New Breed In Development! Canterbury Crested Chickens!

[Beacon Point Ratite Ranch]

Following! Any updates on your breeding project? This is really neat!
@MysteryChicken may have some suggestions, or at least be interested.

Just posted an update! Lots of new babies!

 

[Beacon Point Ratite Ranch]

This is interesting.

For the meaty portion, I'd go with a full sized bird, rather then bantam. Bantam size is perfect for soup, but you could get more out of a larger bird then small, or tiny.

True, but I'm not really developing them as a meat bird. I make pickled eggs and the smaller eggs work better as the larger ones can be a bit overpowering. Also, if I can get them looking how I want, they will also make gorgeous ornamental birds. Although, if someone really wanted to, they could eat them. They're actually pretty heavy as bantams go. I might eventually develop a large fowl version depending on how well this goes, but that's further down the road.

 

[Beacon Point Ratite Ranch]

UPDATE: The F3 chicks are 1 week old! Please enjoy these new pictures of our purple-skinned beauties!

Chick 1 -

Chick 2 - (I named this one Bow Tye. Bow for short.)

Chick 3 -

Chick 4 -

Chick 5 -

(These last 3 had a hard time standing still, so I couldn't get head shots of them.)

Chick 6 -

Chick 7 -

Chick 8 -

We also had another big hatch day yesterday! We now have 7 more F3 Canterbury Crested chicks and 4 bantam Polish Crested chicks to add to the mix!

Bantam Polish Crested 1 - (Very sleepy baby. Couldn't get a pic with it's eyes open to save my life. lol)

Bantam Polish Crested 2 -

Bantam Polish Crested 3 -

Bantam Polish Crested 4 -

You may notice that these F3 chicks look different from the last batch. That's because these chicks have a higher concentration of serama in them. These guys are so tiny I had to take the pictures on macro!

F3 Canterbury Crested 1 -

F3 Canterbury Crested 2 -

F3 Canterbury Crested 3 -

F3 Canterbury Crested 4 - (This chick was so done with my interrupting it's sleep. lol)

F3 Canterbury Crested 5 - (And this one just kept right on sleeping!)

F3 Canterbury Crested 6 -

F3 Canterbury Crested 7 -

Tomorrow, I will update with new pictures of my now 6 week old chicks! I'm really excited to show you all how they're maturing!!

 

[PippinTheChicken]

Awesome breed project. Watching

 

[Beacon Point Ratite Ranch]

UPDATE: I took new pictures of my 6 week old F2 Canterbury Cresteds. These are a mix of 2/3 silkie, 1/3 serama.

F2 Canterbury Crested 1 -

F2 Canterbury Crested 2 -

F2 Canterbury Crested 3 -

F2 Canterbury Crested 4 -

F2 Canterbury Crested 5 - (This chick, I'm particularly excited about! Not only does she have the biggest crest I've achieved yet, but she has something I've never seen in any chicken before! Smooth body feathers with a silkie feathered crest!)

F2 Canterbury Crested 6 -

F2 Canterbury Crested 7 -

F2 Canterbury Crested 8 - This last chick is 2/3 serama and 1/3 silkie. You can see how different concentrations of different breeds effects the look of the resulting chicks.

That's it for this update. Follow for more!

 

[pinewoodacres]

Are you backcrossing? You said F1-F3 but are you just meaning that’s the generation you’re on (e.g., F3 = third set of babies born in your project)? F3 is breeding your F2 birds to one another; F2 likewise is F1xF1. Just trying to follow what you’re doing here. That’s quite a lot of breeds to work with but it looks like you’re making progress toward your goals.

 

[PippinTheChicken]

They're so cute! I love them! Number 5 has such a funny hairdo!

 

[Cloverr39]

This is so interesting! I hope I'll see this as an actual breed some day. I'm definitely following this thread.

 

[MrHache]

The Beatles!

 

[townchicks]

This is so fun. They are adorable.