Delawares from kathyinmo

[LeslieDJoyce]

I was going to wait a little longer but I could not wait and stretched out the wings of a few of my favorite cockerals the other evening. They are looking better/more developed but still not quite how I think they should. I am counting 10 primaries, the axial and 11 secondaries??? Some of the feathers look narrower than they should while most look wide and what I consider "normal" comparing to my Marans and NH. Still hoping with more time this may resolve. Wings look perfectly folded as the birds are out doing their thing, you would not suspect a problem.

Soooooo strange about the extra secondary feather! But if it isn't a DQ then maybe it isn't a game stopper for a particular bird???

I'm afraid to open the wings on my birds right now. I'm very curious to look at the original trio, but they are molting and that wouldn't be fair and might induce panic.

When I took this series of photos earlier, I did notice the final primary feather is short, narrow, and more curved/separated from the rest. This bird also seems to be missing the one primary next to that final feather, so it may not have been finished feathering the wings. This on a younger bird in the older group (he's in the group photo I posted yesterday), with wings that seem to fold up okay ...

 

[finnfur]

The four F4 hens i used all had correctly coloured tails, black with the white border. All of the F5 pullets have tails barred like in the pics of Michaels pullets. Three different F4 cockerals used over the four F4 pullets and not one good tail unless there were a few I lost to predators.

Here is my favorite F4 Mom:

a liitle columbian on neck[ might be pic] but she's positively classy and a breed forward type

 

[finnfur]

Hey Everyone,

Sorry I've been MIA, I have a lot going on. Here's some of the Delaware's that I got from Finnfur. I have another group as well but didn't get photos of them yet. Feel free to comment the good, the bad and the ugly.

These birds still have some filling out to do but overall I'm liking what I'm seeing. There's definitely some culls in here but thought I'd share anyway.

Sorry for the all the watermarking but I don't like putting images up on the web without them.

Glad to see you back - #5 seems like typical of what I am getting from Bert #1 , lot of comb points- Do you know which were from eggs and which were chicks .

 

[newmanmichael]

Glad to see you back - #5 seems like typical of what I am getting from Bert #1 , lot of comb points- Do you know which were from eggs and which were chicks .

These are the older chicks I got from you and they are from Bert. I just realized these are 7 months old, shouldn't I be getting eggs by now?! I'm sure the shorter days are throwing them off.

I don't have photos of the birds that came from the eggs I got from you, which should be all Ernie.

 

[Zanna]

These are the older chicks I got from you and they are from Bert. I just realized these are 7 months old, shouldn't I be getting eggs by now?! I'm sure the shorter days are throwing them off.

I don't have photos of the birds that came from the eggs I got from you, which should be all Ernie.

I got my F'4's from kathy in April, 2013. They did not start laying till 9 - 10 mos. old, Jan/Feb of this year. The eggs were large from the getgo so into the breeding pens the chosen few went My first chicks hit the ground in late March. Kim got her chicks a little later than me and got chicks on the ground about a month sooner I think. California weather must have gotten them laying earlier than Oregon so I think a lot depends on conditions.

 

[newmanmichael]

I got my F'4's from kathy in April, 2013. They did not start laying till 9 - 10 mos. old, Jan/Feb of this year. The eggs were large from the getgo so into the breeding pens the chosen few went My first chicks hit the ground in late March. Kim got her chicks a little later than me and got chicks on the ground about a month sooner I think. California weather must have gotten them laying earlier than Oregon so I think a lot depends on conditions.

Interesting! I hope my Florida weather helps I plan on crossing her line with my line as they mature a little faster so hopefully that will help. I'll keep track and see how that goes.

 

[1zooman12]

Hello all,
I had the same problem with the shortening day periods. 16 layers produced only one egg a recent certain day! That did it! Three days ago I went to Costco; I hung a FEIT Electric, BR 30 Flood, 13 watt bulb over their heads. I think I paid about $12.00 for the pair in a plastic tomb. (Just try to open one of those sarcophagi!) The thing puts out the equivalent of 65 watts of light for pennies. If this bulb were to burn 24 hours a day for a year, the estimated cost would be about $1.57 according to the manufacturer. I burn mine from midnight to just past dawn. That is hardly any cost at all! It will take as long as 3 weeks to get these birds back in full egg laying prime again but at least they will start repaying their rent. Layer pellets are not cheap. I pass this tip along to all of you, my chicken nut allies. Ain't biological and electrical sciences wonderful?
My best to all,
Neal, the Zooman

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I got my F'4's from kathy in April, 2013. They did not start laying till 9 - 10 mos. old, Jan/Feb of this year. The eggs were large from the getgo so into the breeding pens the chosen few went My first chicks hit the ground in late March. Kim got her chicks a little later than me and got chicks on the ground about a month sooner I think. California weather must have gotten them laying earlier than Oregon so I think a lot depends on conditions.

One of the pullets I got from Zanna, from the same batch of Kathy's birds, started laying on December 11th of last year. The other either started laying later that month, or Mid January, depending ... We weren't getting two eggs per day until Mid January, so opinions vary on this.

The second one to start laying started with bigger eggs from day one.

I'm hoping for first eggs from the F5s in about a month. Some of them are looking pretty mature, so it's hard to pick the moms out of the crowd now.

NOTE: we don't light our coops, except when there are heat lamps on the water during cold snaps. BUT ... our coops are covered in greenhouse plastic, AND our farm is on a SE slope of a decent hill (think vineyard property, plus a little elevation) so the birds get every second of available daylight on their roosts, and our theory is this helps maximize their laying season a bit.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Some Delaware sillynes. I posted the photo of the nine Delaware cockerels to my facebook chicken coop page. One of my friends posted that they look more puffy than cocky. I wrote that the Delawares always look like they're going to pop to me. She replied, "Poppy cocks!"

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

If we're talking about birds with more Columbian-style coloring, I might have a couple like this that don't have brown feathers.