Icelandic Chickens

[RedIII]

I confess. I am letting one of my broody Icelandics sit. I moved her to the dog house broody apartment yesterday. I checked on her this morning. It appears she had a house guest.

I'm sorry, but I love the expression on that broody's face. Priceless.

"Must.........HATCH! What'd'ya want, youngun?"

 

[Icelander]

May I say - Don't worry, not all of us who are new to the Icelandic breed are put off by things such as this

For me, personally, I have loved Icelandic chickens ever since I ran across them, at first because of their varied, unique appearance. As I learned more about the breed (good foragers, devoted mothers, etc) I continued to like them. When the opportunity came for me to own some Icelandic chicks of my very own, I jumped at it because I would love to have some of these birds where I can enjoy them on a daily basis. If I happen to get a male and a female and they are acceptable to the breed standard, great! I would love to try breeding them, though very carefully. I'm still learning, too, and I respect that there are others who have put a lot of hard word into maintaining the breed standard. If, however, I find that I have a pair that is not worthy for breeding, whether due to this fray gene or some other undesirable trait, then I am very content to simply keep them and never allow their eggs to be hatched, or at least not as purebred Icelandics. In that case, any chicks I would get would be sold as a mixed breed, since I do not wish to propagate unwanted traits in the birds around here, especially after the hard work that others have put into maintaining this breed.

So in a nutshell, I wouldn't be surprised that some folks may be put off by the fray issue present in some Icelandic stock. However, not everyone feels that way, so I wouldn't worry too much about the efforts of preserving the Icelandic chicken becoming a "lost cause", as it were. If I understood you correctly, that seems to be a concern you have, yes? If so, don't worry

I, for one, am certainly not bothered by the challenge of the fray gene. It's just one hurdle in a worthy cause of preserving this spectacular breed.

Thank you RedIII, you have a wonderful disposition about this and I wish everyone was as reasonable and easy going about it as you are, not to mention pleasant to talk with, not a CAPS LOCK or a run of exclamation points in sight.

Personally, I am actually not that concerned about the "funky feathers" gene, these things do happen (as has been repeated ad nauseum) and they can "unhappen" with careful breeding. Now, I have nothing beyond an educated guess to support this, but I wouldn't be surprised if feather defects have popped up in Iceland they have simply been swiftly supressed with fresh blood form the next farm and/or appropriate culling and therefore never established as a recognized pattern. No reason the same should not be possible here, right? What I am concerned about are certain individuals that are new to the breed, that have come here by way of Google and seen some unfortunate fray talk mixed in with cross-breed talk that raises questions with them, questions that they ultimately don't want to post in this forum because it can be a bit abrasive to newcomers that come to the forum with controversial questions out of the gates. So I figured I would do it (don't ask me why, I must like playing target) although I am not sure I was successful at raising exactly the issues and questions some folks have been wondering about. But the Sheriff's detailed summary (thank you again Mary) hopefully caught most of it. If not, I'd hope they are brave enough to post their questions here themselves and that everyone here would be kind enough to give them reasonable responses and be encouraging rather than admonishing.

I also think the mode of transportation for the U.S. strain (eggs in gamma radiation filled airplanes instead of grown birds on a viking boat) may play a part in why these birds develop different genetics issues, or perhaps there is some other environmental factor (that may affect my birds as much as anyone elses). See, I am not at all trying to say "my birds are better" or that they are immune to whatever has happened to other birds. I don't even know what the problem is so how could I claim not to be potentially affected?

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to say this, but I do not at all think that the US strains are a "lost cause". Far from it, every pure bird of this breed is a treasure, people just need to be careful, like you, about what they choose to use for breeding. There are a lot of wonderful Icelandics here in the U.S. and they should not be rated second class to any other bird or strain, fray gene or no fray gene. This group, the Sheriff in particular, is doing God's work in preserving the Icelandics as far as I am concerned, and just because I took the challenge of raising a few questions about a small part of them does not change that conviction. One frayed apple does not automatically the whole barrel spoil.

 

[The Sheriff]

BUT, you are a very important part of our thread here. Chief cheerleader and comic relief chairman are crucial responsibilities in a successful and fun thread.

Don't forget, she also monitors my meds.

 

[drumstick diva]

Thank you Kathy for your kind words . Mary I'm glad you reminded me, I'm not gonna ask how the vicodin is doing but, wonder if you still have some of that chocolate candy?

 

[RedIII]

Personally, I am actually....

Sure, and I can understand that. I have some curiosities, too, about where a trait, such as the fray gene, could have come from - ie, what ultimately caused it (if there was an environmental factor, if there was some careless cross breeding, if it was just a trait that was due to pop up in time, etc). However, at this point I don't think that I will ever know that answer for certain, except for "it just happened". And I'm okay with that. I like to understand how things work, but I know that there are some things I just won't understand at this point in life, and that's fine. If it were a factor that seriously affected the health of chickens, such as some disease that is mysteriously killing off tens or hundreds or thousands of individuals, I would be more concerned about it. But for here and now, I'm content with letting some of the nitty gritty details go

It has been an interesting discussion to read through, for sure.

You mentioned that some people who are researching stuff on the Icelandic breed might be scared off by the results of a Google search, such as if they were to run across hubbub about an undesirable trait that's popping up. This is just my personal opinion, but if I were researching a breed, I wouldn't rely on one source alone. I would be gathering information from a number of sources that I felt were reliable. And to be fair, I think any breed has it's own challenges to deal with, in some way or another. For example, you have the yellowing feathers and narrow tails that can pop up among the Delaware breed. There's also the genetics of the Japanese Bantam that come into play with short-legged chickens, which is considered desirable over longer-legged chickens for that breed. If someone is doing that much research and is trying to find the perfect chicken breed with no defects whatsoever, I think they'd be disappointed, no matter where they looked. If someone is very passionate about that particular breed, whether for breeding, showing, preservation, or something else, I'd like to believe that they wouldn't be scared off by one little recessive gene. Anyway, that's just my two cents, thanks for letting me share

 

[Happy Chooks]

You mentioned that some people who are researching stuff on the Icelandic breed might be scared off by the results of a Google search, such as if they were to run across hubbub about an undesirable trait that's popping up. This is just my personal opinion, but if I were researching a breed, I wouldn't rely on one source alone. I would be gathering information from a number of sources that I felt were reliable. And to be fair, I think any breed has it's own challenges to deal with, in some way or another. For example, you have the yellowing feathers and narrow tails that can pop up among the Delaware breed. There's also the genetics of the Japanese Bantam that come into play with short-legged chickens, which is considered desirable over longer-legged chickens for that breed. If someone is doing that much research and is trying to find the perfect chicken breed with no defects whatsoever, I think they'd be disappointed, no matter where they looked. If someone is very passionate about that particular breed, whether for breeding, showing, preservation, or something else, I'd like to believe that they wouldn't be scared off by one little recessive gene. Anyway, that's just my two cents, thanks for letting me share

Well said and I agree with you.

 

[RedIII]

Okay, it's been a long week, so please forgive my poor memory. There were a couple of you on here that were starting turkeys. Would you care to make yourselves known, again?

I'm just wondering how the poults are getting on and how you're enjoying them. Turkeys can be pretty fun.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Somebody new laid an egg!!!! Got a pretty little white pullet egg today.

 

[RedIII]

Somebody new laid an egg!!!! Got a pretty little white pullet egg today.

How exciting! Congrats! I still have at least a month before my oldest girls get around to POL. Consider me a tad jealous, haha

 

[Icelander]

Sure, and I can understand that. I have some curiosities, too, about where a trait, such as the fray gene, could have come from - ie, what ultimately caused it (if there was an environmental factor, if there was some careless cross breeding, if it was just a trait that was due to pop up in time, etc). However, at this point I don't think that I will ever know that answer for certain, except for "it just happened". And I'm okay with that. I like to understand how things work, but I know that there are some things I just won't understand at this point in life, and that's fine. If it were a factor that seriously affected the health of chickens, such as some disease that is mysteriously killing off tens or hundreds or thousands of individuals, I would be more concerned about it. But for here and now, I'm content with letting some of the nitty gritty details go

It has been an interesting discussion to read through, for sure.

You mentioned that some people who are researching stuff on the Icelandic breed might be scared off by the results of a Google search, such as if they were to run across hubbub about an undesirable trait that's popping up. This is just my personal opinion, but if I were researching a breed, I wouldn't rely on one source alone. I would be gathering information from a number of sources that I felt were reliable. And to be fair, I think any breed has it's own challenges to deal with, in some way or another. For example, you have the yellowing feathers and narrow tails that can pop up among the Delaware breed. There's also the genetics of the Japanese Bantam that come into play with short-legged chickens, which is considered desirable over longer-legged chickens for that breed. If someone is doing that much research and is trying to find the perfect chicken breed with no defects whatsoever, I think they'd be disappointed, no matter where they looked. If someone is very passionate about that particular breed, whether for breeding, showing, preservation, or something else, I'd like to believe that they wouldn't be scared off by one little recessive gene. Anyway, that's just my two cents, thanks for letting me share

Well said. Regarding relying on once source, I totally agree. The contents of this thread would probably would be less of an issue if BYC pages were not so prevalent at the top of Google results and given that this is the No. 1 thread on Icelandics on BYC people seem to tend to refer to this page a lot. I'm sure as time passes and more people get involved and more high quality content is generated this info issue will largely resolve itself.

By the way, I really appreciate your input into this discussion, it has been wonderfully level-headed and you've not tried to read anything more out of my words than what I've said, which I very much appreciate.