I have to talk POLISH!

[cherylcohen]

Morning all! I'm just joining this thread! I'm so excited to have Tolbunts. They are 5 1/2 months now. One frizzle girl, 2 smooth girls and a smooth roo. I'll get better pics today. I've never read up on breeding them before but have always gone crazy for the coloring.

I also have seven 3 week old chicks in my brooder and shipping today are 8 more chicks 6 weeks old. Hope I end up with some good breeding stock!

Tolbunt chick & jubilee chick friend

 

[miohippus]

I'm so jelous

i would love to have some tolbunts they are very lovely.

Morning all! I'm just joining this thread! I'm so excited to have Tolbunts. They are 5 1/2 months now. One frizzle girl, 2 smooth girls and a smooth roo. I'll get better pics today. I've never read up on breeding them before but have always gone crazy for the coloring.

I also have seven 3 week old chicks in my brooder and shipping today are 8 more chicks 6 weeks old. Hope I end up with some good breeding stock!

Tolbunt chick & jubilee chick friend

 

[Illia]

Don't listen to them, that is in NO way a rooster.

At 5 months old a cockerel/rooster would have actual wattles, would have saddle feathers, would have a thinner more broken shaped neck with developing hackle feathers, and a more pronounced crest. But the back is the biggest giveaway. There's absolutely no saddle feathers there, and even the tail is perfectly pullet normal. She's just a crower.

The crest appears slightly like a male only because it is very poor quality. It is very small, very stringy, and has little to no actual lacing. It is common in hatchery birds though, in fact, that crest both in feather shape and size is commonly seen on Brabanters and Spitzhaubens from hatcheries.


Not coming down on her, just stating what proves she's a girl.

 

[cherylcohen]

This is about the gold-laced? I thought you meant my tolbunt roo.....whew!

Don't listen to them, that is in NO way a rooster.
At 5 months old a cockerel/rooster would have actual wattles, would have saddle feathers, would have a thinner more broken shaped neck with developing hackle feathers, and a more pronounced crest. But the back is the biggest giveaway. There's absolutely no saddle feathers there, and even the tail is perfectly pullet normal. She's just a crower.

The crest appears slightly like a male only because it is very poor quality. It is very small, very stringy, and has little to no actual lacing. It is common in hatchery birds though, in fact, that crest both in feather shape and size is commonly seen on Brabanters and Spitzhaubens from hatcheries.

Not coming down on her, just stating what proves she's a girl.

 

[seminolewind]

Thanks, Illia. She's one of those Ebay project Creles, haha. The only surviving egg from that hatch.

And I love all the guessing! I was kinda getting excited about her being a roo.

 

[HighNDryFarm]

Aaah Polish.

Bit of advice to anyone - Don't build a nice big pen around an orchard for your Polish to live in unless you know what you're doing

Ever since I put up a nice big new pen around our little plum grove, one of the Polish hens have been perching up in the trees to sleep at night. I noticed only a few weeks later, and would start a regular ritual of removing her, thank goodness at reachable height, from the branches before it gets too dark. Well lately the enjoyment of camping outside has spread, and tonight I found three gals perched in the trees, right before a rainstorm, one of them was far too high up there for me to even reach with a shovel in my hand, the other two just barely low enough for me to somehow get them to perch onto the blade of the shovel so I can carefully lower it and snatch 'em up. Crazy birds. This morning before opening their coop I found four hens running around the pen in the middle of a good downpour of a storm, so obviously this escalating trend of sleeping out in the trees has been going longer than I noticed.

Polish. Crazy birds. They love trees, oh yes they do!

It's a good thing they're good girls though. Upon actually grabbing them they're very calm and understanding. Only one of my hens isn't, but thankfully she never perches in the trees at night, and she just also so happens to have spurs like these -



These creepy looking yet small spurs look truly like they've been sharpened, but no, they're just geniously grown to this shape and size. These are from one of my gold laced gals, she's a bit unruly once picked up, and has told me she can use these twice now. I must always watch and control her legs when handling her. I just hope she'll use these if she ever runs into a predator issue.

I had a buff laced with spurs like that. She was a lover so she never used them, thankfully! Boy, Polish sure do love to roost in the trees. Two different days our gate didn't latch and when I went out to lock the coop I was missing a couple. Luckily, they talk to me so I found them in the olive trees, just within reach!

 

[ScaredOfShadows]

I got a few pics this morning. I tried to get a video of her crowing but she didn't. She is 5 months old, and obviously poorly bred.

GIRL!
100% girl! The crest feathers I see rounded feathers. Theres barely any wattles and on a non-bearded bird by 5 months old there should be quite a bit, even my hatcher WC blue has very pronounced wattles but she didn't get hers till later.
Theres no red to the comb, no pronounced or noticeable male comb
Dead giveaway is the hackles and saddles, all rounded and girly. A boy would have definitive pointy hackles and longer pointy saddle feathers. Also gold lace has a different sex pattern the females look different than the males, and thats all girly color.

 

[seminolewind]

Jessy, good point about the color pattern. Maybe Laverne here is just imitating the sounds she hears in the morning- 4 other roos crowing all around her. LOL

 

[Illia]

This is about the gold-laced? I thought you meant my tolbunt roo.....whew!

Haha, no.

Yeah sadly Creles seem to be going downhill, at least, from where I'm standing and seeing. The pretty project boy I purchased a while ago I finally butchered and never got kids out of. Over time I didn't put him in any specific breeding pen as I didn't have enough coops for that, so he just shared the main pasture with the young pullets and laying hens, well, he was a great flock protector but his weird dominance issues with me got worse and worse until finally one day he actually started spurring and kicking at me. His spurs are indeed sharp, and he's the lightest weight, smallest Polish I have, plus he's clean faced and I've no proper females for him to do a good crele, but that aggression thing just tips it all over, so, I butchered him. Kept his beautiful pelt though.

The thing about Creles I find is that it seems more people easily get their hands on them than other colors like Tolbunt, and they're a color people understand less, so it seems people just breed them to whatever and see how it works. Thus, there's the beard/non-beard thing, a serious size issue from the origin cuckoo being bantam, and likely aggressive hatchery birds from hatchery hen introduction.

Not meaning to completely put down the color project, just making some observations. I love the color, and I know there are some hard working breeders out there, but I just personally do seem to see less effort put into them over-all than other unrecognized colors. I think the root of the problem though is in the fact that there is no proposed standard, and true duckwing based creles don't exist, as there are no partridge nor duckwing based Polish in the US. The closest, and what people are working with, are Crowwing (brown-red/birchen) that Laced Polish are. Add or subtract some genes and you get anything from a barred laced Polish to a barred brown-red Polish. Or just a cuckoo.

 

[HighNDryFarm]

I got a few pics this morning. I tried to get a video of her crowing but she didn't. She is 5 months old, and obviously poorly bred.

I don't see a roo! Laverne is not a Verne.