Thanks everyone, I am excited to work on this breed. They are still young, but 1 trio is mating at this point. The incubator should be steady by this evening, and I will toss the eggs in by Wednesday. I am currently working on a well balanced diet for my Jersey Giants, so they get all they need, in way of nutrition. I will keep you all updated on my progress, and try to get some pictures up when I can. The birds all look good, but if you look really, really close, the rooster has just a very little purple sheen in it. It is mostly green, but you can see a little purple if you look close enough, and study the bird. The younger roo does not appear to have purple in his sheen, but is still young, just seen him try to mate for the first time yesterday, to a young pullet that is supposed to start laying in a month or two. Do you all think I should not breed the roo with the ever so slight purple sheen to it? He is still young also, as his spurs are not much bigger than a stub at this point. He also has a little frost bite on his comb, the lady I got him from said he would not roost inside on those really cold days, wanted to stay outside with his head under his wing. I have had no problem with him wanting to stay inside for me though. He may lose one spike on his comb. I got 3 roos all together, and 9 pullets. I will have to do some figuring, to get a program up, but I think it will be fun for me and the family to work on this breed. I am also looking forward to getting some food from them, even if it does take a while, we should be able to get some good amount of meat, and be able to feed my, somewhat, large family with one bird instead of two. I was wondering if anyone has tried caponizing the males at a young age, and trying to get them to sit and raise the chicks, so we do not lose the eggs from the broodies. Has anyone had good luck with this breed hatching out chicks on their own, I have read that they are so large that they sometime break the eggs from their size??
