Icelandic Chickens

[The Sheriff]

Wow Mary, that is quite a comb on that sweet little white one. I LOVE your broody box. That's using your head! The look on Anna's face and the guy in the middle of the sitting on pic are priceless. Thanks for sharing. I could look at broody pics all day. Wait, I do.

Mary

 

[BoldogKennel]

I feel confident that the eggs I got from both Mary's and Kathy are pure stock. I'm going to keep it that way.

I agree with you. I believe all the people involved are honorable and will keep their stock "pure". I know I certainly will.

Question: does anyone know the difference between a muscovy and a regular duck? What the difference is that makes the offspring "mules"? Is it number of chromosones? (I don't know a thing about ducks!) Would this effect the Icelandic's ability to breed with other chickens if they have a different number of chromosones? (Like I said, I'm no genetics expert, I just have a bit of practical knowledge).

It would be interesting to find if anyone in Iceland has determined a "marker" by which one could tell if they had "pure" Icelands. Oh well, all interesting stuff!​

 

[oshun55555]

Thanks for the replies, I am soo tempted by these birds it hurts, I have 30 Light Brahmas big giant birds next to the Icelandic, I love them but the Icelandic make me kinda nostalgic for my youth and those I guess they were bantams of some kind (that's what granddaddy called them). With these chickens I could just let them go and see what they hatch out, with the Brahmas I have to keep culling to get what I want. Do they fly allot?, I have severe Arthritis and walk with canes, my big ole Brahmas are not hard to chase down and they are too heavy to fly anyplace. But boy o boy I really like these Icelandics. I will keep reading the thread and study on it awhile.

 

[centrarchid]

BoldogKennel,

Chromosome number is not the valuable tool used to distinguish species as was once thought and chromosome number is probably not the real mechanism blocking fertility between populations / species that otherwise produce viable offspring.. I work with sunfishes (bluegill, redear and several others from time to time) and make hybrids for one reason or another according to need. Most of the "species" have the same number of chromosome pairs yet fertility issues exist between species. Within the green sunfish Lepomis cyanellus at least, individuals can vary in terms of the number of chromome pairs they have and still produce fertile offspring with normal fertility as far as I can tell.

What blocks fertility of hybrid offspring is how genetic information is arranged on and between chromosomes. When gametes are produced during meiosis the chromosome line up so similar stretches of DNA (coding for same loci) also line up which facilitates rearranging alleles between chromosome pairs. Problem is that with species / populations that are not closely related, complementory stretches are moved about and on different chromosomes making proper line up in hybrid offspring difficult if not impossible. When the swapping does occur it results in some chromosomes loosing stretches of DNA and others gaining. Loosing or gaining too many loci or the wrong ones can be very bad for individuals that might be produced by the fusion of such affected gametes. If problem is bad enough, then the gamete production process is aborted. If extent is lesser, gametes can still be produced but they tend to result in abnormal offspring. In the latter case, when two hybrids are mated together the survival of their offspring tends to be very low but if such individuals are backcrossed to either parental or even crossed with another species, the survival is quite a bit better because the pure species brings into mess half of the intact genetic information needed to make a viable individual which is enough if gametes of hybrid brings most nearly or just a little more than half of what is needed.

 

[AK Michelle]

I really wish I had a coop cam. I have only been getting two eggs or 3 eggs a day (since the dog killed all my egg layers) one brown egg and an olive egg from my mutts that I hatched for our house warming party and a little one that is either from the bantie cochin or the silkie.

The next hatch was an Icelandic hatch (Mary's eggs) that netted me 8 pullets. Yesterday I got 4 eggs, but none of them looked like the little eggs. 2 looked awful light colored

Today I got 4 eggs, and none of them are brown or green cause my olive egger was still on the nest that those two have been sharing so I decided I'd check back in a little while.

So this can only mean one thing! The Icelandics are laying

I'm not going to incubate any of these eggs tho because right now the layer flock and the Icelandics share space so there's no telling who is dating whom

 

[NotAFarm]

Michelle, Sounds like you're getting that Taj MaCoop done just in time!!

 

[The Sheriff]

Michelle!

 

[AK Michelle]

My next project is to recreate Mary's bookshelf nest boxes. I hope to have 2 sets done by the time the barn is done so I can put one set in the Icelandic area and the other set in the layer pen.

What do turkeys use for nest boxes?

 

[kathyinmo]

Michelle,
I am so excited for you! I can hardly wait to see your completed projects!

 

[phasianidae]

Hi all,

Mary, The Icelandic eggs that you sent me resulted in five birds. Four of them are eighteen weeks old now and the pullet of that age will be laying in a few weeks. I will try to get some pictures up soon.

Centrarchid, you have posted some very good information on here, I really appreciate it.

Does anyone know the source of the information on Icelandic chickens having 22 alleles? I have wrote to several geneticists on the subject and they say that information is false. It is obviously false as the number of alleles would vary due to Icelandic chickens not being homozygous for some traits such as color. As far as what I can find, chickens have 78 chromosomes.

Also, who created the Facebook page on Icelandic chickens?

Thanks,

Ryan