Polish Thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Chickens4lifee]

Well due to a recent raccoon invasion on my coops i lost almost all my polish had 4 boys and 5 girls 1 boy in a different coop and 1 girl and i now have 2 girls old enough to breed 1 boy and a 5 month old girl with my Ayam cemani. thank you racoon for making it so i have to spend a few 100 on good quality birds again. I do plan to breed my polish and cemani to make a new breed but they will only be for fun nothing pricey possibly like 5.00 each. and also breed my cemani and japanese bantams i know it can be done i have seen pics of them. Any thoughts?

 

[TRChickenRanch]

Wondering if any polish breeders can tell me if there is absolute no no for breeding? Anything like what colours to avoid breeding together or mom to son, dad to daughter etc.
And if there are any suggestions on what colours to breed together would be great too. Thanks

 

[wcbpolish]

Wondering if any polish breeders can tell me if there is absolute no no for breeding? Anything like what colours to avoid breeding together or mom to son, dad to daughter etc.
And if there are any suggestions on what colours to breed together would be great too. Thanks

No frizzle to frizzle.
Any form of inbreeding can exaggerate traits and bring out recessive traits (for good or for ill)
Within polish, as for color crossing...
*Generally crossing laced with solid colored varieties makes messy colors
*Laced to laced: read up on the genetics. It can be good for improving lines, but there are intermediates (first generation crosses) that don't conform to color standards, but can/should be crossed back to one of the parental colors.
*Crossing Buff Laced with anything that has black will wash out the black and make dirty white.
*Crossing Bearded with non-bearded is OK- but you'll get some chicks with intermediate beards that are not show-worthy, but otherwise are fine to use for breeding.
*"White" polish can be hiding lots of random stuff under the "whitewash" You don't generally know what is underneath the white color, and so crossing whites from two different lines can give you non-white surprises

 

[kmom08]

This thread is so long, I'm looking for advice on trimming my silver laced polish's crest. She's 11 weeks old as of today and this last week she has started having a much harder time seeing and keeping up with the rest of my flock. When she realizes the others are not near she chirps loudly and starts to panic. She comes when I call and will follow my voice to the rest of the flock, but it's definitely time for a trim to improve her sight. I was thinking of waiting until it's her bedtime and take her out of the chicken house at that time for a trim.
Thanks in advance for any advice.

She's at the bottom left of the photo.

 

[Table4Six]

Beautiful bird!

I have done this with some of my silkie's and polish's crests in the past. It's really quite simple. All you need to do is get a pair of little scissors and trim the feathers obscuring her vision. It won't hurt her, but you do need to hold her very still or you risk damaging her eye by accidentally losing control of her or the scissors. Get someone to help you if you're having trouble holding her still.
I don't think it's necessary to wait until dark or take her away from where the other chickens are. Just grab a chair, put it near where the other chickens are, hold her in your lap, and snip away.
You have a very pretty flock!

 

[Sylvester017]

This thread is so long, I'm looking for advice on trimming my silver laced polish's crest. She's 11 weeks old as of today and this last week she has started having a much harder time seeing and keeping up with the rest of my flock. When she realizes the others are not near she chirps loudly and starts to panic. She comes when I call and will follow my voice to the rest of the flock, but it's definitely time for a trim to improve her sight. I was thinking of waiting until it's her bedtime and take her out of the chicken house at that time for a trim.
Thanks in advance for any advice.

View attachment 1465716
She's at the bottom left of the photo.

My solution to crested birds with obscured vision (Silkies) is to have more than one to toodle around together. Larger breeds than Polish/Silkies will leave the crested birds behind in the dust whereas two or more Polish or two or more Silkies will make up a little flock of their own and don't leave each other behind (with or without trimmed crest feathers -- I never trimmed my Silkies). Not only are Silkies crested, they don't fly either so having an alike breed to share foraging time is important because the bigger breed non-crested birds will not wait for crested slower birds:

 

[JennyBee13]

I just got a white crested Polish hen to add to my flock. She's supposed to be about a year old. I'm new to chickens, but absolutely LOVE polish, I've wanted one since I first saw them at the 4H fair. I have a few questions.
1) I've had her for 6 days now and she hasn't laid. Is that normal? I got a Copper Maran at the same time and she's already laid 4 eggs.
2) She is quite dirty. Her crest isn't really white at the moment, it's more yellow. What's the best method to wash her? Can I just use Dawn dish soap and warm water?

 

[drumstick diva]

Beautiful Silkies Sylvester

 

[NNations]

Do you trim a polish cockerel's feather's around his eyes or is it just the girl's that get the trimming? I can't decide if my boy needs a trim or not. He tilt's his head to look up now, but I did not know if as it grows out it'll get better or worse. I've never done it before so I've been trying to research as much as I can.

This was him about a week or so ago.


Here is a close up too, he had just gotten a warm essential oil Epson salt bath for his pulled leg muscle and fell asleep on my kitchen counter while I was drying him.

 

[Stacyoung13]

This is Lilly, she is almost 6 weeks. She likes to try to fly whenever she gets a chance . But she likes to be loved on. I actually bought 2 day old polish hens, but Lucy turned out to be a Silkie.