Iowa Blues - Breed thread and discussion

[ottbjumper06]

My eggs from Kari are due to hatch on Sunday, if everything goes well I'll have some new babies!!! I had issues with the humidity being too low for a couple days but hopefully it didn't effect them too much, fingers crossed. Kari, I know you told me when I got the eggs but I forgot, what does the "B" on some of the eggs mean? Can I assume Birchen?
That's great news on the 4H poster, that's an excellent way to publicize the breed!

 

[Hurley]

Fingers crossed for you! Hoping for a nice hatch for you. I doubt the dip in humidity will bother them much. I trend towards drier in incubation.

My eggs from a blend of Kari's and my stock have been nicely developing so far out of this young flock.

I've got the cutest quad of SP chicks in the brooder, set up with a little hot box area. They're fresh out of the hatcher and already popping about, diving into the chick crumbles, and in and out of the warmer area to sunbathe.

 

[IowaBlueMama]

I just wanted to introduce myself My name is Megan and I'm very new with all of this. My husband and I bought our Hobby Farm in April, it's only 4.5 acres, but perfect for us. We've been subscribers to Hobby Farm magazine for years, and in the March issue (I think) is when I first saw Iowa Blue Chickens. I never knew they existed.

My husband was always the one who wanted chickens, so I thought that would be his thing. Low and behold, we got some chicks from the feed store and I fell in love! (barred rocks, astrolorps, gold stars) In the back of my mind I still imagined those Iowa Blues. Once we were able to get some Iowa Blues, I found out just how hard they are to get! No one had any.... Finally I took out an ad on craigslist and found a lady who was willing to sell me her 14 month old Iowa Blues, 3 hens and 1 rooster. I was ecstatic. The rooster is so handsome, but the hens are dark with only a little penciling Not the ones I saw pictured in the magazine, but still I was thrilled. I believe she said they came from Ideal in TX. I'm hoping to get some hens that have that beautiful penciling in my flock. I was actually given some Iowa Blue eggs that should hatch in another week, but I have no idea if they will have the penciling or not. It will be fun to see Would I be able to tell by the chick color? I've seen some that are silvery and some that are rusty. Would that tell me what the adult will look like? I did just have my first two eggs hatch yesterday. These were the first eggs I received from the Iowa Blues. Not sure at all what rooster got to the hens, but it will be fun to see when they grow up. One was yellow with chipmunk stripes and one was black with yellow tips on it's wings.

So glad I found this website!!

 

[ottbjumper06]

Hi Megan! I just recently got into the scene as well and everyone has been so willing to help me out and deal with all of my beginner questions, great people to go with a great breed! Your chickens that you're describing are the Birchen color. If you look back in the thread you'll find that there is the Birchen variety and the Silver Pencilled variety

 

[IowaBlueMama]

Hi Megan! I just recently got into the scene as well and everyone has been so willing to help me out and deal with all of my beginner questions, great people to go with a great breed! Your chickens that you're describing are the Birchen color. If you look back in the thread you'll find that there is the Birchen variety and the Silver Pencilled variety

Oh, ok, does that mean that Birchen would be rusty as a chick and the silver penciled are silvery/black as chicks? Thanks for your information. I'm so interested in them and can't wait to have more. I have one week to find the cord to my camera so I can download pictures and show you what the babies will look like

 

[ottbjumper06]

It is actually the other way around. These are some of my chicks.
This is a SP chick

This is a Birchen chick

 

[karimw]

Hello Megan, welcome to the thread! I started with chicks from Ideal too. Other than type they don't look much like the original Iowa Blues but the genes are there and I developed most of the birds you saw in Hobby Farm. There is also a good article in the current issue of Backyard Poultry magazine.

Much of the brown and any white feathers you see on the black chicks will molt out as they grow. The males will end up looking quite similar regardless of how they start out, so you will want to keep track of which are born brown or black so you can select the right one for breeding. Be sure to check out the Iowa Blue Club website!

Good luck to Emily, JIm and Eric on their upcoming hatches and congrats on all the recent ones! I am currently handing out eggs to broody hens every other day. (4 full, 7 waiting) It should be an exciting fall hatching season!

 

[Hurley]

The chicks that are black with yellow will be birchen. The chicks that are brown with stripes/mottling will be silver penciled. If you got a yellow chick with stripes, that is likely a silver duckwing like Kari has hatched. The below photos show the difference:

Birchen Chicks (can have varying amounts of yellow on face/wings)

Silver Penciled Chick

Silver Duckwing Chicks (Photo from this thread, by KariMW)

In regards to the really dark hens, that's what I started with as well. I found the really dark ones are typically gold instead of silver. That being said, if you breed them to a silver rooster, the pullets from that cross should be much improved. That's what I've found, anyway. You can work towards the pretty lacing from there, by selection, or you can add in "better blood" where someone has done some of the work for you to fast track it. If you see the scant pencilings on the necks of your hens are more beigey/yellowy instead of white, they're gold. If the rooster develops gold in the hackles/saddle with age, he's likely not pure for silver (it's a sex-linked trait, silver turns the reds to white for the most part, males have two genes for gold or silver, the hens only one - opposite of mammals for sex genes) but likely carries silver. If bred to the dark girls in that case, you would expect half gold, half unpure silver cockerels and half gold, half silver pullets. If you then bred the silver pullets back to an unpure cockerel, you'd get half silver cockerels and pullets, half gold pullets and unpure silver cockerels. From that generation, take the silver cockerels to the silver pullets and you'll have eliminated the gold and the lacing/pretty white will be much better.

Silver penciled pattern is a different E locus (underlying base pattern type) than birchen. Silver Penciled is based on e^b - Brown which turns the bird partridge with the pattern gene also present. Birchen is based on E^R - Extended Black Restricted which leads to the mostly black bird with "leakage" of color on the head/neck in pullets and head/hackles/saddle of cockerels. Brown/partridge is recessive to birchen, so it's possible that it can pop out of birchen birds if both the male and female carry it. Otherwise you'll need to obtain a bird to bring the gene into your breeding flock. Once you have silver pencilled birds, however they should breed true unless you have other genes in there recessive to the brown (e^b).

Other genes in the mix that we commonly deal with:

Silver Duckwing is there in the lines - this is yet another E gene, the wild type (e^+). These are your yellow striped chicks. The pullets develop salmon breasts at maturity and overall seem to be a little lighter. (The males of all of these colors end up looking fairly similar at maturity, so mark your chicks young.)

Autosomal red (the deep rusty red sometimes seen in the wings/shoulders) is in the lines, genetics still being argued about but believed to be a dominant single gene.

Leg color - the standard calls for willow legs which is yellow legs plus an overlaying of dark dermal pigment. Absence of the yellow leg gene gives you slate legs (white with overlaying of dark dermal pigment). Absence of dermal pigment gives you yellow or white legs. Yellow is recessive to white. Dark dermal pigment is recessive to lack of pigment, and to throw a wrench in the works, is also a sex-linked trait. Think of the legs as two layers, the lower base layer of the skin and shanks can be white or yellow. The outer skin can be light or pigmented. Each is controlled by a separate gene. These can also be influenced by other genes, more found here: http://www.genetics.org/content/20/6/529.full.pdf which was the original research on shank color. More recent page with photos/examples here: http://scratchcradle.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/gms10-skin-and-shank-color/

 

[IowaBlueMama]

Hello Megan, welcome to the thread! I started with chicks from Ideal too. Other than type they don't look much like the original Iowa Blues but the genes are there and I developed most of the birds you saw in Hobby Farm. There is also a good article in the current issue of Backyard Poultry magazine.

Much of the brown and any white feathers you see on the black chicks will molt out as they grow. The males will end up looking quite similar regardless of how they start out, so you will want to keep track of which are born brown or black so you can select the right one for breeding. Be sure to check out the Iowa Blue Club website!

Good luck to Emily, JIm and Eric on their upcoming hatches and congrats on all the recent ones! I am currently handing out eggs to broody hens every other day. (4 full, 7 waiting) It should be an exciting fall hatching season!

Thank you so much Kari. Someday I would love to get some chicks or eggs from you. I believe we live only an hour and a half away. My husband had found you on the IBCC website and contacted you. I did become a member too Your photos of your chickens is why I'm so interested in them today. I really want my chickens to looks like that! We went to the fair this last week and someone had a pair of IB's and they were gorgeous!! Someday maybe... thanks so much for the welcome and the information. I'll keep you posted.

 

[Hurley]

By the way, I've started a "Modern Archive" for the IBCC, so if anyone sees/has any articles to add to it, please email them to me. (I've got the Hobby Farms article and the Backyard Poultry article already archived.)

Just want to keep copies of any Iowa Blue related publications out there.