Java Thread

[bnjrob]

A good quality java, bred to standard, will have yellow skin. White skin (defined as complete absence of yellow) is a disqualification for javas. Are you just looking for a black laying hen? Or are you planning to breed the bird? If you are planning to breed it, please be responsible and maintain the breed characteristics.

LOL - you beat me to it.

 

[Farmer Viola]

Finally got some photos of my mottled Javas, interested to see what you all think? I am not really able to see/judge type, but the coloring is really obvious to me - still learning, and they are still growing. I have a trio, 2 females and 1 male:

1 pullet (the darker black one) and the cockerel are 6 months old, and the 2nd pullet (with more white spots) is 8 months old





cockerel with the girl who I think is the best coloring



8mo pullet


8mo pullet


both pullets - in the background you can see the darker/blacker pullet, thoughts on using her with the cockerel above?


she has less white spots, but wondering if pairing her with the cockerel might bring out more white in their chicks




thanks everyone!

 

[bnjrob]

Finally got some photos of my mottled Javas, interested to see what you all think? I am not really able to see/judge type, but the coloring is really obvious to me - still learning, and they are still growing. I have a trio, 2 females and 1 male:

1 pullet (the darker black one) and the cockerel are 6 months old, and the 2nd pullet (with more white spots) is 8 months old





cockerel with the girl who I think is the best coloring



8mo pullet


8mo pullet


both pullets - in the background you can see the darker/blacker pullet, thoughts on using her with the cockerel above?


she has less white spots, but wondering if pairing her with the cockerel might bring out more white in their chicks




thanks everyone!

It is hard to say for sure what is good and bad when they are that young - especially in pictures. Javas keep maturing even past the 1 year old mark. It's not often a significant amount, but it can be enough of a change between their 1st and 2cd birthdays that they just have a different look to them and fill out completely, or you see their siblings filled out while one of them still looks like it's 6 months old. I usually wind up doing the final cull for each hatch when they are closer to 10-12 months old. By then I've got a better idea of how they will turn out, but even after that, they can still change in surprising ways. In looking at your pictures, I see birds that need to mature a bit. I know, not that helpful.

Using a darker pullet with a whiter cockerel will help decrease some of the white. They do get whiter as they age, so trying to get more black in there is good. Gotta watch for those yellow feet though. Have found that the darker the birds are, the more often they start throwing chicks with pink feet instead of yellow.

But don't get too worried about getting the darker color in, try to focus on the size and type first. If you need to, turn your photos to black and white so there is no color in the photo at all to distract your eyes, then you can learn better what to look for when it comes to type.

Looks a bit like one of the pullets has the start of a squiggly comb. That will get passed on in the offspring, but you can still work with her and just have to really pay attention to culling out bad combs later on. I've kept a floppy combed girl just because the rest of her was so too good to pass up on. Decided that I was willing to deal with the comb in her offspring and try to mate her with a better-combed cock, just to get her good size, type, and pelvis width.

FYI with the tails - if a pullet has a correct tail angle to correspond with the SOP, by the time she is 1-2 years old, she is very likely to have a tail angle that is too high. When you're first starting and don't have many birds, you are at the mercy of using what you have (been there done that). But later on you can start being much pickier. So in future generations, you can watch and see how the pullets that have a flat back from neck to tip of tail usually turn out to have the correct SOP tail angle once they are a year old/older - while the pullets that look correct to the SOP at a young age, will usually end up as fully-matured hens with tails that look like a remote control car antenna on their butts.

 

[Farmer Viola]

It is hard to say for sure what is good and bad when they are that young - especially in pictures. Javas keep maturing even past the 1 year old mark. It's not often a significant amount, but it can be enough of a change between their 1st and 2cd birthdays that they just have a different look to them and fill out completely, or you see their siblings filled out while one of them still looks like it's 6 months old. I usually wind up doing the final cull for each hatch when they are closer to 10-12 months old. By then I've got a better idea of how they will turn out, but even after that, they can still change in surprising ways. In looking at your pictures, I see birds that need to mature a bit. I know, not that helpful.

Using a darker pullet with a whiter cockerel will help decrease some of the white. They do get whiter as they age, so trying to get more black in there is good. Gotta watch for those yellow feet though. Have found that the darker the birds are, the more often they start throwing chicks with pink feet instead of yellow.

But don't get too worried about getting the darker color in, try to focus on the size and type first. If you need to, turn your photos to black and white so there is no color in the photo at all to distract your eyes, then you can learn better what to look for when it comes to type.

Looks a bit like one of the pullets has the start of a squiggly comb. That will get passed on in the offspring, but you can still work with her and just have to really pay attention to culling out bad combs later on. I've kept a floppy combed girl just because the rest of her was so too good to pass up on. Decided that I was willing to deal with the comb in her offspring and try to mate her with a better-combed cock, just to get her good size, type, and pelvis width.

FYI with the tails - if a pullet has a correct tail angle to correspond with the SOP, by the time she is 1-2 years old, she is very likely to have a tail angle that is too high. When you're first starting and don't have many birds, you are at the mercy of using what you have (been there done that). But later on you can start being much pickier. So in future generations, you can watch and see how the pullets that have a flat back from neck to tip of tail usually turn out to have the correct SOP tail angle once they are a year old/older - while the pullets that look correct to the SOP at a young age, will usually end up as fully-matured hens with tails that look like a remote control car antenna on their butts.

Thank you very much! this has given me some real food for thought and things to watch for as they mature. I was planning to wait until 12mos old before starting to hatch any of their chicks, would you recommend 1year+ as breeding age for the best healthiest chicks?

You are right in that I am limited to the birds I have here, the flock they came from was wiped out (the males were) so I don't have the chance to get more from the same parent lines, just have to start my own lines and hatch as many as I can and cull down from there...

Overall I am just trying to learn if they have any glaringly obvious do-not-breed faults, but as with most breeds, it seems that I need to just learn some patience and wait longer before deciding I would enjoy having both hens in the breeding pen for more eggs, but if one turns out to have bad type I am not opposed to keeping her in the egg flock.

I'm glad to hear that the darker blacker girl still has potential. I see her tail angle as slightly higher than the 8 month old whiter pullet, so I will keep comparing them as they grow up. I think the feet on these 3 is great, they started out yellow as chicks and have blackened, but the soles of their feet are still yellow. Thanks again!

edit - does the SOP call for yellow or black beaks?

 

[bnjrob]

Thank you very much! this has given me some real food for thought and things to watch for as they mature. I was planning to wait until 12mos old before starting to hatch any of their chicks, would you recommend 1year+ as breeding age for the best healthiest chicks?

You are right in that I am limited to the birds I have here, the flock they came from was wiped out (the males were) so I don't have the chance to get more from the same parent lines, just have to start my own lines and hatch as many as I can and cull down from there...

Overall I am just trying to learn if they have any glaringly obvious do-not-breed faults, but as with most breeds, it seems that I need to just learn some patience and wait longer before deciding I would enjoy having both hens in the breeding pen for more eggs, but if one turns out to have bad type I am not opposed to keeping her in the egg flock.

I'm glad to hear that the darker blacker girl still has potential. I see her tail angle as slightly higher than the 8 month old whiter pullet, so I will keep comparing them as they grow up. I think the feet on these 3 is great, they started out yellow as chicks and have blackened, but the soles of their feet are still yellow. Thanks again!

edit - does the SOP call for yellow or black beaks?

Honestly if it were me, I would mate both females to both males and not worry so much about what they look like - just to get more birds on the ground and have more to choose from later. That way there would be more genetics in the flock than trying to hatch everything from just one male/female You can still wind up with offspring that looks better than their parents, and then you would have a wider selection to choose from and can see how things fit together in the offspring After seeing the first year's hatch mature, you'll have a better idea of how the genetics are going to play together. Still can get some surprises, but it really helps to get that first hatch matured to get a better idea of complementary pairings later on.

As far as hatching from pullet/cockerel eggs....when you don't have many birds and you just can't go to the feed store to buy replacements, if you don't hatch as soon as possible, you risk having your breeding stock get wiped out and losing everything. Even hatching our first year from pullet/cockerel eggs, those birds have turned out bigger than their parents and some of them even better looking than their parents. Healthwise, I have not noticed any problems in the chicks from young birds having health/vigor issues. It would be ideal to hatch only from older birds later on, to make sure something weird doesn't pop up, like my cock that sprouted a comb side sprig when he was about 2 years old, but if I were you, I'd plan to go ahead and hatch this winter/spring so you can have backups in case of loss.

Would be nice if they kept their nice yellow feet into adulthood. I've found that as they age, a good number of them tend to wash out in color and wind up with grayish legs and off whitish feet. If you have some that keep their yellow feet for a long time, make a note of who it is and try to breed them and perpetuate those pretty feet.

The SOP says that their beaks should be "horn shading to yellow at tip". So basically just about any color with some yellow on it. It's not really even a big deal to worry about unless something strange happens and one has a neon green beak.

 

[MagicChicken]

Finally got some photos of my mottled Javas, interested to see what you all think? I am not really able to see/judge type, but the coloring is really obvious to me - still learning, and they are still growing. I have a trio, 2 females and 1 male:

1 pullet (the darker black one) and the cockerel are 6 months old, and the 2nd pullet (with more white spots) is 8 months old





cockerel with the girl who I think is the best coloring



8mo pullet


8mo pullet


both pullets - in the background you can see the darker/blacker pullet, thoughts on using her with the cockerel above?


she has less white spots, but wondering if pairing her with the cockerel might bring out more white in their chicks




thanks everyone!

The cockerel is still young, so his shallow breast may fill out over the next year or so. Keep an eye on it. Once you have enough birds you can start selecting for deeper breasts if necessary. My javas take at least a year to really fill out. The early-developing birds often stall out and get surpassed in size and type by the slower-developing birds. It has meant keeping a lot more cockerels around for a lot longer than I had originally planned, but it is worth it in the long run.

If you look at the illustrations in the Standard of Perfection, there shouldn't be much white on the Mottled Javas. It's just little accents of white at the tips of some of the feathers, sprinkled evenly over the body. So hang onto that darker pullet. Even she may have too much white, but she will help balance the other two birds.

Bnjrob has given some excellent advice. Since you can't get replacement birds you need to get your numbers up and you can't worry about using pullets and cockerels at this stage. You work with what you have and do what you have to do. Like bnjrob, I would use both pullets with that cockerel the first year, and hatch as many chicks as possible. Then you will have a better idea of what you have and you will have more birds to pick from, in addition to having more than one generation. Next year you can mate pullets back to the cock and cockerels to the hens. After that you will have the option to use only older birds to breed from, and you will have a much better idea how they grow out, so culling will become easier. You can get pickier once you have some numbers to work with.

I started with a straight run of Black Java chicks a couple of years ago. Did a bunch of test matings of cockerels and pullets because that was all I had to work with. Was making good progress when a couple of loose dogs got into my yard and wiped out half my flock - including every single good bird I had. I have become a big fan of getting numbers up - especially early in the process - because you never know what is going to happen. This spring I will be starting over with what were intended to be culls - my laying flock and meat birds. Lesson learned. As soon as I get my numbers back up I will only be keeping birds I would be willing to breed from. It may take a few years to get to that point. I just bought a trio from a friend of mine, hoping to speed that process along. Will try some test crosses next spring to see if the new blood is going to help, or just make things worse. Time will tell.

Good luck!

 

[smoothmule]

A good quality java, bred to standard, will have yellow skin. White skin (defined as complete absence of yellow) is a disqualification for javas. Are you just looking for a black laying hen? Or are you planning to breed the bird? If you are planning to breed it, please be responsible and maintain the breed characteristics.

Understood but she will be for a project breed and white skin will be preferred I should have noted that. I need purebred, I want large and robust, and I know there are some culls out there that would be what I need. Doesn't have to be white but would prefer as pale as possible if not white. Anyone with a suitable hen can PM me. Every breed has some imperfections but the Java, has the genetics I'm needing in my project.

Thanks!

 

[bnjrob]

I started with a straight run of Black Java chicks a couple of years ago. Did a bunch of test matings of cockerels and pullets because that was all I had to work with. Was making good progress when a couple of loose dogs got into my yard and wiped out half my flock - including every single good bird I had. I have become a big fan of getting numbers up - especially early in the process - because you never know what is going to happen. This spring I will be starting over with what were intended to be culls - my laying flock and meat birds. Lesson learned. As soon as I get my numbers back up I will only be keeping birds I would be willing to breed from. It may take a few years to get to that point. I just bought a trio from a friend of mine, hoping to speed that process along. Will try some test crosses next spring to see if the new blood is going to help, or just make things worse. Time will tell.

Good luck!

Was wondering how things were going, if you were getting things together to try to get started again.

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
The new cockerel is pretty good. Back is a little short, eye shape is off, comb is a mess, but otherwise good. The new pullets are ok but not significantly better in shape than my existing females. The new birds have some of the critical genes that got wiped out of my other birds - dark eyes and dark shanks and wider pelvises. I think they will complement my existing birds. I'm quite fond of my existing birds even with their flaws. I just entered one of the remaining cockerels in an up-coming show, mostly because I am going to be there anyway so I might as well have a bird in it. My bird will make my friend's javas look superb. Someone has to fill out the bottom end of the statistical curve for the breed

Now I have to figure out what to do for a brooder. My old brooder is outside and it has been taken over by ants and ground squirrels. Not sure where I can move it where it will be safe from pests and also out of the way of potential sheet floods. I also need a new incubator. The door broke on mine at the end of last hatching season. I got through the rest of the season holding it closed with a bungee cord, but humidity control and hatch rates went down the tubes. It's always something.

 

[bnjrob]

The new cockerel is pretty good. Back is a little short, eye shape is off, comb is a mess, but otherwise good. The new pullets are ok but not significantly better in shape than my existing females. The new birds have some of the critical genes that got wiped out of my other birds - dark eyes and dark shanks and wider pelvises. I think they will complement my existing birds. I'm quite fond of my existing birds even with their flaws. I just entered one of the remaining cockerels in an up-coming show, mostly because I am going to be there anyway so I might as well have a bird in it. My bird will make my friend's javas look superb. Someone has to fill out the bottom end of the statistical curve for the breed

Now I have to figure out what to do for a brooder. My old brooder is outside and it has been taken over by ants and ground squirrels. Not sure where I can move it where it will be safe from pests and also out of the way of potential sheet floods. I also need a new incubator. The door broke on mine at the end of last hatching season. I got through the rest of the season holding it closed with a bungee cord, but humidity control and hatch rates went down the tubes. It's always something.

LOL - I feel your pain. Glad that you're still plugging along though.