Icelandic Chickens

[Icies]

All my pullets have the floppy comb except for 1 rose. The roosters had a little more diversity - of course I had a lot more boys than girls There are a lot of different variations - thats part of what makes it fun I guess. Unfortunately I'm not really happy with my current mix. Hopefully I can add a few more

 

[snow5164]

I got mine from two different breeders, it worked out well. Lots of different colours and combs I'm just waiting for their eggs to get a little bigger, I get 7 peewee eggs , we eat two for every one large

.

How long after starting laying are the eggs the size they should be?

 

[NotAFarm]

I have some of each comb type in my hens/pullets but only have rose comb males right now. I took some pictures today since the weather was so nice.
Hens:
single:

Rose:

Cockerel (son of rooster below):

Main flock rooster, Audun. He will be 7 in March.

 

[RJSorensen]

Evening folks. This is Salt/Pepper take your pick, he has a matching black and white molted hen. In my first year we found the male/female ration to be nearly two to one. Males seem to come a plenty. I have about sixty Icelandic eggs set this past weekend… a test hatch to see what it is we are making. We have mostly the folded over comb as well. The second photo is of 'Sista Rose' we quite like her. We also have a gray hen and some pastel orange/blue types.

The third photograph is of 'Ice' and he is our favored rooster. I will try to get some more shots up so you can see what we have.

We also have some birds that to me resemble BBRed Banty hens. NAF's second picture is sort of like them. They are from the old Icelandic line, the one that traces back to Mary O'Brien, the godmother of Icelandic's by me. We treasure them. Because we only got 7 pullets of 25 birds, I am going to get a second shipment from David Grote in April. We would like to have 25 hens for our place here. I will say that David is nice and we were pleased with his birds.

We just love Icelandic's.

 

[Icies]

I have to say I got great variety out of the eggs from David Grote, the only problem is they were almost all roosters. The 2nd batch I got from a local breeder didn't have a lot of diversity but then again I was trying to pick out the girls so I was choosing colors/patterns that looked like hens. I am not sure if I can expand this year or not. I have leaned a lot about coops and while I like the idea of mobile coops they can be limiting. The local breeder took some of my Grote roos so I am hoping that helps diversify her flock also.

Regarding the pullet eggs, I think I only got 1 really small egg & the size grew almost daily over the course of a week or two to about what they are now. The eggs are on the small side in general.

 

[snow5164]

I'm so jealous you got eggs from David , here in Manitoba ,Canada he is a deeply respected source of knowledge about everything Icelandic.

The rooster / hen ratio is what stops me from hatching my own, I don't have the heart to dispatch all those roosters.

My icies are being treated for cough and wheezing , I'm hoping they bounce back as they are still young .

Have a good day

 

[NotAFarm]

@RJSorensen What gorgeous birds!!

@snow5164 I agree with Icies, the eggs will be their normal size within a couple of weeks. My Icelandics lay a medium size egg when mature, but their first eggs are usually quite small. You shouldn't expect the large/extra large eggs that other breeds lay. Here is a picture of a New Hampshire hen egg (left to right), an Icelandic pullet egg (laying for three months), a 2 year old Icelandic hen egg and an Icelandic pullet's first egg (at the bottom):

 

[snow5164]

Thanks a lot for the visual display

,
We have only gotten eggs for a few weeks ,
We will try to be patient

 

[I Love Layers]

I am getting am Icelandic pair soon! Someone near me is moving and can't take the chickens so she is giving all of them to me and the Icelandic pair are some of the birds!

 

[NotAFarm]

Congrats on getting Icelandics!

You will find them very different from your Cochins!