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feliciadawn said:
@dheltzel how are your Ayam Cemani doing in this cold weather? They are not supposed to be tremendously cold hardy, I hear. Today I saw frostbite on the comb of my Opal Legbar, Harlow. So sad for her, but she must have gotten it yesterday when it was so windy and snowy. She was the one chicken who chose to leave the coop.

Can you say more about the F3 Isabel Olive Eggers? What do you expect the eggs to look like? What breeds are the great=grandparents?
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I have them in a sheltered pen, but their water bowl freezes often anyway. They have done fine and are still laying about an egg a day (only 1 or 2 hens are laying, others may be too old). I have 25 cemani chicks now of various ages. Depending on how well the parents keep laying, I might have some culls to sell later in the year, but I have to wait until they grow out to see what defects the young ones might have. In any case, I should have a lot of cockerels to set free on the farm. I bet they are hard for predators to see at night!
 
Hi. Felicia gave me a heads up about your kind offer of providing a hen to join my remaining girl. We’re waiting on a necropsy report from New Bolton on the bird we lost and then we can figure out how to proceed. I’ll be in touch.
 
feliciadawn said:
Can you say more about the F3 Isabel Olive Eggers? What do you expect the eggs to look like? What breeds are the great=grandparents?
Click to expand...
These are my "secret project" I've been working on almost 2 years. The Original cross was Gold Welbar cock x Opal Legbar hen (that laid blue eggs). F1's looked mostly like gold welbars. F2's segregated into about 25% isabel (lavender on wild type) and 75% autosexing "maybe" olive eggers. I only kept the isabel and have those pullets with a gold Welbar cockerel. The F3 chicks are hatching now and look like Welbars. I am only hatching olive colored eggs, to give them a 50% chance of carrying the blue egg gene. Will cross these F3's this fall to make F4's that will again be 25% isabel.

With each backcross to pure Welbars, I expect the egg color to darken and the look of the birds to be more like Welbars. To my knowledge, no one in the world has Isabel Welsummer or Welbars. If they just happen to lay olive eggs, I can sell them as true breeding, autosexing, isabel Olive Eggers. If I want to make them "true" Isabel Welbars, I only have to select out the eggs without the blue color from a backcross to pure Welbars, and I can easily eliminate the blue egg gene. A few more crosses back to a good line of Welsummers would get rid of the barring gene to make Isabel Welsummers (no longer autosexing though).

I expect to be working on this at least 2 more years before I have something I can introduce as a new color that is ready to sell. The egg color is still disappointingly light right now, I could not call them Welbars at this point because of that.
 
Do you think chikens really have only a couple days of memory? I just put my splash marans, Kiwi, back to coop after she stayed in my basement for over 3 weeks to recover from frostbite. She ranked 2nd in pecking order of the pullets before. I first put her in a cage in the coop. All girls went to check and only my top pullet Pumpkin fought her through the cage wire a couple times. The second day I let her out, there were no fight at all. Everybody acted like she never left. The older hens just ignored her as usual, and she joined the pullets group right away and still rank second in the group. It really looks like they still remember her. When I tried to merge pullets from outside before, there were at least 6 weeks of fighting and bully. It makes me wonder if chickens really have only a few days of memory.
 
@feliciadawn gave me this roo. I thought this was a better pic, but at least she can tell that he is healthy and prowling about. He is quite fearless around me and always underfoot (along with 2 or 3 Ameraucana roos that he hangs with). His buddies are behind him, but they really didn't want to get photographed.

SilverSpitz.jpg
 
@TillyPeeps
I think it is longer also. My birds have done the same when one has been pulled for health reasons and then returned later. Some flocks are more laid back than others though.
But, for proof of memory... my birds like to come to the sliding door on our porch to beg goodies. They can be cooped up for a weeks due to winter weather or us being away, but the moment the gate is open for them to roam the yard our hen patrol is knocking on the sliding glass door waiting for goodies, and yes, a couple of the older girls literally tap the glass with their beaks to get our attention.

When they can they all rush my husband's car when he gets home from work for same reason... they know it is him and want goodies. They ignore other peoples vehicles . They do this even when he's been off for multiple days for weekends or vacation.
Our girls also come running when they hear the log splitter or backhoe start up. They love getting fresh dirt to dig through or bugs from split wood. Those events aren't frequent but they obviously know exactly what it means.
Are they dog or cat level smart? Probably not (although some dog breeds are questionable, lol) but they sure aren't the stupid critters some make them out to be!
 
I know my birds can tell the difference between me and my BIL who feeds and waters them. Several roosters have learned to attack him because he recoils in fear (6 ft dude scared of a small rooster, smh). I stick my bare hand in the Ayam ketawa pen and have never been attacked, but he moves back when I open the door, lol. Even if that little guy jumped on my hand and tried to remove a finger, I would just laugh at him, he is pretty much bantam size.
They also rush me when I carry a bucket (because there is probably corn in there) and move away from him when he carries a bucket. They might even be able to distinguish between colors of buckets, but I haven't tested that.
Birds learn quickly when they need to, but when they are not making food or danger decisions, they don't seem very bright and can never see the big picture like (most) humans can.
I would say some poultry are smarter than a chihuahua, but not all poultry. All poultry are far below the IQ of a German Shepard or Collie.
 
@dheltzel So glad Ansel is still going strong. The little cochen bantam that used to hang with him still seems a bit lonely -- she really thought she was a spitzhauben, and now she is the only one among my bantams who roosts. All the others lie in a pile on the ground, ignoring the low roosts that I gave them.
 

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