Kraienkoeppe Thread!

[DTchickens]

A couple pictures taken today, probably not the best of birds; the group shot for sure isn't, I doubt I use any of those three for brood stock. The little cockerel I turned out today due to being too flighty/white ears. The hens, they are still open for debate from first glance they look to have white ears too. I turned a few other cockerels out too, narrowing it down to two cockerels that may not have white earlobes (thought they still look rather pale for now).






The pullets I probably will keep to throw in with the Leghorns for egg layers (which gives me a chance to observe how well of egg layers they make), the little cockerels unless someone on this thread is more lenient in their breeding and wants to give them a good home will be culled this fall probably.

God bless,
Daniel.

 

[gallorojo]

I like that last pullet myself. I think it's great that you've started the Kraienkoppe project. Good luck!

 

[mcrooke45]

My hens look alot like yours except they are silver instead of bbr. 2 of them have real long legs. I like that. My chickens love to eat feathers. You will not find a single feather in thier pen. I will post some new pictures of mine when I get home . I am up at Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN right now. They are doing a bunch of tests on me because I am passing out alot. My daughter has to take care of all my chickens until I get back. Don't know how long I will be here. I am only keeping one of my bbr cockerels. One is nice, I am keeping him. The other bbr cockerel has a pea comb. I am going to find a newhome for him. I got some lf dark cornish from Ideal. They must have crossed them with their malays. My cockerel body type is just like a malay with a long neck and real long legs. I love them and I am keeping them. I am going to do a new project and cross them with my bantam modern games and see what I get.

 

[DTchickens]

My hens look alot like yours except they are silver instead of bbr. 2 of them have real long legs. I like that. My chickens love to eat feathers. You will not find a single feather in thier pen. I will post some new pictures of mine when I get home . I am up at Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN right now. They are doing a bunch of tests on me because I am passing out alot. My daughter has to take care of all my chickens until I get back. Don't know how long I will be here. I am only keeping one of my bbr cockerels. One is nice, I am keeping him. The other bbr cockerel has a pea comb. I am going to find a newhome for him. I got some lf dark cornish from Ideal. They must have crossed them with their malays. My cockerel body type is just like a malay with a long neck and real long legs. I love them and I am keeping them. I am going to do a new project and cross them with my bantam modern games and see what I get.

Sorry to hear you're not doing well, hope you get to feeling better. My birds tend to eat feathers on the ground, and for some time they were nipping at each other for reasons unknown to me (they had plenty of protein, not too many to a pen, and so on). I guess it was just a phase as they all tend to do well now.

I need to get some shots of the dark pullet again. She is lightening a lot, almost a brassyback coloration at first glance, but still nothing in comparison to the other pullets.

 

[chickletteSarge]

I've thought about getting some of these from ideal in the silver but have never seen a pic of any at all. Can we see the silvers mcrook?
I now have too many chickens for the yard I have but as soon as we move to a bigger property I will be getting a few of this breed!
Are there any differences between ideal's birds and sandhill's?
Love reading all of your experiences with this rare breed and even more the pics! Keep the knowledge and EYE CANDY commin!
THANKS DT for startin this thread!

 

[DTchickens]

I've thought about getting some of these from ideal in the silver but have never seen a pic of any at all. Can we see the silvers mcrook?
I now have too many chickens for the yard I have but as soon as we move to a bigger property I will be getting a few of this breed!
Are there any differences between ideal's birds and sandhill's?
Love reading all of your experiences with this rare breed and even more the pics! Keep the knowledge and EYE CANDY commin!
THANKS DT for startin this thread!

Chicklette, Sandhill's birds are better quality than Ideals. Sandhill selects for type more and has had them longer. In the time I was collecting information before obtaining some I started speaking with hatcheries and other people that have them to learn where the strains originated from. To my knowledge they are all related. Craig Russell (president of the Society for Preservation of Poultry Antiquities) has probably had them longer than anyone else and I imagine has the best typed birds, I have never spoken with him though (yet).

The story goes that probably in the early 1900's Horst Schmudde (which imported a lot of breeds of Oriental gamefowl as well, like most of the US Shamo) imported the breed to the US, Craig Russell from what I was told obtained the Kraienköppe directly from Horst Schmudde. Sandhill preservation center got their birds from Craig Russell, Ideal got their birds from Sandhill. I imagine every other hatchery that carries them probably is just Ideal stock or a variant of it.

If going with Ideal's stock, I think I probably should have bought a minimum of 50 birds as planned. But, I only had the extra cash for about twenty and decided not to wait. I still got some cool birds, maybe a few worth using (can't be completely sure yet) but having 50 would have given me a larger number to pick from. Next time I will probably contact Craig Russell/Sandhill. Sandhill's birds you probably want a large number of as well, they select for type more so I would expect them to have less white ears/comb variations popping up and possibly larger size (or so I have seen in photos) but it really varies.

God bless,
Daniel.

P.S.
Also, in case some are wondering since all the birds appear to be related. My birds are very hardy, many others have spoken about the birds being disease resistant and so on.Though they may be all relatives and inbred to our eyes, we should look at the issues with inbreeding is when one doesn't allow for genetic diversity. Since this breed has been carried primarily by hatcheries you're looking at a large genetic pool (which to our eyes can be bad because of poorly typed birds) of birds (probably hundreds or thousands used to produce the offspring in large hatcheries) being bred which doesn't allow for the effects of inbreeding to take place.

Even from a breeder all lines will throw individuals that do not have the same genetic makeup, meaning if I obtained birds from Craig Russell and Mcrooke did as well; the offspring we obtained may be full brother and sister but they may still carry different genes. After a few generations due to no two breeders selecting the same you are looking at very different birds, almost like they are non-related.

So since Mcrooke obtained birds from Ideal as I did, due to the amount of birds they have together to produce X number of chicks; even though they are all BBred Kraienköppe from Ideal, the likely hood that they would be full brother and sister is unlikely so they are actually very different in the genes that they carry (though they may look similar). They may not even be half brothers or sisters, it really depends on the number of cocks. I am not sure of hatchery standards, but a guy up the road from us has a egg farm that ships the eggs to hatcheries to hatch the eggs, the eggs are then used as the battery hens.

He has something like one cock to every ten or so hens if I recall correctly. I would imagine hatcheries follow suit.

 

[DTchickens]

I will say one thing, whoever said Kraienköppe are very flighty (where they don't even like to be around people) never told these three! The pullets I had to shoo to the back of the pen just so I could get body shots and even then it wasn't an easy task; in the mean time I've got the little cockerel walking around behind me pecking my shirt, pants, back, and anything else that caught his interest.

Dark pullet


(breast pattern)



Other pullet



Bad shot of the cockerel (sun in the background messed the lighting up). He is one of the pea comb cockerels.


I also should give a word of advice to people, if you are one who likes to walk barefoot these birds will let you know they are around. I guess due to a curious personality, other than shirts, pants, and so on.. My birds tend to like pecking toe nails and fingernails when given opportunity. I'm hoping they grow out of it because I can't stand it

.

God bless,
Daniel.

 

[mcrooke45]

Well when I was at the Mayo Clinic my daughter calls me and told me something killed some of my chickens. When I got home yesterday the chickens that were killed were all in their pens and nothing looked like it got in the pens. Apparently what ever killed them worked in pairs or more. What I have come up with is one got the chickens spooked on one side of the pen and scared them to the other side and when they stuck their heads out of the wire the other one or more bit their heads off. Probley coyotes. I lost a silver Kraienkoppe cockerel and a pullet, a dark cornish cockerel, 2 sumatras, and my daughter lost a polish cockerel all from this attack. I have fixed my pens now where the chickens can't stick their heads out of the wire where something can bite their heads off now.

 

[mcrooke45]

Here are some pics I took this morning. My chickens will not sit still long enough to take pics of them.

 

[seabass327]

Thanks for all of the pictures, I wish my birds had yellow legs like those above. I have both silvers and bbreds, from a combination of Sandhills and Ideal. They're all hatchery birds either way you look at it, it will take work to get birds that look like the dutch and german ones.

From looking at the pictures above, I see the similar traits in some of my birds (4 th generation here this year). My silvers (from Ideal) all have the mottling on the chest of the males like the cockerel above. This year out of 30 or so I hatched I think I have one silver male with a pure black breast. You can't really see it in the pullets, so its going to be hard for me to get rid of that gene. Last year I crossed my silvers and reds to see if I could get a golden with a black breast to cross back to the silvers, so I also have that option this year. I also have had a time with lobe color. Lots of white, but pale isn't necessarily bad at a young age, the ones that look real white while young will stay white, but pale can turn red.

One major problem I had with the bbreds that I got from Sandhills was they had lots of wheaten in them. (Or bbred cubalaya since I've had white legs, long tails, and pea combs) That was 2009, so maybe not anymore, but the birds I received that year did not seem to be bred for type all that well. Also watch earlobe and wattle size, I have had a time shrinking them on my red birds (not a probem with the silvers). Also leg color. Most of the ones above look great, but I wouldn't breed from one or two of the silver pullets above, one looks like they have really grey legs the other willow. The reds from sandhills threw a bunch of white legs the first two years.

I'm not too worried about inbreeding with my birds. They all outwardly show a good bit of variability, so maybe when they all come out identical, fertility goes down, and I start getting weak birds that don't thrive I'll consider it. I think you would get farther by fixing the traits you want in your birds before you add other genes (but then again you never know what you'll get from a cross).

I don't try to pick up my birds, but they're not all that flighty, they'll follow you around looking for food.

keep up with the pictures, they all look great. now if I could only get around to doing it myself.

Rich