Minorca thread!

[CRAJ]

SanderB, the Blue Minorca's are beautiful. They have a good consistency with their coloring.
The Buff Leghorn certainly look the Leghorn part. I can see the obvious variation between the Leghorn and Minorca breed when looking at the photos. May I ask what your plan is as far as how you will develop a Buff Minorca (Bantam) from these Buff Leghorns?

 

[CRAJ]

My Minorca pullets will be five months old at the end of the month. I am curious to see how long it will take them to start to lay? I have one Black pullet and one Buff pullet that have matured a bit faster than the others. The White pullets have significantly more comb development as compared to most of the others. I have the breeding pen set up for my Whites (with my lone rooster in tow). I have also added a Black Australorp hen to cross with my White Minorca Rooster (I love my Austra Whites also-Leghorn X Australorp). Interested to see if the Minorca X Australorp is much different from the Leghorn X Australorp.

 

[SanderB]

SanderB- great looking birds!

Nice flat backs, to me it seems, on your blue Minorca F2s...but I am no expert.

Is that the only difference between the Blue Andalusians and the Blue Minorcas? The flat back of the Minorca?

I have Blue Andalusians too (5 of them).

Their are a lot of differences, but I don´t have/breed Andalusian bantams so I can´t show them.

 

[SanderB]

SanderB, the Blue Minorca's are beautiful. They have a good consistency with their coloring.
The Buff Leghorn certainly look the Leghorn part. I can see the obvious variation between the Leghorn and Minorca breed when looking at the photos. May I ask what your plan is as far as how you will develop a Buff Minorca (Bantam) from these Buff Leghorns?

I had cross bred the old buff rooster with a black hen, but sadly I only had 3 chicks out of 12 eggs. 2 roosters and 1 hen. I got rid of 1 rooster but sadly both the hen and rooster died of a probably viral infection.

Then I had 3 and 2 leghorn bantams, but the older 3 where killed by magpies. So I only have these younger 2. So now I have and older yellow legged rooster and an older white legged hen. And their 2 children, a yellow legged hen and a white legged rooster.
I think I am going to use my biggest blue Minorca bantam hen for my next generation of cross breeds. Going to put her with my yellow legged rooster. He already has quit big earlobes. And I am going to increase my white legged buff leghorn population. As you can see, the little rooster also has the big white earlobes, hopefully he survives.

So their will be a line of leghorn bantams with white legs where I am selecting on Minorca features like big earlobes, combs and wattles, less down and a tighter feathering.
And a line of crosses between the the buff leghorn bantams and the Minorca bantams.

 

[Coveny]

Well this weeks post has me manhandling the chicks to put zip ties on their legs. They are NOT happy about it to say the least. Now we can get to naming them! Anyone have any suggestions? I have 3 left that I can name.

 

[SanderB]

Strange that they are so scared of you.

A good way to handle them:

Pic them up with no fear, keep their wings against their body.
Wait until the chick is calm.
Then put your forefinger between the legs while the head points to you.
Then she will probably will be flapping her wings. But just hold her, wait until she is calm.
Now you can easily pet her or check her out or place a ring.
Keep on doing this, after a while they will get used to this.

Always trie to catch a chicken (or other animal) while it is looking at you.
And only release it when it is calm.

 

[Coveny]

Strange that they are so scared of you.

A good way to handle them:

Pic them up with no fear, keep their wings against their body.
Wait until the chick is calm.
Then put your forefinger between the legs while the head points to you.
Then she will probably will be flapping her wings. But just hold her, wait until she is calm.
Now you can easily pet her or check her out or place a ring.
Keep on doing this, after a while they will get used to this.

Always trie to catch a chicken (or other animal) while it is looking at you.
And only release it when it is calm.

They don't look at me, they go pretty crazy just when I walk near the coup. It's gotten a LOT better since I started giving them water melon a few weeks back, but they still fly all around when I go out to check their food and water, and that is me outside of the coop reaching into it. I get in the coop and they all huddle in the corner as you see in the video. Although they did seem to come out a bit when I was doing the last few, it was almost like they understood their "turn" was over. We bought the new house and maybe they will calm down a bit when they have more room. They are getting too big for that coop IMO, but I'll move'm in the next week or so. (depending on how fast I can get the fencing up)

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

My 8 Minorcas have not been handled by me ever since they were about 4 weeks old (when I moved them in with my adult chickens while inside a hutch they could escape from but hide in). They are 8 weeks old now.

Mine don't look me in the eye either too often, even when they approach me when I am sitting in the chair in the run (while they are eating grass). I believe this is a very skittish line we have (McMurray Hatchery). Maybe the ones in Belgium are calmer?

To compare, they sent a Blue LF cochin along with the order, and she follows me around like a puppy dog, and I have picked her up several times. I could pick her up daily if I wanted to...she is always around my feet. Such a different temperament.

I would have to get mine on the roost at night to handle them, I believe. I don't think I could catch them during the day.

I actually like a wild independent chicken. I have Orpingtons that are very clingy and always underfoot, always wanting to be pet. It is really nice to have some of the chickens off in the background keeping themselves busy and not pecking my boots for mealworms LOL.

 

[CRAJ]

I have found there to be great variability within the breed as far as skittish behavior. My whites have a very calm demeanor. The blacks and buffs from Sandhill are also of a moderately calm nature. My buff pullets from McMurray (June 2013) are very wild and screech when I pick them up. To contrast this, my buff hens from McMurray (July 2012) are very, very easy to work with.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I have found there to be great variability within the breed as far as skittish behavior. My whites have a very calm demeanor. The blacks and buffs from Sandhill are also of a moderately calm nature. My buff pullets from McMurray (June 2013) are very wild and screech when I pick them up. To contrast this, my buff hens from McMurray (July 2012) are very, very easy to work with.

I need to order them every year like you from McMurray (who by the way reportedly don't feed their breeder birds any GMOs)!

Then I will have a variety.