after first molt .

At least thats my plan. But I only have 14 to work with and one is Rex and another is a White Rock. So my options are limited.

Good idea on the flick pics

 

[capayvalleychick]

Bee, I have been using that 'at a glance method' in a way. That's how I noticed my favorites, which in this case are mostly the larger ones. It doesn't work as well for me because I'm a little less practical and a little more sentimental - so my judgement is not as good as yours in terms of choosing the best for production. The big exception is that nice cockerel B16. I never noticed him until I banded him and took his picture. Then I wondered where he had been hiding! He's not one of the ones that are always running over and getting underfoot.
I have a long trough feeder. When I pour the feed in, that's been a good time for me to look them over from above. The wider ones and a couple of the smaller ones were easy for me to pick out this way.
Another interesting thing about that favorite pullet, G28 ... Walt said she was the one that caught his eye. So she must be a keeper! Besides her, I really like the pullets G10 & G26. That's a bad pic of G33. I'm hoping I can keep her because she's one that always comes up and follows me around. I'm not really a pet chicken person but the really friendly ones are hard to ignore. (There's that sentimentality I mentioned.) I was just told not to cull for green legs, yet. So we will see.
I am having the hardest time deciding which are best in the cockerels. Maybe W36. Again, I'm being influenced by that one always running up and wanting to be noticed. And he has the highest weight of all in the entire group. I'm looking at B16, now that I've seen him. I've had my eye on W38, maybe B12. I need the males to mature more before I can decide. I do like your choices, Bee.
Zanna, maybe Jeff will come back and give us his thoughts on G35. I do not understand color genetics at all. Bee is right about her chest. I was to busy looking at her tail to see she's not as round in front.
I did not realize that you have to be signed up with yahoo to comment on Flickr. Sorry about that and I don't remember how to sign up and get started with it any more.

 

[Beekissed]

I love her tail..and I love her back, size and color. Could be the angle at which she is standing that makes her chest a little dished but you could breed that girl to that top cock, he has chest enough to spare! The combination of those two could be magic, I'm thinking.

Don't count her out just yet...she could have what your cock lacks and the traits of them both may build a fire.

Funny that Walt and I would come to the same conclusion..but I guess it's not so funny when you think about it. After years of culling it leaves you with the best of the best and they are all shaped like that best hen..that beautiful orange slice, Viking ship shape that bodes well for good egg and meat production.

 

[capayvalleychick]

Ok I looked at the pictures. Kim- Keep in mind I am Kinder garden Chicken person even though I've read about 10,000
pages on Delawares and Heritage. You guys are the pros with hands on experience.
Pictures are worth a thousand words but are only two demential. The weights where helpful but I didn't put two much into that or coloration.
My initial thumbs down are G29,B20,B17,#cull,G31, G27,G36 and G15

I kinda like W36 - G26 and G33

It seems a lot I have read in the past says on Delawares don't cull early on coloration as these birds change after first molt .

At least thats my plan. But I only have 14 to work with and one is Rex and another is a White Rock. So my options are limited.

Good idea on the flick pics

I'm no pro and you may know more than me if you've read all 10,000 pages!
Why are you not using weight as part of your selection? When I checked my notes, all your thumbs down list had "smaller" written down.
I appreciate your input, thank you.

What does Rex look like now?

 

[catdaddyfro]

I saw G35 Kim it is a decent looking pullet but the striped hackles just is something I don't recommend using in the breeding program. You see at this juncture on the Delaware remake stage the barn(type) is more or less already built that came about in the F1 matings. Ya'll are fixing to be turning out F4s and it is now time to be going for the color/pattern to begin to show more correctly/more consistent on these in the next couple of generations. The columbian pullet(G35) is I'm sure out of a two fairly correctly marked parents you see, and she still popped out in the mix so if you go and breed her back into the mix one could not never expect to get that undesirable trait bred out. Remember this is how all the older (now defunct I'd venture to say) original stock got all mangled up was from too much crossing up other breeds, colors, and patterns into them(all this was for monetary gain by the hatcheries mostly) anyway see where I'm headed with this, and I know you see a desirable tail but there are and will be better(more correctly) marked pullets with good tail color too, to be had to used for breed stock. I wouldn't use no columbian marked, green tinged legs(no matter how light and even if you think they will change, they should be yellow at first not change to yellow it don't happen well not for purity cant be its a sexlinkable trait if its there at first its there for life) this is another one of those things to do not keep reinstating back into this effort to remake this breed, is all.

Its easier to mess something up than it is to fix it ( I now I'm an auto mechanic, too) LOL

I shall return to lurking and liking those pictures of pure awesome wonderment this is a breed that has fascinated me since I was way young, many moons ago, now LOL

And I hope to have my own rendition of them up and going sooner rather than later. I got the stuff to do it with just not the time enough to focus hard on it yet, getting there though.


Good day all

Jeff

 

[galanie]

I love her tail..and I love her back, size and color.  Could be the angle at which she is standing that makes her chest a little dished but you could breed that girl to that top cock, he has chest enough to spare!  The combination of those two could be magic, I'm thinking.    Don't count her out just yet...she could have what your cock lacks and the traits of them both may build a fire.

Funny that Walt and I would come to the same conclusion..but I guess it's not so funny when you think about it.  After years of culling it leaves you with the best of the best and they are all shaped like that best hen..that beautiful orange slice, Viking ship shape that bodes well for good egg and meat production. 

 

My gosh, that says it exactly!

 

[Beekissed]

Galanie, yer so funny!

Well, I had a broody hen that sat a clutch of which none hatched. She's very old, so I let her do this just one last time before her culling time. Well...she was not too pleased about not having any chicks to mother so she last week she adopted four of the young birds from Kathy's Batch and are mothering them. They have been living wild since 2 wks of age and are now 2.5 mo. old , so at first they did all they could to avoid the crazy old lady following them around, trying to show them food morsels she had scratched up for them.

She has certainly run her legs off to keep up with them and they are finally accepting this foster mom who thrust herself upon the wild gang....they live a life separate from the rest of the flock so they probably welcomed a big chicken that didn't want to peck their hungry little heads off at the feeder!

Here's old Bertha, newly trimmed down from running after teen agers and quite proud of her "brood" who are almost as big as she is now....so funny to watch this "family" living on the edge of the woods and apart from the older flock.

 

[finnfur]

I'm no pro and you may know more than me if you've read all 10,000 pages!
Why are you not using weight as part of your selection? When I checked my notes, all your thumbs down list had "smaller" written down.
I appreciate your input, thank you.

What does Rex look like now?

Well actually I exaggerated . I added them and it was only 4577 on Dels and Heritage -But it took me 6 months and it felt like 10,000 . This is not counting Bees FF thread which is a novel in itself LOL . It did span several years though.. Reading and understanding are two entirely different things .
My selections of your stock was made using this next to the computer-
I'm sure we all recognize it LOL






I made my first round of picks before I knew there were weights or comments - That was fun going back and forth from the scroll to the # mark Pics . I'm not the most proficient on these type of sites- I don't do Facebook LOL However I did take two off the maybe list and add to the thumbs down when I accidentally stumbled on the weights with comments.

Green Legs comment - I am keeping a green leg hen to test any Cock for the green leg gene .

AND heres REX - he was one of the biggest but not keeping that status - he always looks like he is having a bad feather day - he's on thumbs down list.


For comparison I think thats a pullet on right

 

[capayvalleychick]

Well, I had a broody hen that sat a clutch of which none hatched. She's very old, so I let her do this just one last time before her culling time. Well...she was not too pleased about not having any chicks to mother so she last week she adopted four of the young birds from Kathy's Batch and are mothering them.

What an incredible lush environment for raising chickens. I envy all that green. You could keep that old girl around as a surrogate broody. Sounds like she earns her keep.

Well actually I exaggerated . I added them and it was only 4577 on Dels and Heritage -But it took me 6 months and it felt like 10,000 .
...

Green Legs comment - I am keeping a green leg hen to test any Cock for the green leg gene .

AND heres REX - he was one of the biggest but not keeping that status - he always looks like he is having a bad feather day - he's on thumbs down list.

For comparison I think thats a pullet on right

I keep trying to read it all and never have the time to finish. Glad you did it, so you have all the info.

I may try that with the pale/green legger.
You shouldn't have named Rex. That's my rule for anything that might end up as dinner.

Big lookin pullet!