How To Lower Humidity

[n8ivetxn]

I do love me some Polish chickens! If I didn't have so many flying predators, I would have Polish. But I like to let my birds roam and be chickens, so I'm afraid they just wouldn't see death coming from above

The breeder I got eggs from, Edd Sheppard, has been involved with these guys for over 40 years. He started in the mid 70s....very interesting story on his website awesomearaucanas.com
He does not select against clean faced birds, or birds with a few tail feathers - which, as a breed conservation enthusiast, I really appreciate that. I'm not looking for "show birds," I'm looking to help genetically preserve a fun & funky breed of jungle fowl

...So, you need all the genes you can get!

The Ameraucana incident was probably just an isolated thing...maybe the other birds in my flock were just too submissive... Now the roo, yeah, aggression comes in all breeds! I cull aggressive ram lambs and I'll cull aggressive roosters too.... there are too many good roosters to be breeding the temperamental ones!

 

[AmyLynn2374]

I do love me some Polish chickens! If I didn't have so many flying predators, I would have Polish. But I like to let my birds roam and be chickens, so I'm afraid they just wouldn't see death coming from above

The breeder I got eggs from, Edd Sheppard, has been involved with these guys for over 40 years. He started in the mid 70s....very interesting story on his website awesomearaucanas.com
He does not select against clean faced birds, or birds with a few tail feathers - which, as a breed conservation enthusiast, I really appreciate that. I'm not looking for "show birds," I'm looking to help genetically preserve a fun & funky breed of jungle fowl

...So, you need all the genes you can get!

The Ameraucana incident was probably just an isolated thing...maybe the other birds in my flock were just too submissive... Now the roo, yeah, aggression comes in all breeds! I cull aggressive ram lambs and I'll cull aggressive roosters too.... there are too many good roosters to be breeding the temperamental ones!

I won't keep an aggressive roo, no matter how much I liked him. No patience for that. My Spitz roo is as good as can be and my main silkie roo is a toe pecker, but he's okay...lol

With the araucanas if you breed two tuft face birds together you have a 25% chance of the offspring getting the gene from both and if they do it's fatal. Tuft to tuft the probabilities is 50% tuft birds, 25% clean faced and 25% chicks dying in shell from the lethal gene. If you breed tuft to clean faced you have 50/50 chance of tuft/clean faced.

My first nn is nn/araucana, (so she's an nn/ee...lol) and she had like a couple tuft feathers and a naked neck with a big ole bowtie. One of her daughters looks just like her. I've never been crazy about the cheek tufts. Just not my thing. I like the ameraucana muffs and beards just fine.

 

[n8ivetxn]

"Toe pecker!" - is that like an ankle biter?! LOL...

Yeah, the Araucanas have some issues to be aware of.... I need to write down your percentages and save that info for the future. That one thing, the lethal gene, makes me question why any breeder would want to rid their flock of clean faced birds. That would certainly decrease your hatch rate and would not be good for the continuity of the breed. I hope I do get some clean face hens / roosters...

I like the muffs and beards too, cute! I had Faverolles because of that and the odd toe.... Now you have me thinking about some Polish birds!

 

[AmyLynn2374]

"Toe pecker!" - is that like an ankle biter?! LOL...

Yeah, the Araucanas have some issues to be aware of.... I need to write down your percentages and save that info for the future. That one thing, the lethal gene, makes me question why any breeder would want to rid their flock of clean faced birds. That would certainly decrease your hatch rate and would not be good for the continuity of the breed. I hope I do get some clean face hens / roosters...

I like the muffs and beards too, cute! I had Faverolles because of that and the odd toe.... Now you have me thinking about some Polish birds!

Yup, like an ankle biter, only he tries to peck anything that moves on the ground in front of him, cause that's all he can see, and it usually ends up being my toes cause I usually have sand less on. Lol This is him...lol

I had a couple black Japanese bantams, (I lost one of those to that predator too, lost 3 in total) and they have a lethal gene too, called the creeper gene. It's the gene for the short legs. If they get 2 copies of the gene it's lethal.

I like polish. I have a polish/silkie mix. Looks like a polish, but has 5 toes...lol She's pretty.

 

[n8ivetxn]

He's "pretty" LOL! ..... The polish/silkie cross sounds gorgeous too - can't lose with a cross like that!