Icelandic Chickens

[RedIII]

Brad, are those some of your banties in your avatar?

They look so fat and happy and cute!

bcluff, sounds like that flock is getting spoiled.

So I've noticed that there are a couple of common colorations for Icelandics. It seems like the blond hackles/red saddle/dark body seems fairly common on roos, and I have seen several hens that have the brown and gold coloring, kind of like a Campine. It makes me wonder if this is a more dominant color manifesting, or if it could be that a lot of these chickens are related? What do you guys think?

 

[mbmess2003]

Brad, are those some of your banties in your avatar?

They look so fat and happy and cute!

yes...those are some of my white rock bantams. I have black rock and barred rock bantams too.

 

[karimw]

Quote:
Yes, they are all pretty closely related. I think there are only 2 or 3 sources originally from Icelandic, Sigrid, Lyle Behl and maybe Icelander? Someone please correct my fuzzy memory.

 

[RedIII]

Yes, they are all pretty closely related. I think there are only 2 or 3 sources originally from Icelandic, Sigrid, Lyle Behl and maybe Icelander? Someone please correct my fuzzy memory.

Those are the ones I know of, but I thought there were one or two others, as well? I wanted to get a hold of Vala (Icelander) a while ago and see if hers were laying eggs yet, but she hasn't been online in a while. And I'm sure she has a list of interested people, as is.

 

[Jake Levi]

The bulk of Icelandics in the US are of Sigrids lines descended from Mary O'Brian in California, and then from NotAFarm. Beyls lines had a lower representation then Sigrids, there were two other importations that I have read of but havent heard or read much of anything other then that they were.

I'd appreciate hearing from anyone about their lines. Mine are from Marys(Sheriff Mary).

 

[NotAFarm]

Lyle Behl's line is spread throughout the US, mostly among owners of Icelandic sheep. Lyle got his original eggs on a trip to Iceland regarding imported frozen semen to expand the gene pool among the Icelandic flocks here. He, and other keepers of Icelandic sheep, know that the Viking chickens need preservation just like their Icelandic sheep do. Two BYCers (probably more than that but two that I know of, karimw and coldupnorth) got Icelandic eggs, not from Lyle Behl, but from Icelandic sheep owners that got their flocks from him. Now they both have some from my flock.

The Sheriff, Mary, really got the word out here on BYC and got many of us started with Sigrid's line. I will always be thankful to her for this thread and my start with a wonderful, unique treasure.

 

[Twister-n-Dos]

I'd appreciate hearing from anyone about their lines. Mine are from Marys(Sheriff Mary).

We have a rooster and a hen we hatched from eggs we got from Lyle Behl and we have a rooster and a hen from eggs we got from The Sheriff.

We are incubating eggs now that we swapped with AK Michelle and are saving up more of our eggs to do a second hatch with later.

 

[RedIII]

Four of my Icelandics are indirectly from birds that came from both Sheriff Mary and the other Mary, from what I understand. Flekka is my treasure, as she is likely from Behl's line. I was extremely excited to get eggs from coldupnorth and may try again when I have a better incubator to cook them in. If it were possible for me right now, I would happily import eggs from Iceland for a new line. I very much want to expand the gene pool of my flock in any healthy way I can.

 

[Jake Levi]

Ditto on thanks to Sheriff Mary, she put a great deal of time and energy into publicizing the breed. Others early on chipped in a lot of support to the effort, I miss them on this thread a lot. Kathyinmo is also a major supporter.

I would also love to get some eggs from Iceland, anyone who is able to check this out I would appreciate what you can find out. I have read that the importing of eggs has tightened up from the time of Lyle and Sigrids imports. But, if we can find out how to get it done I am very willing. Greenfire Farms may be a good source of info, they have imported a lot of chickens and eggs from what I understand. He is on the Hedemora and several other threads here.

One thing that the Icelandic has going for it is that it has a 1,000 year history of closed breeding, thanks to Icelands barring of imports, so the majority of bad recessives have been identified and are gone from the gene pool. Still, it has to be good for the breed if we can get some more diversity then we have.

 

[mlm Mike]

Ditto on thanks to Sheriff Mary, she put a great deal of time and energy into publicizing the breed. Others early on chipped in a lot of support to the effort, I miss them on this thread a lot. Kathyinmo is also a major supporter.

I would also love to get some eggs from Iceland, anyone who is able to check this out I would appreciate what you can find out. I have read that the importing of eggs has tightened up from the time of Lyle and Sigrids imports. But, if we can find out how to get it done I am very willing. Greenfire Farms may be a good source of info, they have imported a lot of chickens and eggs from what I understand. He is on the Hedemora and several other threads here.

One thing that the Icelandic has going for it is that it has a 1,000 year history of closed breeding, thanks to Icelands barring of imports, so the majority of bad recessives have been identified and are gone from the gene pool. Still, it has to be good for the breed if we can get some more diversity then we have.

Jake, for importing eggs most of the work is done by the person with the flock in Iceland. They have to isolate their flock indoors for 30 days. A vet then comes out for the health check/blood draw. When everything comes back clean they are given approval for collecting eggs for import to US. Those eggs are then swabbed and checked, if those are clean you get the approval paperwork to import. You just have to show that to customs on your return. I would guess if they are just shipped and you aren't carrying them, the paperwork would just travel with the eggs. This is at least my basic understanding of how it was done by someone maybe a year or so ago.