Are you interested in bantam mixes too?
This is the mother: a Dutch with a golden or yellow partridge colour.
The father was a Naine de Tournaisis.
They had a daughter who looks a lot like the mother but has more elegant features and not the blue legs all Dutch have. Her character is way more flighty.
This pullet was from my speckled sussex hen, sire is most likely one of the blue copper maran roosters.
Dam beside her Cream Legbar partner in crime.
Probable Sires
This crested & beared pullet.
Dam is one of my 3 olive eggers that appear to be ameraucana / cuckoo maran mixes.
The crest and coloring makes me think the sire is this olive egger, who had very similar feathering at the same age:
This cockerel had a silver legbar dame and the olive egger sire above.
This what I call a "silver legbar." Meyer lists them as olive eggers but both of mine lay blue eggs.
Two cockerels here. The one in the foreground is another pairing of silver legbar & the Olive egger. The one in the background has an olive egger mom. I'm not sure who the sire is.
The parents of the legbar / OE mix are already pictured above.
If I had to guess, I'd say the dame is this olive egger, who looks like the other two minus the beard and whom I caught in this post testing out a decorative basket as a nesting box.
If I had to guess on the sire, maybe my blue cuckoo maran rooster just based on his sheer size and the thickness of his legs.
This cockerel was from one of the olive-eggers. The sire is most likely the cuckoo maran, as he looks like a near carbon copy of him at the same age.
Finally, this fellow on the far right. Another olive egger dam. I thought the sire was the cuckoo maran but that crest makes me think the Olive egger roo got lucky again.
This is an australorp x french wheaten maran rooster and hen below. He has good temperment and takes care of the flock. He does have lightly feathered feet. The hen also has the feathered feet and is equally well tempered. She is broody often, which her mother is as well.
I have hatched several batches of mixed chicks. Unfortunately I never keep many of them long enough to see adulthood... Some purebreds x purebreds & some purebreds x mixes. It is super fun to see what we get & then try to match the parents!
This is Yokie Jr. She's a Yokohama mix hen that I hatched about 7 years ago, so she's one of my oldest chickens, and one of my favorites. She goes broody every year and is a great mom View attachment 3707361View attachment 3707362
what a beautiful bird! That's what I'm talking about--crosses that, by happy accident, come out beautiful and productive. I'm trying to "de-snob" the subject. That, exactly like mutt dogs, these random crosses can come out doing everythign they need to do.
This is an australorp x french wheaten maran rooster and hen below. He has good temperment and takes care of the flock. He does have lightly feathered feet. The hen also has the feathered feet and is equally well tempered. She is broody often, which her mother is as well. View attachment 3712820 View attachment 3712823
I have hatched several batches of mixed chicks. Unfortunately I never keep many of them long enough to see adulthood... Some purebreds x purebreds & some purebreds x mixes. It is super fun to see what we get & then try to match the parents!
I am doing a similar project. The ultimate goal is a large dual purpose breed that thrives on forage, has good predator evasion, goes broody and raises chicks well, and thrives in both cold and heat.
First generation, Biel x JG and Biel x BA cockerels, currently 14 and 12 weeks. Half brothers. They'll be the roos for the established coop 1.
Then JG x RIR. This one is shaping the project. The original JG was amazing. After he died protecting his ladies we hatched some of his chicks. His son is currently 22 weeks old and accepted by the adult hens. His manners are perfect, no sign of human aggression. No sign of teenage idiocy.
I just hatched 7 of Jr.'s chicks, an RIR back-cross. Any girls will go to others. The cockerels will be evaluated to hopefully continue the train of amazingly intelligent and well behaved roosters. These will be my boys for coop 2.
This spring I'll be adding Rangers and Buckeyes to coop 1, and Marans and Speckled Sussex to coop 2.
How's the picture project doing; are you still collecting images? I have a gorgeous young rooster who was a surprise hatch. His sire is a purebred Nankin bantam. The hen is a dusty-red EE bantam, so there's no telling WHAT is in her genetics! He's a handsome fellow, big for a bantam, colored mostly like a Nankin (complete with the classic slate legs,) but he has attention-grabbing floofy cheeks ... pretty cool. I'll try to get pics.
Buff Orpington Roo over black star hen.
First picture is him now, about 8.5 weeks. Second is him with a pure buff who so far looks to be a hen. Same roo fathered both.
