Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[Lacy Blues]

I have found in some of my birds that when they start laying as pullets, their egg shape tends to change. They have gone, in some instances, from being similar to your egg on the left to being more like the one on the right when they reach "hen" status. So, I wouldn't give up yet and like George said, I'd make an exception in the case of these particular birds.

 

[hellbender]

I am a little particular about egg size, shape, quality etc. Figure it part of the bird. I would compromise on this one though. I see it as a fault, and there is no bird without fault. It is not a fault you want to fix. And it is not end of the world bad.

I had a strain of NHs that I played with for a while that had poorly shaped eggs on average. It would have been a major undertaking to make progress on that one point. Taught me that it was something I did not want to have a lot of.

I am trying to identify a pullet that is laying a poorly shaped egg. She is probably my favorite bird.

For me, so long as the eggs aren't square, I don't worry about the shape of the eggs. I want birds to lay reasonably heavy large eggs and plenty of them. There are so many other things of concern that a moderately different shape to an egg is so close to the bottom of the list, it can hardly register on the scale.

 

[bnjrob]

I have 30 chicks growing out and two are showing this weird feather growth. The photos don't really capture what I was trying to show. The wing coverts are pointing up and out, instead of lying close to the wing and pointing back. It is more than just messy feathers, which all the chicks have. There is a structural component to the weird way these feathers are growing out. When you see the chick in real life the wing coverts look almost like a second set of wings cocked for takeoff. The feathers might grow out normally in later molts, but I doubt if this bird will ever be as close-feathered as the standard calls for. I could be wrong. That's why I posted the photos and asked.

Hellbender, I called the chicks obvious culls because feather quality is an issue. This pointing-up feather pattern is the opposite of the much-desired "close feathering" called for in the standard for this breed. Plus it looks like cr@p and I don't like it. No point in growing out a bird that has a trait the opposite of what I'm looking for and expresses that trait as a young chick - unless there is a good chance that trait will go away in subsequent molts and the chick has other redeeming qualities. So far this particular chick is short on "other redeeming qualities."

I started with this breed last year. I got a straight run of 25 chicks, all of whom had normal feathering as they grew out. It was a messy way to start because I don't know who is related to whom. The breeding pairs I set up this year may have included some inadvertent brother-sister pairings. I expect to have to weed out a lot of random-seeming weird mutations for the first three or four years as whatever hidden genes they may be carrying get expressed. After a few years I should have enough records to avoid those overly-inbred pairings. In the meantime a lot of heavy culling may be required until I can reduce the amount of inbreeding and get things stabilized.

I suspect this wing covert trait is one of those hidden genes coming out, but it's better to ask first and cull later.

Thanks, everybody!

Sarah

If you have the room, just band these guys and watch them since this is your first year to hatch your own and see how it comes together. It may be that you'll end up culling them later, but last year I found it much more helpful to just keep everyone so that we could correlate what we saw when they were young compared to them as older.

 

[tarahtt]

I'm learning here. Which one is bulb shaped? Which is the undesirable one? The smaller, darker one on the right or bigger, rounder, light one on the left?

 

[bnjrob]

I'm already near the point where chicken chores become work, not fun. No more pen construction for me. Chickens have to be fun or they're out of here.

Chest bumping in the brooder isn't a bad thing. An overabundance of cockerels is another issue entirely.

These cockerels are fast to mature but slow to put on meat. Most are pestering the hens by the time they are four months old. Structurally they are lots of bone with gradually developing leg meat until they're pushing 10 months old, when they finally start to put substantial meat on their breasts. I'd like to lengthen the time to sexual maturity and shorten the time for meat development, assuming that is even possible. But first I'm working on overall type.

It's a long-term project...

Sarah

Are you still not able to separate males and females? Our Javas start pestering the females by 3-4 months and we even have crowing at about 6-8 weeks.

With last year's hatches, we separated ours by gender and it greatly improved everything. Actually ended up with some cockerels and pullets meeting the SOP weight for ckls/pullets - which was new for us. It also kept things quieter in the male pen. We still had fights and there were some that we just had to absolutely move out because they were seriously fighting with the other ckls even being separated away from females. But we still ended up with 9 cockerels living together without too much blood shed and then another pen with four living together.

Edit: ok, read farther and saw you were separating them when they start harassing the females. Try separating them sooner, well before the males start anything - say at 2 months old. If the males are close to the females, then try to put some sort of visual barrier up so they can't see females.

I keep our cockerels well away from any females unless it happens to be a mixed pen with a cock in there - then the cockerels don't seem to really have a problem seeing the females in that pen because they know that they have a cock in with that readily identifies them as his territory.

 

[gjensen]

For me, so long as the eggs aren't square, I don't worry about the shape of the eggs. I want birds to lay reasonably heavy large eggs and plenty of them. There are so many other things of concern that a moderately different shape to an egg is so close to the bottom of the list, it can hardly register on the scale.

Why settle? Though I cannot imagine a scenario where I do not have to settle on something. If I do not have to I will not.

Then it is a highly heritable, and as quality goes down, so does hatchability. Part of the whole bird to me. I like to see a nice uniform large dozen. I do not like to see a haphazard bunch.

I prefer to avoid setting smaller, or poorly shaped eggs.

 

[hellbender]

Why settle? Though I cannot imagine a scenario where I do not have to settle on something. If I do not have to I will not.

Then it is a highly heritable, and as quality goes down, so does hatchability. Part of the whole bird to me. I like to see a nice uniform large dozen. I do not like to see a haphazard bunch.

I prefer to avoid setting smaller, or poorly shaped eggs.

I'm sorry...I guess I didn't make myself clear. I don't worry too much about a slight difference in the shape of an egg going into the carton for customers. They want large to extra large brown eggs and I do deliver that to them and never get any complaints about any subtle differences in the shapes.

On the other hand, we are the ones who chose the eggs to be hatched and I confess to being a bit more selective about those.

 

[Zanna]

I'm learning here. Which one is bulb shaped? Which is the undesirable one? The smaller, darker one on the right or bigger, rounder, light one on the left?

The less desireable one to me is the darker one on the right. The one on the left is shaped like Marans eggs are suposed to be, very round. Honestly I was surprised to see that round shape from one of these Delawares! Makes it harder to tell which is the bigger and smaller end. Being my nit picky self, I actually prefer eggs a little less round but yes, there are most often much more important things as long as the eggs are hatchable.

Thanks all for your valuable input!

 

[Beekissed]

Just went to look at the eggs I'm incubating..... Noted that the WR layers I've always had tended toward a more rounded egg than a slender one and some in the nest were just such eggs. Will be interested if they ever hatch. Tomorrow will mark round vs. oval in the nest so I can keep track. Most, though, fall into the middle...not too slender, not too round, just big and oval. That's the size and shape that I prefer.

 

[Zanna]

Just went to look at the eggs I'm incubating..... Noted that the WR layers I've always had tended toward a more rounded egg than a slender one and some in the nest were just such eggs. Will be interested if they ever hatch. Tomorrow will mark round vs. oval in the nest so I can keep track. Most, though, fall into the middle...not too slender, not too round, just big and oval. That's the size and shape that I prefer.

I prefer that shape and size too thinking of a developing/hatching chick and what they would need. With Hellbender as far as my egg eating customers. They love all different colours, shapes and sizes. I once sold a customer a dozen gorgeous, dark, all the same size/shape Marans eggs and told her she got special dozen this week. She was dissapointed as the were all the same!