Iowa Blues - Breed thread and discussion

[Hurley]

The ad is out in the APA yearbook.

 

[Hurley]

Three not exactly thrilled Iowa Blues cooped up for show training. LOL Actually, today is day 2 and they are better, but we have a little ways to go, especially with that birchen gal. She's fiesty.

 

[IowaBlueCurt]

I think the Iowa Blues may take a little longer to "coop train"! hahaha They just LOVE being outside! I really like your coops for training Connie! Great job.

Thanks for posting about the APA ad! Great work. What do I owe you for my share of the ad?

 

[IowaBlueCurt]

Here's a pic of some of my recent hatchlings! Looking pretty good. I also had a smokey colored chick hatch out of a pullet egg I got from Kari. Here's a couple of pics of this little one.......









Here are the four chicks that I had hatch from some of Kari's pullet eggs. 2 Silver Penciled, 1 Silver Duckwing, and 1 Smokey chick.



The smokey one is on the left, but looks very different under a yellow light from the heat lamp.......

 

[IowaBlueCurt]

Here's a pic of one of my 4 month old cockerels. Just turned 4 months on July 2nd. This one is my heaviest and weighs 4.25 lbs. (thought I'd include that for you Jake!

)



I couldn't be more pleased with him, he's quite the looker..........very excited for him to finish developing! Can hardly wait to see how his adult feathering will turn out. His type is pretty good, tail could be at an 80 degree angle instead of the 70ish degree angle that he holds it at. Nice dark eyes and solid leg and toe color, a nice dark willow.

Below is are a copule pics of the same cockerel hanging out with my two 4 month old pullets. One weighed 2.75 lbs and the other 3.5 lbs. Quite a difference in weight. If all goes as planned, I'm hoping to hatch out a couple hundred Silver Penciled chicks next year and select for size.....that should help to develop some uniformity on size.

 

[ottbjumper06]

*Dumb question alert* Would someone mind telling me what the difference is between a SP and a Silver Duckwing? Because I am mainly seeing birchen and SP but sometimes I see Silver Duckwing?

 

[IowaBlueCurt]

Not a dumb question at all. If you view all the past pictures on this forum you will see some pics that Kari has posted showing some Silver Duckwing chicks that have begun to spring up in her line. They are quite stunning!! The chicks look mostly a yellowish color with brown and black strips along the back and a black line through the eye. You can see one of the chicks in this picture.




It is the chick that is second from the right. If it is a hen, it will develop a beautiful salmony-red breast and look like a very light version of a Silver Leghorn. These are quite rare at the moment, but I suspect that more will spring up as the Silver Penciled chicks are breed together. The SP coloration is dominant to the SD coloration. Hope that helps some.

 

[Hurley]

Here's a pic of some of my recent hatchlings! Looking pretty good. I also had a smokey colored chick hatch out of a pullet egg I got from Kari. Here's a couple of pics of this little one.......

It looks kind of SP with melanizers. Will be curious to see how it feathers out. Great batch!

Can't wait to start raising up a bunch. I've got a half dozen of pullet eggs collected, but the rest of the pullets aren't quite there yet.

I've got a pair in this youngest group of chicks, can't wait to see how THAT cockerel turns out. I'm hoping for a non-autosomal red, willow-legged boy, but we'll see!

 

[Jake Levi]

Wow !

I'm away for a day and theres a flood of great pics !! What a treat.

I love that coop Connie, I am afraid I cant build one so neat but its a great design to copy. Mine will come out looking like a stone wall of china made out of timbers.

Way to go Curt, weigh those guys ! Its the only real way to know for sure, our eyes can fool us, and will. He is a beauty too !

The Silver Duckwing pattern of the chicks is what I always called 'chipmunks', at least among the Icelandics, they always matured into a wide range of other colors.

Its going to be a fascinating seeing the color development of this years hatch. Keep the pics coming please.

Btw Curt, I sure hope that you get that many hatched next year. And some others too.

I just want my little flock of 12 hens to continue on. We all have a place. This time next week I am putting Kari's eggs into the hatcher. Counting the days. I am using one of her chicks as a teacher in a brooder with babies, its a riot watching the new hatches trying to crowd under the several week old chick. So far so good.

 

[ottbjumper06]

Here is a bit of an update on my 3 week old IB chicks. Curt, I tried to find the chick you wanted me to tag from a previous pic and I was able to narrow it down to these 4. Hope you enjoy .