For the love of mutt chickens

[flowerchicks]

Speckeldhen, he is going to be gorgeous! If I lived near you and needed a(nother) rooster, I would take him.

 

[rockinpaints]

He's cute!

 

[speckledhen]

Thank you! I think he will be very handsome. Here is his mother, Riley, a BR/blue Ameraucana cross hen, so she qualifies as a mutt, too. His daddy is the rooster in my avatar, Isaac:

 

[cgmccary]

I love your pictures Cynthia. Nice mutt! I wish I had room for another male. Mutts can be really pleasant to look at (eye candy). Here is a picture of some feral chickens, a group of roaming bachelors, I snapped in the lowlands of the island of Kauai, Hawaii:

In the mountains or in the middle of the upland jungle/forest there, you would commonly run across a "Moa" which is a a Red Jungle Fowl brought to the islands by Polynesians (and Hawaii 'i's first introduced bird). With either the lowland mixed mutt and the Moa, you might encounter a mother hen and chicks.

 

[Alycia]

I adore mutts! And all of your guys' pictures are wonderful

Here are some of my mutts.

Mix of Silkie, "American Onagadori", and Phoenix. Priscilla. She is getting a lengthy tail lately!

Sumatra/Phoenix mix. Curly, I think. I love his black, black legs.

A bunch of mutts here, minus the one Phoenix in the lower right hand corner.
Starting from the left: Sumatra, Silkie, and "American Onagadori" mix rooster, Swagger. In the back there, his mini twin, Curly. Next his mother, Silkie X "American Onagadori" hen, Davy. Then there's Priscilla again.

 

[PepsNick]

I judged a cross-breed contest a few months ago. Great pictures. https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=424959

 

[HHandbasket]

This is our mutt girl, Olga. She's the one on the far right. Hard to see--taken with a cell phone. She's very flighty and really hard to get pictures of her, but here ya go!

 

[Manok_]

Hatching mutts is for me way more fun than reproducing true breeds...

 

[farmerChef]

I love my mutts. I just love my roo's coloring, and my 2 fuzzys, they both have five toes.

"Phoenix"

"Sr FuzzyBottom"

"Ms.Fuzzy"

 

[HHandbasket]

Our girls just hatched out 8 more mutts!

We have a mottled java rooster, so he's everybody's Big Daddy!

The bebes are from the following mothers: 4 are from Olga, the American game/EE cross who is also the broody hen that hatched them all out and is mothering the whole lot. Two are from Olivia, who is a mixture of a blue penedesenca, blue ameraucana, and black copper marans (was supposed to be an olive egger, but 25% of the birds from that breeding developed straight combs and lay dark brown eggs--Olivia is one of them). One is from Lola, an actual red/brown ameraucana; and one is from Bertha, our black and gold EE. The chicks are gorgeous, all of them bearing the resemblance of mottled java chicks, with some of them having beards/muffs.

Linda (gryeyes) has crossed a Delaware hen with an EE roo, and we've hatched out several younglings from that pairing. They're gorgeous birds, and the pullets grow up to be lovely hens that lay gorgeous blue eggs (the EE sire must carry a strong blue egg gene, as each of these birds has hatched from the lovely medium-brown eggs laid by their Delaware mother). The cockerels are of the sweetest temperament and will continue to make great flock protectors for someone (I have 2 for sale, one of which I think may possibly be a pullet).

There's just something wonderful about crossing breeds, not knowing what to expect and what kind of wonderful hybrid vigor to expect. I have the most amazing hatch rates with eggs from mutts, I swear! I have a couple of other mutts (one is either a blue Jersey giant or blue wyandotte crossed with an EE, another one a black JG or australorp crossed with the same EE... he's an active little bugger). The blue one is named Colby, and we originally thought it was a pullet; but the feathers are coming in quite roo-ish.

Now, the incubators are being put away for the season, and I'm actually pretty glad. We set a LOT of eggs this year, and unfortunately, not a single one of the shipped purebred eggs hatched. Now, lemme set some mutt eggs out of some freaky chicken mating combination out of somebody's backyard, and I can guarantee you, I'll have hatch rates of 80% or better.