Icelandic Chickens

[NotAFarm]

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[karimw]

Thanks for the nice comments on my birds! I just love them. This flock with the Icelandics, Iowa Blues and Gold/Silver laced Cochins is just the most interesting and colorful group! Kaz is really good with them. He gets bouncy and playful like any 3 month old puppy, but has shown no aggressive behavior. In that photo of him and the birds I had him lay down and "stay" in the middle of the flock and they just pecked the scratch around him.

Has anyone ever had a bird with a broken foot? I have a crested white pullet that I think got stepped on by a horse

I have her splinted but I don't have much hope for her. I think her leg its broken right at the joint. I also came home from work the other day and found a cockerel hanging by one leg in a chain link fence. He is getting better at least. In both cases, it was Kaz athat helped me find them. He is in a kennel in the barn during the day and must have known it had happened. Took me right to them when I let him out. I think he's going to be a good protector.

 

[The Sheriff]

Stella and I were breaking bread together in the sunroom yesterday. She has decided to start her own Social Club in the Random Ramblings Section of BYC. She hopes all her friends will come on over and join the fun. You can find it HERE. I promised to be there every morning with a cup of coffee and a smile.

 

[Icelander]

NotAFarm, great birds with perfect Icelandic names! I always love when the name of something describes it perfectly.

Anyway,I realized I hadn't posted photos of my flock for a while so below are June photos of my little backyard Hlésey-line. We're down to one rooster, the silver duck-wing Prímus, as our big black beauty Glámur has been contracted out to provide security for a flock of 20+ free-ranging hens at a friend's farm until we want to breed him. When he got out of his traveling box he probably thought he'd died and gone to heaven, he was out in a field with scores of ladies running up to him and crouching down left and right. Of course he immediately started boss-hogging them around like he'd never done anything else in his life. Born to rule that boy is, which is why we had to say bye-for-now.

Anyway, here are the ladies, 6 months old and Prímus, 7 months.

Skráma:


Sirrí:


Kara:


and Prímus:



I've started shipping eggs collected from them. Did the first test shipment about a month ago and out of 7 eggs that were set, 4 adorable chicks hatched. One died in the shell and two eggs didn't develop. The eggs were shipped over 2000 miles and it was the receiver's first attempt at incubating so I think they eggs did alright all things considered. One of the chicks is developing grey feathers

 

[Miss Molly]

I love Looking at all the Beautiful Chickens..

Thanks for posting...

 

[NotAFarm]

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[mlm Mike]

Karimw, well Kaz is a really good pup, would I be correct in assuming he is from working lines?

NotAFarm - Nice photos, as always, what is the broody box Asta is in made of? She also blends so well with the hay. In you second set of pictures I would keep the one you are thinking of keeping, the other one is nice too.

Icelander, you should post more pictures of your flock, they are lovely. I really like Primus.

 

[mlm Mike]

Nice to meet you UrbanEnthusiast, I see you're in my neck of the woods

There is not a whole lot of sourced information in English (I've started working on some translations, but it will take me a while), but you can get the basic facts by visiting this page http://aviandiv.tzv.fal.de/aviandiv/perl/query_db.pl (select "Icelandic landrace") which contains information collected by the United Nations' FAO in 1998-2000 for a diversity project called AvianDiv. There are a few errors, like the breed is 1100 years old, not 900 years old (someone subtracted 900 from 2000 and got 900...) and they do not lay brown eggs, but white/cream/extremely light beige. It's a good starting point though. It states that they lay 180 eggs per year (when they're in Iceland, 65 degrees North), which I assume is without supplementing with artificial lighting over the winter months.

(edited for grammar)

The translation you are working on, how will you make it available? I realize it will take some time. Thanks for doing it.

 

[Icelander]

Mlmddh, thank you, I'm a very proud mama, especially of Prímus, who I hatched myself in my first (otherwise miserably unsuccessful) attempt at incubation. Seeing this little spunky firecracker pop out of his shell and start demanding attention like a BOSS thankfully more than made up for losing the other 6 (which was due to power outage plus poor humidity management on my part).

I'll try and post more pictures this weekend, we just got a new camera I need to try out

 

[Icelander]

Oops got so into talking about Prímus I forgot all about the translations...! I'll start by asking author's permissions to translate and share their material or, if that is too much work or if I don't get permission, I'll try to at least put together some referenced articles. I don't know yet where I'll share them, but I'll make sure to post links here