D'uccle Thread

[OneCrazyCowgirl]

@wegotchickens: Haha I guessed that you would say that Well if the color breeds true and is doing good you'll definatly have a egg buyer. X)
I am planning to purchase some d'uccles for breeding and experimenting with. When you experiment with colors do you just throw two colors together or do you do some kinda of research?

@ Everyone:
I went into the coop this afternoon and a white leghorn hen was in the corner, dead. She was my healthiest and one of the best layers. She had no sign of attack, blood, or bites. She was fine. Could it have been a disease?

 

[OneCrazyCowgirl]

If you show poultry at a fair or local shows do you have to do showmanship or do you just place em in a cage? Please don't kill me for asking.

 

[nothingbutbirds]

got a little giant incubator yesterday and have butyon quails hatching as i type
next i shal fill it with d'uccle eggs, i didnt expect raising chickens could turn into this
well maybe i did but. . . hehehehe

 

[coffeekittie]

It's been a little while since I've visited this thread - hi folks!

Some of the chicks I recently received from mstricer (before the cold set in and made it too cold to ship):





I got 14 but 3 died about 4 days ago from unknown causes. I'm afraid I brought something home from the poultry show I went to last Saturday....

They are very pretty chicks, and thankfully I still have 2 Blue Mottleds amongst all the Black Mottleds. I can't wait til Spring to get some of wegotchickens' babies! For now I get to live with my batch of chicks and listen to them trill at each other. Nothing cuter than that.

Oh yes. I bought a nice Porcelain d'Anver cockerel at the show to use along with the 2 Silver Quail d'Anver pullets to help with the body type of my d'Uccles. I don't know how the mottled babes will turn out, but the original 5 youngsters I bought this summer and the hatchery birds from earlier this Fall are too slight in body type. The d'Anvers are all lovely and stocky, and hopefully will help make better quality babies down the road. I also snagged a lovely young Chocolate Bantam Cochin at the show, to introduce (for the fun of it) that color into a project pen of d'Uccles. So much fun, so much time to wait....!

 

[nothingbutbirds]

how cute
hope no more die on you fingers crossed
i have questions on a color im gonna try to create in d'uccles hoping to get a pied color started any help from anyone would be great

 

[SilkiesForEver]

If you show poultry at a fair or local shows do you have to do showmanship or do you just place em in a cage? Please don't kill me for asking.

You are asking a very good question.

I was wondering the same thing the first time I showed birds.
I have some info on my website about Showmanship/Cage shows. http://mybackyardbantams.weebly.com/about-showing---showmanship.html

Showmanship involves a 9 - 18 year old showing their bird and being judged on their handling skills and knowledge. The Coop Show involves you bathing your bird, having it look its best, "sticking" it in a cage and then the judge does the rest. But, there are two "categories" for the Coop Show. Our Fair has the "Junior Poultry Show", and the "Open Poultry Show". The junior poultry show includes Showmanship, and a Coop Show. If you enter showmanship, (you need a bird to do so of course), that bird will have to be entered in the coop show. But you do not have to do showmanship to enter birds.

Hope this helps!

 

[wegotchickens]

@wegotchickens: Haha I guessed that you would say that Well if the color breeds true and is doing good you'll definatly have a egg buyer. X) I am planning to purchase some d'uccles for breeding and experimenting with. When you experiment with colors do you just throw two colors together or do you do some kinda of research? @ Everyone: I went into the coop this afternoon and a white leghorn hen was in the corner, dead. She was my healthiest and one of the best layers. She had no sign of attack, blood, or bites. She was fine. Could it have been a disease?

Won't know if the color breeds true for a while. Still working on color type, so as it's perfected I feel confident it will breed true. Research indicates that it will, and yes, I did some research first. I've been very blessed to meet several long-time d'Uccle breeders who have given me some insights into how colors work for d'Uccles. Only once have I let everyone run together, and then forgot and set the eggs. That gave me an odd splash-looking girl that threw more odd birds against black, and goldnecks against mf. I have the oddest of the offspring still. Her photo is on my website ahead of the mahogany boy. As soon as she's ready to lay, I will cross her against black, then later against mille fleur. We'll see what happens there. The black crossing is a diagnostic, to see what hidden genes she carries.


As for your hen, I doubt it was disease if she was acting perfectly normal. Sometimes seemingly healthy birds just die. Could have been a heart attack. Is she in with a strong rooster? He could've pinned her in the corner to breed and squashed her enough to suffocate her. I had a perfectly healthy roo that flew off the roost into the wall of the coop when he was startled by a falling tree limb. Broke his neck Sorry you lost your hen.

 

[mstricer]

Got my first egg yesterday from my Mille pen. I followed what you said Lori and put the splash in with them. For all I know it is her egg, she squats everytime you come near her so maybe I will get an egg.

 

[wegotchickens]

Got my first egg yesterday from my Mille pen. I followed what you said Lori and put the splash in with them. For all I know it is her egg, she squats everytime you come near her so maybe I will get an egg.

Yay! It will still be 2-3 weeks before she could be fertile by your boy, though.
The pen she was in had millie cockerals in it, but I never saw any breeding going on....

 

[wegotchickens]

It's been a little while since I've visited this thread - hi folks!

Some of the chicks I recently received from mstricer (before the cold set in and made it too cold to ship):





I got 14 but 3 died about 4 days ago from unknown causes. I'm afraid I brought something home from the poultry show I went to last Saturday....

They are very pretty chicks, and thankfully I still have 2 Blue Mottleds amongst all the Black Mottleds. I can't wait til Spring to get some of wegotchickens' babies! For now I get to live with my batch of chicks and listen to them trill at each other. Nothing cuter than that.

Oh yes. I bought a nice Porcelain d'Anver cockerel at the show to use along with the 2 Silver Quail d'Anver pullets to help with the body type of my d'Uccles. I don't know how the mottled babes will turn out, but the original 5 youngsters I bought this summer and the hatchery birds from earlier this Fall are too slight in body type. The d'Anvers are all lovely and stocky, and hopefully will help make better quality babies down the road. I also snagged a lovely young Chocolate Bantam Cochin at the show, to introduce (for the fun of it) that color into a project pen of d'Uccles. So much fun, so much time to wait....!

I doubt your chicks died of anything you brought home from a show. Shipping is a rough business, and the stress could've finally gotten to a few of the weaker birds.
No, there is nothing sweeter than the trills of chicks!!

About body type: Remember that judges here do not look for the same traits as European judges. So the body type you crave may be unshowable in the US. At a recent show a judge wrote on one card that the rooster was unproportionate because he was so wide in the chest. The biggest problem with US d'Uccles is that they're getting too big. That's the only reason I bought a rooster at the OH show: He was soooo small and cute. He's still in quarrantine. Unfortunately, he is self-blue mottled, so I will have to breed and select for color as well as size and then breed again before I can be sure the mottling gene is gone. I already had it in one aspect from Karl's hen, but it darkened back to lavender. This boy has definite white mottling.
BUT HE'S SO CUTE AND LITTLE!!!!
<sigh>