Does no one own/breed turkens??

[sheila3935]

I love the laced one. My DD loved the black frizzle.

 

[Kev]

I think a bunch of us should try working on laceds? pbjmaker's pullet definitely has the 'starter genes' for either pencilled or laced.

Natural result of trying for laceds is coming up with pencilleds.. since they share many of the same genes. MAY try for silver pencilled too.. but laced was my original goal.. trying not to make too many side projects!

 

[gritsar]

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When I get time to get pics of my Ivy, and one of her sisters too, you'll have to tell me whether you think hers is more penciling or laced. Looking at your bird I'm thinking that Ivy and Pansy are more penciled. Oh and Ivy and Pansy also both have GREEN legs. I was hoping that meant they had some EE blood in them and would lay colored eggs, but was told they wouldn't since they do have the single comb.

 

[Kev]

Green legs is just a combination of 2 genes- skin color and presence of pigmentation in a certain skin layer on the legs(called id). Yellow skin + id= green legs. White skin + id= blue/slate legs.. Yellow skin + Id(inhibits pigmentation from showing up in that layer of skin)= yellow.. white skin + Id= white legs. Nothing to do with egg color..

The reason people say that about blue/green eggs is because the gene for it happens to be located really close to the gene for peacomb. So as a result, they inherit together something like 95% of the time.. it is pretty reliable but not 100% fool proof. Sometimes it's because the birds were crossed with pea comb birds that don't have the colored egg gene.. or it's that 5% where the colored egg gene and pea comb "split up" and go their own ways.

I happen to have single combed turkens that lay blue/green eggs, but only because I was lucky to get some in an egg trade and purposefully kept and bred them due to the "rarity" of single comb colored egg layers. Black hen lays green, barred hen lays brown, roo doesn't have it(got him to bring in new blood). They all have single combs, the hen's combs are floppy so they might look odd in pic. Laced turken has a pea comb but "ironically" she lays tan..

 

[Nava]

I love that roo kev!!!

 

[nnbreeder]

Quote:
Been raising and showing them, but not all the time, for around 30 years. Right now we have bantams and standards and hatch many every year. I have other boards that I am on more then I am here so mostly I just browse the Okie's thread here.

NNs are probably the most researched chicken that there is. If you do an internet search about NNs be sure to put Naked Neck Chickens or I will not be responsible for what your computer finds. LOL

The NNs are disease resistant, very cold tolerant and do very well in the heat. They perform so well at either end of the temp extremes that they will outperform commercial birds for both laying and feed conversion in broilers. If you like I can post links to the research done but 99% of it is in PDF form.

On the other side of the pond in the UK and throughout Europe they are known as Transilvanian Naked Necks and down under in Australia a single comb is rare, most have rose combs or Cushion combs. Which is closer to their believed origins of the Madagascar Games of SE Asia


Kev here is a link to a gent getting blue eggs out of NNs.


http://reocities.com/Petsburgh/6624/


And here is a link to an interview with Ed Haworth, the gent that got the wife and I started showing NNs.


http://www.farmshow.com/issues/29/05/290506.asp

 

[nnbreeder]

Here is a pic of one of our bantam hens. She is trying hard to be a gold-laced black and she has a rose comb. She will go broody at the drop of a hat and has raised many chicks of all breeds for us. She and her daughters will also accept chicks from any source and will often steal chicks from other hens if not watched.

 

[gritsar]

That is awesome to me to learn that they will go broody and are good mothers. I've had my brahmas for nearly three years now and not a broody in the bunch.

I am hoping to reform my little turken cockerel - he was an accident, sexed as a pullet, but he's being a total butthead right now. I really hope I can keep him; I'm fairly certain he will be stunning as an adult. I'm not sure there's a color name for him, I call him a calico. He's a dark buff on his bottom half, red on the top half, his saddle feathers are coming in a BRIGHT shiny gold; plus he has some really light buff and black penciling across the wing bows.

One more question if I may. Is it really necessary to treat them with a sunscreen in the summertime? I read that somewhere, but I can imagine my DH having me commited if he sees me headed out to the coop with a bottle of sunscreen.

 

[gritsar]

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[gritsar]

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