Faverolles Thread

[ashandvine]

Don't you just want to pinch these cheeks?

 

[echosrevenge]

Ash, he is gorgeous! Prettier in person, though. We had two duds in the eggs from you, one of the meatie mixes and one of the pretty-sure-its-a-Faverolles. Both UofA eggs are developing nicely! Can't wait to see what hatches out of them....

Two of my Favs offered to play incubator for me! They are sitting on well-marked clears pulled from the incubators until I can make some broody hutches and move them away from the flock for a second - nothing so attractive to a hen as a nest box with someone already in it! Came out this morning and my one who is sitting in the bucket nest (smallest nest, almost too small for a Fav) had two other hens piled on top of her, the poor thing. She was not impressed, cussing them out in a steady stream of what we refer to as "the angry dinosaur noise".

Two questions for those more experienced with the community and breeding fun things side of chicken keeping:

One, if you were to try and develop your own line of blue/black/splash salmons, which breed or breeds would you use and why? What would you look for in individuals of those breeds?

Two, does anyone know of a single-breed flock of Faverolles in the US that numbers at least 50 birds and is NOT a hatchery flock? I hear of a lot of people having a trio here or a quad there, but the largest single flock I've heard about is just over a dozen birds...

We're making lots of progress on the self-feeding food forest! Hopefully this time next year the birds will be getting 100% of their feed themselves off our land...vry excited for a day with no feed bill!

 

[poularde]

There is someone who already has blue Salmons. pasofinofarms here on BYC.

Nice a food forest.

I am working on something like that myself. Good luck.

 

[keesmom]

One, if you were to try and develop your own line of blue/black/splash salmons, which breed or breeds would you use and why? What would you look for in individuals of those breeds?

Two, does anyone know of a single-breed flock of Faverolles in the US that numbers at least 50 birds and is NOT a hatchery flock? I hear of a lot of people having a trio here or a quad there, but the largest single flock I've heard about is just over a dozen birds...

For BBS salmons I guess Orpingtons would be the best. Same comb, skin/leg color. Either a blue or splash if you can get one. Benefit of using a splash Orp is that 100% of the offspring would be blue.

Dick has the most Faverolles I've seen in one place. Ron or Jonathan Patterson may also maintain a good number as well, not sure on that though. However I don't see why you need to keep large numbers of birds to maintain a good flock. Yes, more than a trio or quad would be needed. Maybe 3 males and a dozen hens would be a happy medium. Hatch a lot and cull a lot.

 

[keesmom]

There is someone who already has blue Salmons. pasofinofarms here on BYC.

Nice a food forest.

I am working on something like that myself. Good luck.

I've mentioned Pasofinofarm before. Anyone heard from Melissa lately? I haven't seen any eggs advertised here this year.

 

[poularde]

I've mentioned Pasofinofarm before. Anyone heard from Melissa lately? I haven't seen any eggs advertised here this year.

I tried to order eggs from her this year by email. I never got a response.

I hope she still sells hatching eggs.

 

[beaglady]

One, if you were to try and develop your own line of blue/black/splash salmons, which breed or breeds would you use and why? What would you look for in individuals of those breeds?

Two, does anyone know of a single-breed flock of Faverolles in the US that numbers at least 50 birds and is NOT a hatchery flock? I hear of a lot of people having a trio here or a quad there, but the largest single flock I've heard about is just over a dozen birds...

If you count chicks, I do. I've got 3 adult roos, 9 hens, 1 older cockerel and lots of chicks.

 

[poularde]

I have to admit it would be pretty cool to see a flock of 50 Favs foraging around.

 

[echosrevenge]

We're over a dozen here too - twelve adult hens, one adult cock, thirteen young cockerels, five pullets, sixteen chicks and 60+ eggs in the incubator on staggered hatches. We're grading up from our original birds, so we sell some started pullets as regular layers, eat the boys (hence so many, we cull not only for our table but my sister and my in-laws too) and have brought in some very promising young cockerels from keesmom's birds for later this year and next year. Very hopeful for the eggs currently incubating from ashandvine's UofA pullets as well.

I don't mean to suggest at all that one can't keep a quality flock with few birds! I just wondered if anyone had such a large flock, I hear all the time about people who have 100+ birds, but they are usually all sorts of different breeds, or large hubrid/mutt layer flocks. Combined with reading and rereading Harvey Ussery, and learning about so many old timer breeders retiring or downsizing their flocks to really small numbers (not just in Favs) - coupled with the small number of people actively breeding Favs to begin with (blacks and the other non-salmon colors especially), it got me wondering if anyone is maintaining a large spiral-bred genetically diverse pool of breeding birds anywhere in the US.


Our flock doesn't look like much now in the color department, but we are "building the barn" so to speak and will work on painting it once we've got more leftovers at the bottom of the roasting pan - hence my b/b/s question, we have LOTS of room to play with color in our flock - I have seen some hatching eggs for blue salmons for sale on eBay sometimes, usually somewhere around $60/doz plus shipping, and not generally with any serious pictures or discussion of the parent stock's quality. I have access to some pretty nice blue orps, my chiropractor breeds them and I might hatch some out for him later this summer, and of course my sort-of-justified impulse buy of a very low-slung and meaty pair of splash cochins recently. Since I have those, its probably what ill experiment with - we have several families to feed with our culls, and the birds are getting close to feeding themselves 60%+ off what they can forage from the land (5 acres of young oak/middle aged pine that used to be the homeplace of a very large dairy farm in the 17th & 18th centuries) so we can cull like crazy and they're cheap to keep - my husband manages an organic bakery and gets all the full wheat from their farms and all the day old bread he can fit in the car, and y sister works in produce at the organic coop...lots of chicken food! What little feed they get is fermented or at least wet down to mash so our adults eat 1qt daily for all, and the various groups of young'uns about the same), then free range and follow us around as we work and toss them bugs.

we are probably some of the only people looking forward to the 17-year cicada hatch this summer! Just think of all that high-protein, high-calcium free chicken feed! The Favs will be thrilled...cant wait to watch the whole mess of them stampeding around crunching cicadas...

 

[poularde]

Sounds like chicken heaven.