Iowa Blues - Breed thread and discussion

[WVDan44]

Actually, this is Eli, son of Ames. I may have posted 2 photos of Ames by mistake. The wind was whipping his tail around a bit.

 

[WVDan44]

Yes, you can certainly see the relationship! Until I read it I though the pics were of the same rooster. From the picture I would say he is the better choice between the two as far as color, because of less red and dark legs.

You are spot on with your assessment. Eli has much less red. Honestly, they look so much alike, I can hardly tell them apart. The only way is the red in the wings, slight difference in size, and the leg color. Otherwise, they are nearly identical. Ames has produced some silvers though and his the silver pullets I got from him had better pattern than the first silver I hatched.

 

[IowaBlueCurt]

Now Nat, the "charcoal" pullet?



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



any comments or suggestions?

Ok Candy, I've finally got some time to get caught up on this thread. We've been so busy lately it's difficult to keep up on everyone's excitement and flock growth! So, I'll start with your Charcoal named Nat. Nat is definately a Charcoal, however, Nat is a cockerel!

If you look on his back, you'll see there are some feathers that are outlined in a silvery colored lacing. Only males will show this trait on their backs (this includes all the varieties). The pullets will never show this trait. Also, you can see a redness to his comb. It's not as big as your Smokey male because the most dominant male in the grow out pen will develop large combs and wattles early on, but the less dominant males will not develop their combs/wattles fully until much later. However, ususally the best males are the ones who develop a little slower because they aren't putting as much energy into sexual features and desires. They put their energy into growing first then the sexual features/desires later. The silver lining on this boy is that he'll probably out grow your Smokey in the long run. You'll have a lot of fun with a Charcoal male, he'll bring some great diversity to you flock.

Your Smokey pullet is very white, which is really neat. Keep us posted on how she continues to develop. One thing to watch for is the Salmon breast. If she develops without the salmon breast, she'll be of great importance to your breeding pen!!! The salmon breast is a result of Autosomal Red, so if you use a salmoned breasted female, you'll end up with males (and females) carrying Ar. That said, the salmon breast is still really pretty.

 

[IowaBlueCurt]

Emily,

First of all, this chick is very cool! This little one is definately a Silver. I've seen a couple like this in the past. Both were Silvers and grew up with a much lighter ground color than a Standard Silver. Keep us posted on how this little one develops for you. When you look at the bottom picture, you'll see that there is much variation in chick color with the Denny Johnston line. The Dark Horse line is pretty unifom in chick down color, but I've been out to Kari's place lately and seen some crosses from a Denny Johnston cockbird x Dark Horse hens, and the chicks are more wild in coloration. So it appears that this wide variation in chick down colors may be a dominant thing......only time will tell.

 

[IowaBlueCurt]

Quote:
Candy, as I promised, here's my assessment of Gandalf (and one for Sweetie too!),

I'll start with Gandalf. Frist, he's a Silver, no questions there. A couple of areas really stand to to me when I look at Gandalf. 1) Lot's of crisp, clean white in his hackle, on his back, and in his saddle. This is much desired. I would like to see alittle more white in his hackle, but he's much better than what we've been used to seeing. 2) His wings are held tight. Now, he came out of the Dark Horse line, so he should have tight wings. We see loose wings occationally in the Denny Johnston and Sanhill lines, so that's something we want to keep track of. I believe Denny's been aggressively attacking the loose wings, so I imagine it won't be long and his line will be cleaned up of the looseness in that area. I also like Gandalf's overall depth and width. As always, bigger would be better, however, he's come along quite well in the area of depth.
Areas of opporutnity would be to see a greater length of body, more cinder bock shape and less square shaped, a pattern on the breast that is a uniform spangling from upper to lower breast, and a tail set that is more around 70 degrees instead of a near 90 degrees. But again, the tail thing is something we're all still working on. If we were going to really nit pick him, I'd add that his saddle could be longer and that the saddle feathers would drape over his folded wings, his eyes would be darker, and his hackle feathers would be longer to look more like a "mane". I can't tell by the picture, but it looks like his legs may be willow colored, and slate would be a preferred color. The Standard currently states willow legs, but most breeders feel a blue colored leg matchs the idea of an Iowa "Blue" better than a willow colored leg.
All in all, you've got a good breeder male here Candy, I'd use him, get a lot of chicks out of him, and when I get a male who is superior to him in the above listed areas of opportunity, I'd replace him with his son. That's the cool thing about breeding, when you get offspring that are better than the parents, and you can transition the improvement of your flock.

Now on to Sweetie. She's been a perplexing individual for me. She looks Silver, but isn't quite a Silver in coloration. However, a couple of things stick out to me that might indicate her genetic underpinings. First, look at her legs and toes. They are a very light blue color, not the typical darker slate blue we see on a Silver, but the pale blue color we see on our Smokeys. Second, this past weekend I saw a Smokey chick that Kari hatched out from some eggs she got from me. This particular Smokey pullet is Autosomal Red free and as such, she look very much like a Silver only with a much lighter ground color (much more white on the breast, very clean white head, more white throughout the body). My suspision here is that Sweetie could be a Smokey that is free of Autosomal Red therefore she lacks the salmon breast.

Kari- when you read through this will you share your thoughts on this possibility?

A couple of things we can look to in the future to pin point this possibility is to see if you end up with any Somkey chicks that develop into pullets that lack the salmon breast. Interestingly enough, I believe you may already have one as noted in the post I commented about earlier. The other thing you could do, is just pair up Gandalf and Sweeite in their own pen for a couple of weeks. Then after the two weeks, save a couple weeks worth of eggs, and hatch them out. If you get any Smokey colored chicks, then Sweetie is a Smokey. I would be greatly interested in hearing about the results of this breeding situation if you are able to get it set up, and if it were proven that Sweetie is a Smokey, she'd be of great value to the club as well.

Lastly, yes, a little beige or tan in the feathers on a female is VERY common, something most breeders are working away from, but I've only seen a small handfull of hens who are actually clean, and I'll bet if I investiged all their feathers up close, I'd have found a few that would have been dusted with a little brownish coloration.

 

[IowaBlueCurt]

Connie, the sight of all these Silver chicks just bouncing around fills me with joy! Congratulations!!!! Well done!

 

[IowaBlueCurt]

Above is Ames my 16 month old roo that I hatched from eggs purchased from Kari of Dark Horsewhich I deem to be my #1 roo at the moment because of his conformation, tail, size, and maturity. (not the best photo I reckon)

Above is Eli, son of Ames, 8 months old, of good size and I think he will grow out to be as large as Ames, excellent head and comb, good tail, and better color and markings than his sire; Eli has very dark gray/charcoal legs and feet and gray butt fluff whereas Ames has yellowish undertones to his legs and dark/black butt fluff.

This is Humpty, also son of Ames, brother of Eli, born with silver chick pattern, interesting round body type, shorter legs, good head, higher wing set.

Below are photos of some of the chicks I got from Kari of Dark Horse which she hatched about April 7. These were all silvers including two smokies. They are growing well and I already see Sandhill influence in these. Have some chicks that look as though they will finish out larger than what I'm used to seeing, plus the pattern is different on some but very interesting. I have been extremely please with this group thus far. Comments welcomed.

WVDan

Dan,

What a very exciting group of young birds you've got here! You're going to do well with these. I'm not a huge fan of the Silver male you've got posted 3rd pic from the top, I'd wait to see if you've got a better male coming up in this group of chicks. It looks like you've got a couple young cockerels in the pictures that are going to finish out real nice with some good size to them. I think you're right, the two top pics are of Ames. His tail feathers are bent in the same spots! hahaha I REALLY like how long his saddle feathers are. VERY COOL! They just flow of his back, it's beautiful.

 

[IowaBlueCurt]

Actually, this is Eli, son of Ames. I may have posted 2 photos of Ames by mistake. The wind was whipping his tail around a bit.

Now, this boy looks like a lion! Check out his hackles! Would you say that looks like a silver mane? I sure would. I know he's a Birchen, but I'd use him in all your breeding plans until you've got a Silver male that's as good as him, to use in place of him. He's got some great depth and an amazing mane. You can see his saddle feathers have some length to them as well, and they will only continue to grow out as he ages. There's a slight hint of red on him, but that can be bred out. His tail is full, which is what we want to see, but it is held a little too high. However, it could be related to how he's standing in the photo. I like the way his comb travels across the top of his head and is of a medium size. What color are his eyes?

 

[IowaBlueCurt]

Eric and Hannah,
Congratulations on a successful showing of the Iowa Blue! You've got a couple of good looking birds there Hannah, and this is just what we need; individuals who are willing to take good examples of what the breed is supposed to look like in color and type, and expose them to the public. Thank you for you work, and thank you Eric for helping bring exposure of the Iowa Blue to our local shows in the state.
I would encourage anyone who takes their birds to a show, to post pics on this site and more importantly, send copies of your pics along with the show results to Connie Hurley (our Secretary and Webmaster) so we can post the results and pics on our website for other breeders to see. Great work!

 

[holm25]

nice birds