Icelandic Chickens

[Happy Chooks]

She got some fantastic birds! Congrats!

 

[RedIII]

Yaaay Myrth! I'm happy for you to have your own flock

 

[coldupnorth]

Mary- sounds like a perfect way to share the joy. Congrats, Myrth on your beautiful new little Icelandic flock!

Around here we have spent every weekend in the last 1.5/2 months working on our "chicken barn". It takes a lot of time with only 2 people who have never taken on such a project before. This weekend we put up the steel siding. Our temperatures were less than cooperative and made it very slow going. Yesterday's high was 12* with a windchill in the negatives. Today was 20*, but the windchills hovered around 0. Cold steel is unforgiving and the battery powered drills were less than stellar with the cold temps. We had hoped to get the roof on, too, but the wind was just too much and too cold. It will be so nice to have this done so my chooks are basically all in one place. Easier to feed, water and watch! The Icelandics will be moved into the old coop that was built in the 30s-40s and still very useable. That will work well because they won't have a chance to "accidently" find their way into one of my other pens.

My young RC cockerel finally has a name - Didrick



I opened up Didricks pen and Hraun's pen together and so far they have respected each other quite well. As long as Hraun is king, things will be fine. I will be watching them! They use the same huge run, but prefer to roost in different coops. They have a choice of 3 small coops to use that are attached to the open run and so far they have spread out.

 

[Myrth]

They are the most BEAUTIFUL birds! I am so thrilled to have them!! I will get photos soon. They were nervous enough width the strange lady feeding them and the new coop so I didn't want to add in flashes from the camera.


Thank you, Mary!

 

[NotAFarm]

Happy to help Myrth!

Laurie, Didrick is stunning..........loving those big white "snowflakes" on him! I see his ear lobe is yellow. Eldur's ear lobes were yellow as a "raging hormone teen" cockerel but now are pure white. I have noticed that some of the ear lobes on my hens/pullets have a bluish tinge, anyone else notice these colors in their flock? Also, what about eye color? My flock has many different colors, kind of like everything else about Icelandics!

One of my original hens, Asta, has a very light eye. I know White Cornish (not the meat bird but true Cornish game birds) are suppose to have a "pearl" colored eye. Here is a picture of Fjola (now living with Myrth, hoorah!), and you can see she got her mother's eye color and has that bluish tinge to her ear lobe.

 

[Jake Levi]

Congratulations Myrth !!

You have some great birds !

Mine that came from Mary are Icelandic Royalty. No 2 ways about it.

My late hatches have a for sure rooster amongst them, he crows !! And when he has your attention he does it more ! He is also a beautiful little guy. Dark with white contrast.

I am sure now I have 2 pullets of the 4, and possibly a 3rd, they are coloring up very well, I should know this week. One crested, and 3 RC. Pretty nice !

Up to 24 this morning, thankfully no wind, had 12 this weekend, with wind. Tis the season.

 

[RedIII]

I've noticed some color tinges on the earlobes of my Icelandics - at least, the young ones. So far as eyes go, I'll have to take a good look at all of my birds to see who has what. I know that one of my hens has white eyes, and her sister has bright gold eyes. I think someone out there has pale green eyes, and my third hen may have red-brown.

 

[lalaland]

Happy to help Myrth!

Laurie, Didrick is stunning..........loving those big white "snowflakes" on him! I see his ear lobe is yellow. Eldur's ear lobes were yellow as a "raging hormone teen" cockerel but now are pure white. I have noticed that some of the ear lobes on my hens/pullets have a bluish tinge, anyone else notice these colors in their flock? Also, what about eye color? My flock has many different colors, kind of like everything else about Icelandics!

One of my original hens, Asta, has a very light eye. I know White Cornish (not the meat bird but true Cornish game birds) are suppose to have a "pearl" colored eye. Here is a picture of Fjola (now living with Myrth, hoorah!), and you can see she got her mother's eye color and has that bluish tinge to her ear lobe.

The bird in the lower right corner with the white hackles...rooster? is that an Icelandic? you wouldn't have a pic, would you? Looks like the head of a rooster I have been trying to id the breed on:

 

[NotAFarm]

lala, Please don't take this wrong, but if you don't know the genetics of the cockerel, you can't say for sure that it is an Icelandic. What makes a chicken an Icelandic is not what it looks like, it is the genes it carries. If you do not know for sure, you have to assume it is a mixed breed. Did you buy him or hatch him?

 

[lalaland]

sigh. A woman in New Brighton MN hatched eggs from traders on byc. she was supposed to hatch for me: icelandics, swedish flower hens, and crested cream legbars. She mixed up her hatch something fierce. She stopped responding to me and to others that she had hatched eggs for. I have, for example, 3 sulmtaler pullets:


I have one icelandic pullet.


I have a crested cream legbar.
I have some unidentified birds, and a rose comb brown leghorn.
She was not hatching mixed breeds.
She was hatching from "reputable" traders on byc , and simply totally overestimated her ability to identify the breeds of the chicks, and she put them all together. I watched her pull chicks out saying this one is a lavender orpington (she was right on that one ) , these are your crested cream legbars (wrong on 3 of 4), etc.
I think she became embarassed at her total screwup and stopped communicating.
Now it is possible that there were mixups on the traders ends too - maybe someone selling/trading icelandic eggs, for example, was not as careful as they should have been and sent the wrong eggs.
I think it is more likely that she was the source of the errors.
This rooster has white legs, and looks gamey to me. But, I'm am still trying to identify him.
If he looks like your rooster, I understand that does not make him an icelandic.
I wouldn't breed/sell him or his offspring as "icelandic".
I am just trying to satisfy my own curiosity of what the heck is he?