Potential Breed Creation

[RaineyTN]

Yea I think bigger is better for hawks.

Here’s a couple of the newest chicks the second one I crossed back to partridge brahma there huge for 2 half weeks old

 

[Blw18]

Good lord those are huge!! So they are they from your Orpington/Brahma rooster? I’d like to cross back some of the Brahma/F2 chicks I hatched earlier this year to Orpingtons or Orpington/langshan crosses to get some color back (the current crosses are either solid black or solid white with a few black dots) and reduce leg feathering. I had been debating it because I didn’t know if they would get as large as my current projects because the Orpingtons I have are significantly squatter. How is the growth rate of yours? My oldest are just over a month old and have just now started growing feathers other than on their wings. They are leaps and bounds ahead of normal as far as bone structure and frame goes but muscling and feathers are slow.

 

[RaineyTN]

Yea they take a while to fullly feather same as yours. Actually this is the first time I’ve bred to full Orpington. I forgot originally i started with a Brahma and a Orpington cross but I don’t remember what it was crossed with. Really the only reason I still have that rooster is bc it’s the easiest keeping male I’ve ever had.

 

[Severne]

Also, if anyone has done a project like this before I would definitely like to hear about it.

I have done a similar project! Nice job to you too! The larger breeds I’ve actually had worse luck with as far as cross breeding. I have been breeding for a very small, hardy, heat tolerant bird with Exceptional laying qualities. I crossed Orpington, RIR and a bantam and barred rock and astralorp and
Mainly leghorn with this roo

The results where these hens the brown ones and buff hens and a black one,(half astralorp) that roo is a project my uncle worked on and it was too much for him, so he passed It on too me. They lay around 260 eggs per year. Even In the 120 degree summers.

I kept a roo that was half that roo, half barred Rock. It crossed with that hen And this was the result. PERFECT! 275 eggs last year, it used to fly 30 feet into a tree until I changed its habits. It was VERY difficult especially since it was raised by a broody. Once when I tried to knock it out of the tree so I could change its habit, it climbed up another 15 feet to the tip of the 50 foot tree, it was scary, I thought it would die. The next evening I climbed the tree to catch it and it flew 55 feet away into the sheep pasture, (that’s better than my quail). I finally got it and trained it to sleep in the coop. Now I can catch it every day.(I’m NOT exaggerating)

This year I’m going to cross the 1st hens with a isbar roo and cross the resulting roo to the second hen and then back cross it to one of the buff hens. Of course, I have the wrong roo now.... he’s rude and his mom was half BO half this crossbreed

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Luckily we haven’t had just a ton of large predator problems this year. Yeah I don’t expect any of them to put up too much of a fight against a coyote!! The fayoumi crosses simply pick up and fly into the nearest tree but they’re not quite as large as the project birds. I wish there was a way to breed for better flying ability while still maintaining the integrity of size in the breed. I know flying ability isn’t normally desirable but I live in an area where you can ride down the road a mile and see 10 coyotes scattered out in a field during broad daylight. However, of the chickens I have taken by predators each year, 90% are by hawks. The larger ones almost never get messed with while the smaller chickens get picked off.

Do you have pictures of the fayoumi crosses?

 

[Blw18]

Saverne that’s awesome! Yours lay better than most purebreds. Everything I hatch is usually raised by a broody on the yard so all 30+ chickens I have free ranging sleep at the top of this red oak tree by the barn. Flightier stuff just flies to the top and the bigger ones make it to the first limb (probably 7 foot up) and climb their way to the top. I tried discouraging this but with so many I just gave up.
Here is some of the fayoumi crosses.

This is the oldest one. She’s a lot prettier when up and about but she’s gone broody at the moment. She took after her dad’s side more. She has some fayoumi coloring and blue legs but is considerably larger and her body shape is more like the dads with feathered legs. She also is really good tempered and gets all under my feet at feeding time.

The second hen looks and acts like a fayoumi other than her color. She’s more pheasant-acting than anything I’ve ever seen. I thought she was hawk bait after she didn’t show up at the house for several days when one day she showed up to eat. I followed her when she left and she had a nest 150 yards into a cutover near the barn. She hatched the eggs and it took me three days to catch them all because she never left the thicket. Her chicks are half Brahma. Both are great layers and superb mamas but broodiness that will drive you insane. Their eggs are light brown-tan and pretty big.

These are their parents. The rooster is half naked neck half black langshan. The hen is pure fayoumi.

I paired the first hen with the rooster below and got this chick. He was the only one that hatched out of the clutch. A possum got into the nest and ate all the eggs except this one at about 18 days incubating. He’s taking after the fayoumi side a lot from what I can tell. Growing really fast and has the blue legs. He’s 5 weeks old.

This rooster was paired with the first fayoumi cross hen. He’s maybe 1/8th fayoumi. Mostly langshan and Orpington.

 

[Severne]

Saverne that’s awesome! Yours lay better than most purebreds. Everything I hatch is usually raised by a broody on the yard so all 30+ chickens I have free ranging sleep at the top of this red oak tree by the barn. Flightier stuff just flies to the top and the bigger ones make it to the first limb (probably 7 foot up) and climb their way to the top. I tried discouraging this but with so many I just gave up.
Here is some of the fayoumi crosses. View attachment 2143340
This is the oldest one. She’s a lot prettier when up and about but she’s gone broody at the moment. She took after her dad’s side more. She has some fayoumi coloring and blue legs but is considerably larger and her body shape is more like the dads with feathered legs. She also is really good tempered and gets all under my feet at feeding time.View attachment 2143345
The second hen looks and acts like a fayoumi other than her color. She’s more pheasant-acting than anything I’ve ever seen. I thought she was hawk bait after she didn’t show up at the house for several days when one day she showed up to eat. I followed her when she left and she had a nest 150 yards into a cutover near the barn. She hatched the eggs and it took me three days to catch them all because she never left the thicket. Her chicks are half Brahma. Both are great layers and superb mamas but broodiness that will drive you insane. Their eggs are light brown-tan and pretty big.View attachment 2143366
View attachment 2143367
These are their parents. The rooster is half naked neck half black langshan. The hen is pure fayoumi. View attachment 2143375
I paired the first hen with the rooster below and got this chick. He was the only one that hatched out of the clutch. A possum got into the nest and ate all the eggs except this one at about 18 days incubating. He’s taking after the fayoumi side a lot from what I can tell. Growing really fast and has the blue legs. He’s 5 weeks old.View attachment 2143373
This rooster was paired with the first fayoumi cross hen. He’s maybe 1/8th fayoumi. Mostly langshan and Orpington.

They are BEAUTIFUL. Especially that last rooster.

 

[Blw18]

Thanks! I really wish mine were colored more like yours with the silver hackles and saddle feathers. That’s easily my favorite colored chicken. I need to get some more color in somehow because my main chickens in the main project line are either solid black or solid white with maybe two or three tiny black spots randomly placed somewhere on their neck or back. Some are solid white. The parent hens were black but where the solid white came from I have ZERO clue. I don’t own a single white chicken on the farm. I’m not good with genetics but is that a recessive white gene? It’s weird because majority (probably 70%) of the chicks have been white.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Saverne that’s awesome! Yours lay better than most purebreds. Everything I hatch is usually raised by a broody on the yard so all 30+ chickens I have free ranging sleep at the top of this red oak tree by the barn. Flightier stuff just flies to the top and the bigger ones make it to the first limb (probably 7 foot up) and climb their way to the top. I tried discouraging this but with so many I just gave up.
Here is some of the fayoumi crosses. View attachment 2143340
This is the oldest one. She’s a lot prettier when up and about but she’s gone broody at the moment. She took after her dad’s side more. She has some fayoumi coloring and blue legs but is considerably larger and her body shape is more like the dads with feathered legs. She also is really good tempered and gets all under my feet at feeding time.View attachment 2143345
The second hen looks and acts like a fayoumi other than her color. She’s more pheasant-acting than anything I’ve ever seen. I thought she was hawk bait after she didn’t show up at the house for several days when one day she showed up to eat. I followed her when she left and she had a nest 150 yards into a cutover near the barn. She hatched the eggs and it took me three days to catch them all because she never left the thicket. Her chicks are half Brahma. Both are great layers and superb mamas but broodiness that will drive you insane. Their eggs are light brown-tan and pretty big.View attachment 2143366
View attachment 2143367
These are their parents. The rooster is half naked neck half black langshan. The hen is pure fayoumi. View attachment 2143375
I paired the first hen with the rooster below and got this chick. He was the only one that hatched out of the clutch. A possum got into the nest and ate all the eggs except this one at about 18 days incubating. He’s taking after the fayoumi side a lot from what I can tell. Growing really fast and has the blue legs. He’s 5 weeks old.View attachment 2143373
This rooster was paired with the first fayoumi cross hen. He’s maybe 1/8th fayoumi. Mostly langshan and Orpington.

They have very interesting colorations. I especially like how the roos have the high tail carriage of the langshan.

 

[Blw18]

I wish I still had pictures of some of the F1 fayoumi cross roosters. So the brothers of those two hens. They were all black with the high tail and gold, white, and red spangling all over. They went to the frying pan because they were WILD!! I planned on breeding with them but I just couldn’t do anything with them at all. Like, when they saw you walk out of the house into the backyard, they’d head for the thicket. Because I couldn’t catch them to pen them up, they drove my hens crazy. I’m going to try and recreate that cross pretty soon and try to keep them confined with some gentler chickens to make them easier to work with.