Potential Breed Creation

[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.

 

[RaineyTN]

Yea your fayoumi crosses are very cool, I’m goin to read up on them never knew too much about that breed

 

[Severne]

That is how mine are too! That’s what I love about mixes.

 

[Severne]

Right, I had someone on another forum say that without inbreedI gotta, their BO xBR production was decreasing. That didn’t make any sense to me.

 

[Blw18]

Update: Over the past few months I’ve been narrowing down my breeders for later this fall and next spring to around 4 cockrells and 12 pullets. My current main line project juveniles are 4 months and 5 months old and I really like what I’ve got. One rooster has nearly outgrown his dad (the pure Brahma) at 5 months old and they all have amazing temperaments. I had a coccidiosis outbreak in the juveniles of several other pure breeds but the projects never were phased even though they were in the same pen on the same dirt eating and drinking the same food and water. I assume they’ve got some resistance to whatever strain of coccidiosis on the farm. They’ve all become excellent foragers and have taken 100 degree days and daily thunderstorms with stride. The only downside is they have feathered legs and aren’t very meaty. They’re also really slow feathering. The 4 month old roosters still have chick down on their back and haven’t grown in any tail feathers. The 5 month old roo didn’t start growing tail feathers until two weeks ago. I know given their size they’re going to be very slow maturing. I’ve kept back 7 Cornish rock pullets who are almost to laying age that I plan to cross into the line to add some meatiness. I think I’ll cross the project roosters with them. And then I’ve got several liege fighters I’m planning on crossing to the project hens. The liege are extremely intelligent, colorful, super friendly, and really good foragers.
Project roo 5 months old:

Project roos 4 months old:

Project pullets 4 and 5 months old:

Liege fighter 2 months and Cornish cross at 4.5 months:

 

[RaineyTN]

Those are cool man. Where’d you get the leige fighters? I have wanted to get a couple just to see what they were like.

Here’s my last hatch I had but i ended up selling all of my Brahma mixes, breeders and all a guy came by and bought the whole lot.

 

[Blw18]

Thanks! I really like the colors on yours. I got them from a breeder in east Tennessee. I can give you his info if you’d like. I’d recommend him to anybody. I paid $15 a chick and he sent 5 extra to the 10 I bought. I was skeptical at first because of how much other liege chicks are going for but they’re indeed pure and my favorite breed by far. Super friendly and intelligent. Mine are 9 weeks old now and getting huge. I’ve got 5 month old ameraucanas and Delawares that majority of the liege have outgrown and they’re less than half their age.