Iowa Blues - Breed thread and discussion

[Candy442]

Congrats Hannah!

 

[Candy442]

8 week old pics of Rollo, smokey cockerel




Now Nat, the "charcoal" pullet?




The birchen pullet "Flap" -she still has a lot of brown on her





Next is Nikki, the DelaIowa cross cockerel



finally, Four the smokey pullet. She turned out very white so far!



any comments or suggestions? these came out of my three girls. I am thinking Sweetie is actually more of a smokey instead of a silver because she has some brown/peach in her wing feathers, but hopefully you all still see my cockerel as a "silver"?

Gandalf

 

[mrandmrschicken]

Gandolf (sp) looks very nice! His tail has come in very nicely, it has definition! Would like to see frontal pics. How old is he?

 

[Candy442]

Gandolf (sp) looks very nice! His tail has come in very nicely, it has definition! Would like to see frontal pics. How old is he?

Thank you, he is getting quite striking as he approaches one year old. He will turn one year at the end of June. I will take a front photo of him and a close up of his side. I do not believe he has molted yet though. He does have brown smudge in his wings unfortunately..just a thin strip of it, otherwise he is all white and black no blue barring on his wings only green and blue sheen on his tail.

 

[Hurley]

Sorry haven't been on much, work is killing me.

Just wanted to say "Hey" to everyone.

Just sent out 40+ chicks today, sent 25 local this weekend. Otherwise have been shipping out eggs or selling chicks local this spring.

Just went through here a week or so ago, and selected out 5 pullets for size, pattern, and leg color and have them paired up with the charcoal cockerel from Curt/Sandhill line and have them in a breeding pen. The rest of the flock (5 birchen hens/pullets, 10 silver hens/pullets) have been put back into a single pen with 2 3/4 IB / 1/4 SPPR cockerels for the time being to reduce the workload through the summer while I'm covering for us being down a surgeon with no free time. I have put the last 2 weeks worth of eggs in the fridge, first time I won't have chicks hatching each weekend, but will start collecting from my new A pen for my own chicks to raise up for next season. Can't wait to see what I get from that pen, the boy is big and beautiful, and so are the girls. Will hold back all slate legged chicks from that group, at least, if not more, looking to make next season's breeders all slate (though they'll carry the yellow gene), and keep working towards breeding out the yellow/willow from my flock.

I've got a nice little flock of "Iowacanas" growing out, they're getting to nice size, should start laying this fall.

Hope all are doing well.

 

[Hurley]

THAT is a funky pattern, very cool. Looks like the typical breast pattern but with black extension/less white expanding out. Pretty.

(edit: Sorry, photo didn't copy, attached below)

 

[Hurley]

 

[Candy442]

THAT is a funky pattern, very cool. Looks like the typical breast pattern but with black extension/less white expanding out. Pretty.

(edit: Sorry, photo didn't copy, attached below)

Thanks Connie We are real excited to see how she finishes with her feathering. But we want to do a photo journal of her especially because she was born a very dark brown/almost black chick. We got some interesting patterns out of the four I have. All of them are a nice size and that's what we are going to focus on with the first few generations while choosing the best color of the largest birds. Rollo, the smokey, is really big at 8 weeks already!
Eric,

Here is the front shot of our cockerel Gandalf I promised



Side shot more close of Gandalf



And here is Sweetie



Now, is Gandalf considered a Silver? Is Sweetie a silver pullet by what you can see in these photos? Does very light beige show up on anyone else's silver pullets in the wing feathers? Sweetie has beige in her wings only.

 

[ottbjumper06]

The beige in your pullet's feathering may be AR showing through. Curt showed pictures a while back of how he identified it in some of his hens.

 

[Candy442]

The beige in your pullet's feathering may be AR showing through. Curt showed pictures a while back of how he identified it in some of his hens.

I thought on the Iowa Blue club site under the "silver" photos, there is one large hen with quite a bit of brown shown there. So, I was hoping that my pullet is a silver. After this next hatch when the four are isolated for three weeks before we collect eggs, hope we do actually get some silver babies. If not then I guess we have our answer that I do not have a pair of silvers.