Ok, so from what I've seen/read/been told/understand on NN genetics, I'm not going to get clean neck chicks from breeding any of the chicks I've gotten from hatcheries. They've all had either bowties or bibs. I have one hen that appears to have a clean neck but I know she use to have 2 feathers on her neck that more than likely were plucked off. We have a new cockerel that looks like he's going to have a bow tie, 3 feather on each side. One hen with a huge bib and lastly a new pullet that appears to be a clean neck but I'm pretty sure she had a feather or two at some point, I'm pretty sure as a chick she had a fluffy spot...
I don't mind hatchery stock, I just really want clean necks. If I keep ordering NN from different hatcheries, will I ever get a couple? Should I order hatching eggs? I'm pretty sure from what I've read, if I remember correctly, even clean neck to clean neck will only have a % of clean necks?
NN do not sell well here. Even sexed and 8 weeks old they are slow to sell. I literally ended up making someone by a couple because they wanted so many of the EE pullets and weren't willing to take any cockerels, it was suppose to be a trio, that I told them only if they bought 2 of the NN pullets. There's one lady that bought one and came back and bought 2 more but doesn't have room for anymore. The other 2 sold because someone really wanted more pullets than what I had left of the other group so they went ahead and bought a couple. I stated in my ad their purpose and how they laid all winter for us, without extra light and that we will always have a couple of NN, still a no go.
So, all of that was to explain how much I would LOVE to breed them and buy them from everywhere and hatch eggs from all over and have a number of NN projects and go NN crazy but, I can't because no one will buy them and I will become to attached and not be able to process them and there will be so many NN's on our property they would be able to see us from space...
Do I just need to love the ones I have and get over a couple of extra feathers here and there?