Icelandic Chickens

[joyous]

Been gone a couple of days babysitting my grand babies, so I am just catching up. Love the pictures of your emus Kathy! they look so healthy!, Daron congrats on your new hatching adventure,! I love everyones Icelandic pictures, keeps me dreaming! Hope everyone is feeling better that have been ill! Saturday is day 7 for my ices from Mary (not a farm), temps and humidity have been holding steady. I have a Dorking hen sitting on eggs in the hen house, two more that want to set on eggs, And thankfully, I have a new (old) shed on the way to be converted into my second coop! Its supposed to get up to the 80s today! Crazy for Iowa.

 

[Happy Chooks]

OMG Kathy, that last picture is hilarious!!!!

 

[kathyinmo]

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[kathyinmo]

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[drumstick diva]

Kathy that last photo ":get me outta here." is hysterical - how lucky you got to record all that for posterity. Is that an icelandic chick? Maybe that will teach 'em to stay where they belong either that or next time she'll bring reinforcements.

 

[crystaldegallina]

Can someone direct me to some information regarding the "frayed" gene that pops up specifically in Icelandics?
There is a thread on the Icelandic Facebook page and we are all kind of wondering more about it.

I know I have seen some information on this thread in regards to it, but the search function has me puzzled and I cannot find any pertinant information. And while I would LOVE to go through 13800+ posts to find it again...

It seems someone has a contact to a Icelandic Icelandic breeder, and they had said they were unaware of frayed type feather issues *over there* and that most feather issues are related to lice/lackofdustbaths/nutritional issues. I had come to think that the frayed thing was quite prevalent in the U.S. flocks, or am I wrong about that?

 

[NotAFarm]

Can someone direct me to some information regarding the "frayed" gene that pops up specifically in Icelandics?
There is a thread on the Icelandic Facebook page and we are all kind of wondering more about it.

I know I have seen some information on this thread in regards to it, but the search function has me puzzled and I cannot find any pertinant information. And while I would LOVE to go through 13800+ posts to find it again...

It seems someone has a contact to a Icelandic Icelandic breeder, and they had said they were unaware of frayed type feather issues *over there* and that most feather issues are related to lice/lackofdustbaths/nutritional issues. I had come to think that the frayed thing was quite prevalent in the U.S. flocks, or am I wrong about that?

What caused you to think this?

 

[crystaldegallina]

I had found a frayed feathered pullet in my flock, I started to research it, from what I can remember was finding that it seemed to pop up quite a bit and that it was recommended to breed/cull away from it. Again I could be wrong, and it could have only happened in isolated instances but I know I have seen and read about frayed feather Icelandics on this thread.

 

[The Sheriff]

I can weigh in on this with what I know. There is a feathering issue that pops up from time to time with the Icelandics. I would not consider it "quite prevalent" at all. I have hatched hundreds of chicks and had it has shown up three or four times. I recently sold chicks to someone who just told me one of those has a feathering issue. We do not know what the official name for the feathering issue is as it has presented differently in individual chicks. It doesn't seem to be fray in the true sense of the word. The chicks feathers appears messy, sparse, and sometimes broken. The chicks are smaller than their hatch mates but don't seem unthrifty and run around with the rest of the pack. I have been contacted by people who only have the Behl line of Icelandics and they have told me that the feathering issue is definitely present in that line. I think that considering all the Icelandics in the US that I know to be pure Icelandics, hail from a handful of eggs imported by Lyle Behl and Sigrid over the last 14 years. That is a remarkably small gene pool and it does not surprise me that an occasional recessive gene, like fray would show up. I have taken steps to remove it from my flock but obviously it is still there. I am not willing to do anything more drastic in attempting to eliminate it from my flock. Now that I know it is still there, I will let people know and they can buy eggs/chicks if they want, knowing that they might have a chick with wonky feathering. If it weren't so expensive, I would attempt to import birds or eggs from Iceland to breed separately and see what happens. New blood in the US gene pool would be great.

Feel free to chime in if anyone has anything to add.

 

[crystaldegallina]

Thank you! My choice of wording "quite prevalent" might be a bit dramatic. My Icelandics were of the Behl line also. What you say makes total complete sense to me. Would it be ok for me to post your reply on the facebook page?