Icelandic Chickens

[Happy Chooks]

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I know I'm not the Mary you were talking to.......but.....he definitely has the Suave look going on! I say Mary O should go with it for sure!

He's even got poofy hair.

 

[NotAFarm]

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I know I'm not the Mary you were talking to.......but.....he definitely has the Suave look going on! I say Mary O should go with it for sure!

He's even got poofy hair.

And that come hither stare.................

 

[Happy Chooks]

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He's even got poofy hair.

And that come hither stare.................

I bet he could get Oprah.

 

[NotAFarm]

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And that come hither stare.................

I bet he could get Oprah.

And she wouldn't be givin' him no smack down either!!!!!!!!!!

 

[NotAFarm]

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Kim, You may have to pick a new name for that boy! Glaciers move slowly across the ground, he needs a High Flyer name!

 

[The Sheriff]

I just got home to find that you guys have gone nuts around here today! Sorry about the escape. I clipped their wings. They don't fly over MY fence! They probably stay for the food! Sigrid sent me a message today with lots of good name suggestions with pronunciations! I think she is going to try to post it here on the official Icelandic thread! You will love some of them. Gotta run!

Mary

 

[Camelot Farms]

Ya'll crack me up!

And silly Jokul didnt fly over the fence. He ran out the pen door between my legs and when he hit the open ground he built up speed, flapped those wings and was airborne....lol

Thankfully his buddy Buri called him back and DS was able to walk right up and snag him...still cost me $1 though...

 

[Camelot Farms]

On the serious side of Icelandic chicken owning, I wanna run this by ya's.

I had someone ask me why anyone would be interested in chickens that dont breed true and wouldnt they just be mutts? They need to be inbred for a standard and culled to that standard.

My 1st response was

But then I realized that as a steward of Mary's Icelandic Project I needed a better response...lol.

So here is what I wrote:

For us, that is exactly the opposite of what we want from these particular birds. There is a preservation program being put together by some of the folks who imported this breed. One of the main credos for the Preservation Program is NOT to breed them to obtain a standard.

The whole point is keep them as they are in their native country where natural selection has produced the 'best' birds. Best being defined not by color or size but rather by ability to survive and thrive in a harsh, unfriendly environment.

Iceland being an island is self contained so the genetic mutations that have caused the differences in comb size, color variation etc actually become a standard of sorts. If you have 6 Icelandics that all look the same then you probably dont have Icelandics

Taming and standardizing isnt the goal for the Icelandic chicken. It is the preservation of a species as it stands, not as 'we' would have it be.

And for me personally... I love variety. The excitement of watching them hatch and turn into individually unique birds is my favorite part.

So.... did I do good?

 

[The Sheriff]

You done great!

 

[incubatingisfun]

very good response