Dominique Thread!

[gootziecat]

Good looking birds.

 

[KenK]

My two eight week old cockerels are coming along. This whole batch is going to have to go in the main coop with the big boys this coming weekend. It will be nine smaller ones and four game chickens... Have determined that the Dominiques and Sussex are more important to me so there may be a surfeit of fried chicken for Sunday dinner.

This one is built like a football, comb seems correct, not much tail yet.

This one is not quite as chunky built and has a somewhat funky comb, the tail is growing in nicely though.

 

[buffalogal]

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I prefer the "football".

 

[buffalogal]

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Some handsome boys you got there.

 

[off-grid hen]

My Doms ( and my RC leghorns) are 8 weeks old, but still have flat combs. When will they start developing more? A few have a tiny bump that looks like the start of the soike, but that's it.

 

[jenkassai]

Sorry all, nothing to add to the very interesting and education discussions regarding breeding, culling, etc, I just wanted to say how much I am LOVING my Dominque chicks from the hatchery!!! I have three, they are now just over 2 weeks old. Two especially are SUPER friendly! Anytime I stick my hand in the brooder they come running over and stand there, seemingly waiting to be picked up, which of course I oblige. Now they have started hopping onto my arm and hand if I have my hand in there for any length of time and haven't picked them up! When I pick them up they snuggle into my hand and start to go to sleep. Many times I have to shoo them off my hand after cuddling so I can get back to chores. The third girl is a little more aloof, not nervous, just not as "cuddly" for lack of a better word. They seem to be getting their feathers much faster than some of my other chicks of other breeds. I'm really enjoying watching them grow! Question for all you experienced Dom people, do you mark your birds somehow? I have the darndest time trying to tell these girls apart!!

Thx!

 

[buffalogal]

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Which hatchery? You can use different colored bread ties. Put them on very looselyand check them daily because chicks grow fast and you don't want them to get too tight)>
Glad to hear you're lovin' the peeps.

 

[centrarchid]

For those with dominique breeding programs involving marking of chicks this may be of interest.

Marking chicks for me has been a challenge as trying to streamline process. I run groups / cohorts starting with 72 eggs each at 28-day intervals and need to know which chicks are the product of which hen and rooster. Legs bands, especially zip ties, have proven too much work for small rapidly growing chicks and wing bands, despite unique numbers, do not have enough colors to enable rapid ID of mating from distance. Despite dominique chicks being mostly black, I decided to test permanent markers of various colors on different parts of the body. First round marks were readible through 28-days post hatch when applied to down on rop of head. This round marks placed over white areas on throat with differing color combinations being explored. Wing bands still applied but at 4 weeks when chicks easier to handle. It is hoped expandable legs bands can also be applied at that time.

Below is image of a batch of chicks showing marks.

 

[centrarchid]

Something else I found with making dominique crosses is that if a hen is mated to a rooster for egg collection and then switched to another rooster, paternity of eggs all by second rooster is realized in less than a week. Found this out by alternating between game and dominique that produce easily distinguishable chicks. This greatly improves options for mating a given hen to multiple roosters in a single production season.

 

[exop]

That's very interesting, I have gone by the rule before that "3 weeks is safe" but that does slow things down a lot.

On the indelible marker, I used a packet of multicolored sharpies last year, noticed that green and blue get pretty inistinguishable after a while; so do red and orange, blue and purple. Orange and hot pink stay fairly easy to tell apart. My best results were with yellow, hot pink, blue and orange...