Illinois...

[Molpet]

I'm trying to figure out which male to keep - - for now. I will use one of them for breeding until I can find a more prefect candidate.
I have my old man blk/lav split roo (aka: Mr Dummy-pants), who will stay on as a pet. He's not really doing his job fertilizing the flock, but I trimmed & can still hope.



Here are the two choices:

One of the great grandsons is the lav roo with the leakage. He's nice in many ways (impressive size, nice comb, good feather quality, decent shape, gentle temperament, quiet crow, and nearing maturity ...... but has a lot of gold leakage. I seriously have never seen so much gold! He looks like an Isabel Orp. This guy is nicknamed: "Dinner"

OR
Another one of the great grandsons is a blk/lav split, who does not show any gold leakage. He's nice in many of the same ways (except younger, so I don't know about the crow and it will be a while before mating), but his mama is a mauve (aka Oopsie). If I breed him to my lav hens, 50% would be lav. Also, it would likely improve feather quality, and he was a very early-blooming rooster. It's a very nice trait to keep. However a strike against him is that his beak has a splotch of white on the left side. Because he's 9 weeks, I believe it is there to stay. Also I'm not sure how much those mauve genes will muddy things up. This guy is nicknamed: "Hope."


Any advice on which one would be genetically better?

which is easier to breed out, feather or beak issues? If it passes on

 

[Faraday40]

which is easier to breed out, feather or beak issues? If it passes on

I believe the gold leakage is harder to get rid of, so I decided to keep the blk/lav split cockerel around for breeding / protection until I find a better one. However, someone mentioned that it may not actually be gold leakage because it's lacing which is very similar to blue orps. See pics below. If anyone has the space & the desire to experiment breeding with him, let me know.

Here are a few pics of him from yesterday = a little over 4 months now. (DD calls him "Pretty Boy." She's been handling him each night when he gets carried to the garage for bedtime, so he's calmed down a lot.)

On Tues I'm going to process a friend's mean EE rooster, but I don't think I'll have the heart to process this guy as well. He really is a "pretty boy." I like the look of his gold laced feathers. Hopefully, I can find him a good home where he won't have to live up to the orig. name I gave him. In the meantime, I have another test hatch in the incubator. I'm going to wait another 3 weeks & see what hatches out.

Some close ups of his pretty feathers. (saddle, hackle/back, and chest)

and one more close up:

 

[Faraday40]

Two other coop updates:
1. Due to our mature rooster shortage, our silkie decided to start crowing this morning.
While eating, she paused, stretched out her neck, & belted out a squeaky little crow. She's laid eggs, gone broody, hatched & raised chicks, so I KNOW she's female. She seems to be doing it to assert herself. For some reason, she's also been picking fights with both cockerels, Mr Wonderful and Dinner. The 3rd baby blk/lav split male is "her" baby, so she's OK with him.
* I'm thinking the loss of Princess Lay-a (the top hen) and all the June pullets finally laying is what's causing this.

2. Since the flock must be locked up due to predators. I hung up some stale bagel pinatas as a boredom buster. The flock is afraid of them.

 

[chickendreams24]

Please help me identify tracks if you can:
Found some little tracks around the coop - and they did not look like the common squirrel, rabbit, skunk, possum! I think they may be from our old terror: the fox. (Neighbors have also been claiming they saw a "cougar" or "bobcat" around. Since we live in the suburbs, it could also mean a very large cat.) Although it could be a cat.... but we rarely have cats enter our yard due to how much our dogs like to chase them.

I really didn't like seeing that the animal tried to claw under the coop

I also saw some tracks romping away. Our smaller dog's 3" footprints erased the trail, so I'm not sure how many critters ran through here & how many times. I only know that our big dog (Great Dane) was not involved.

I went back inside & grabbed a flashlight & ruler. I would guess the feet are about 1.5".

https://www.artofmanliness.com/2016/01/11/how-to-track-animals-a-primer-on-identifying-footprints/

round tracks are usually cat family, this shot looks roundy
View attachment 1262877

The second photo appears to be dog type tracks to me with nails visible. I'm thinking it's your fox but I can't be sure. We've never had clear visible tracks from our fox.

 

[chickendreams24]

Ok @Faraday40

Just an observation he is a very very pretty boy!

It's also so strange that you have this lavender boy with leakage. You might remember the several black and red birds we've gotten from you in the last year or two. We also hatched one last year ourselves from some of your stock although I can not say for certain who parented the cockeral from last year.

Anyway refocus. So remember how all but one of the black and red birds were cockerals. Well that all have had similar patterns in their feathers but without the lavender gene. I know we discussed how odd it was to get a black and red bird from you when you didn't have any red.

So my theory is those black and red birds are essentially the same as your pretty boy but either carrying only one lavender gene or no lavender genes.

We currently only have one original black and red roo from you left. He was supposed to go to freezer camp but was spared and is now my buddy. LoL the rest went to freezer camp.

The black and red cockeral we have is the one we hatched last year. He's very beautiful and has a lot more red(I believe the black and red roo may have fathered him but I'm not sure) we had no mature red birds in the flock at the time of his hatch- except the black and red roo. A few of our EEs may carry red though. He has a lot more red like I said and has incomplete lacing on his breast. He will be going to freezer camp as weather allows.


It certainly is a mystery and I would love to see what you would get if you bred that lavender boy to your girls. But I completely understand your desire to keep the black cockeral. I would too.

I am considering trying that black and red boy over my lavender girls to see if he carries the lavender gene.

 

[bellaisa]

If they are free ranging and have enough roost space at night, I doubt you'll have any problems. If it does get bad, you can always add shelves to create more usable interior space. If it gets very bad (which I highly doubt), you'll either have to build an addition or sell a few pullets. (And if you ordered straight run, then 1/2 will be male & probably not staying permanently.)

I ordered pullets only. But I have 16 ft of roost. Fingers crossed all goes good.

 

[Faraday40]

The second photo appears to be dog type tracks to me with nails visible. I'm thinking it's your fox but I can't be sure. We've never had clear visible tracks from our fox.

I only got the clear tracks because we shoveled in the morning, afternoon & then got one last half inch of snow late afternoon. I took some other yard / animal track pics this morning. It looks like there was quite gathering of wildlife Sunday night.

Notice the Hopping pattern through the deep snow (farther back toward the shed). It looks like 2 feet instead of 4 & they're sort of far apart. I know it wasn't our dog because 1.) he doesn't hop like that, and 2.) there's no return set of tracks anywhere in the yard.

Then there's another totally different pattern for these tracks. The right & left legs sort of dragged through the snow.

Something also put a hole in the coop's vinyl storm windows. It didn't hurt the hardware cloth, but the vinyl material is way to pricey to replace regularly.

I found these tracks under the nest boxes. I think mouse & something tracking a mouse.

Then I found some more of these:

I didn't take pics of all the rabbit tracks along the driveway. They not only left tracks but a trail of..... It was a lot more than 1 bunny rabbit who paid us a visit.

Anyway, I found this interesting & now wonder just how many critters pass through our backyard every night.

 

[Faraday40]

Also:
Since I just added a new batch of eggs to the incubator, I cracked open a few of the extras for lunch.

Do you think they're both fertile? (or will I be sad again next week when there's no development?)

 

[cavemanrich]

Those look fertile.

 

[Faraday40]

Ok @Faraday40

Just an observation he is a very very pretty boy!

It's also so strange that you have this lavender boy with leakage. You might remember the several black and red birds we've gotten from you in the last year or two. We also hatched one last year ourselves from some of your stock although I can not say for certain who parented the cockeral from last year.

Anyway refocus. So remember how all but one of the black and red birds were cockerals. Well that all have had similar patterns in their feathers but without the lavender gene. I know we discussed how odd it was to get a black and red bird from you when you didn't have any red.

So my theory is those black and red birds are essentially the same as your pretty boy but either carrying only one lavender gene or no lavender genes.

We currently only have one original black and red roo from you left. He was supposed to go to freezer camp but was spared and is now my buddy. LoL the rest went to freezer camp.

The black and red cockeral we have is the one we hatched last year. He's very beautiful and has a lot more red(I believe the black and red roo may have fathered him but I'm not sure) we had no mature red birds in the flock at the time of his hatch- except the black and red roo. A few of our EEs may carry red though. He has a lot more red like I said and has incomplete lacing on his breast. He will be going to freezer camp as weather allows.


It certainly is a mystery and I would love to see what you would get if you bred that lavender boy to your girls. But I completely understand your desire to keep the black cockeral. I would too.

I am considering trying that black and red boy over my lavender girls to see if he carries the lavender gene.

We don't have any "red" birds here anymore. ( Last year we had one RIR, who we sold in late spring 2017. ) We do have a beautiful multicolored golden penciled mutt = Precious, who makes very sweet, gentle orp mixes. Her eggs were similar in size to last year's orps', so whenever I hatched a "mystery chick" with some gold, buff, reddish accents, they usually came from Precious. Since you're always up for growing out our extra male chicks, you also got many of our CCLxOrp, EExOrp, and BielefelderxOrp mixes. I'm pretty sure if you got any red/gold on the males from me, they must have come from came from those hens. They all have a good chance of carrying the lav gene, but of course a pure lav orp male would make a better breeder.

Today I just sold the last pullet of the Sept 22 hatch...... the one which I had hoped would be my roo. Dinner is the last chick remaining from that batch. I decided to keep him around until I see what hatches. What's strange is that I KNOW Moose is the father. In order for"Dinner" to be lav, his mom had to be one of my 2 lav hens..... or perhaps Jewel. Jewel is my big blue orp (who came from the pairing of a mauve & lavender) so she carries the lav gene. She had just started laying & then went broody after only giving me about a dozen eggs. I had thought that I only set lav orp eggs, but if the sneaky broody laid an extra egg that was large enough to fool me, then it could explain the strange lacing on Dinner. (If that's what happened then he could carry choc, lav, blue, black, & white sport. Yikes! Can you imagine the assortment of rainbow chicks I'd get if pairing him with Oopsie?!)