Polish Chicks

[scbatz33]

Hi all, quick couple of questions. I have recently gotten some Polish chicks from another BYC member - thanks Willow! - and I have some questions.

Do I need to have seperate white and white crested black roosters? These 4 all look to be pulletts so I'm wondering if it is acceptable to use just one rooster or do I need to match the varieties?

Also, I've seen several of the hatcheries offer these varieties. Is it better to find a breeder or to just go with hatchery birds?

I'm not super familiar with this breed and It's not easy to find good i nfo regarding breeding. Any suggestions or comments would be great.

Oh, here are the birds...

 

[scbatz33]

Are there no Polish chicken breeders? Surely some one can give me some practical advice on this breed???

 

[ThePolishPrincess]

Maybe I can clear things up for you!

Well, if you want a rooster, it won't hurt to throw him in with the girls at all! If you want pure WCB or White, then get a WCB or White rooster. I'm not really sure what you're asking...(?)

From here, they do all look like pullets.

If you're interested in breeding and showing, go with breeders. If, however, you don't care and just want more for the sake of it, for pets, hatcharies are cool too. Just be aware that their quality will be pet quality, if you're lucky. Crest may be smaller/not as tight, feet problems, spurs on females (do to inbreeding, which most hatcharies do), etc...a wide variety of problems that won't do well in show.

Just to add, when a breeder says they sell 'Show quality' stock, it doesn't mean that every chook they breed is a winner. In fact, any could be born with a defect, even if they were bred from the best looking, top winning chooks in the world! Keep this in mind when ordering from anyone. Your girls look too young to see what they would be like as adults. From here, they look healthy. t's too soon to see i they are that good, though.

As far as breeding goes, I also don't know very much on the subject. I do know, however, that if you are to raise showers, one must cull hard. I could never do this, as I love all Polish too much, but Polish chicks come with a wider variety of problems than most other chicks, as said before. If you want pure bred, you'll have to raise one color with one color only.

Might not be helpful, but I'll leave you with my favorite Polish site. Search around it, in every nook and cranny, and you may learn a bit more. I know it helped me understand the breed better.

http://www.polishchooks.com/

If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll help as much as I can.

 

[LilPeeps]

It is too soon to determine the sex on those chicks. You'll have to wait several more weeks or until you start seeing wattles coming in on the males.

Those chicks don't look too bad, not too much black in the crest, which is very important if breeding to show. The white in the breast will go away as they get a little older. By that age I like to see their tails held a little higher and the crest coming in a little fuller, but they still look good. When breeding, the colors you can house together would be wc black/wc blue/wc splash, or wc black/wc chocolate/wc khaki. All other varieties must be seperated by color if you want anything showable.

Hatchery birds won't have the quality and often times the vigor of a bird from a breeder. If you just want them for pets, a hatchery is an inexpensive way to get them, but if you want to get into showing, find a breeder who breeds to the standard.

Here's a good site with lots of info on the breed. It's the msn group for the Polish Breeders Club. You can see all the varieties of polish available and get in contact with breeders

http://groups.msn.com/PolishChickens

 

[scbatz33]

Thanks so much for the info. These birds were hatched by another BYC member who bought them froma different BYC member. I'm an Orpington fan but my hubby wanted the Polish and the Turkens so now we have both.

I'm not super interested in showing, but I would like to have more "type" birds. I don't want to just throw some birds together and see what happens.

Thanks for the info about the different color combos. My biggest question was about the white vs. the wc black and if I really should get two seperate roosters to stay truer to the color combos.

The postings helped alot.....