Poultry Breeds of Spanish Ancestry

[Hangtown Farms]

OOps! My Bad. The chickens are all pure. I have Basque and Pita pintas together in the flock. They hatched together and brooded together. Roosters are separated and processed now.

I would like to see what they looked like as a cross though.

The Pita Pintas are not barred or mottled. The feathers are black with white tips. I do not remember what they call it--painted I suppose. The Basque are single barred mostly showing up on the Cock Birds. I am waiting to see if the new ones hold the barring on the tail after they molt. Megans should have Molted last winter so I need to see if I can get into contact with her to see what hers look like this year at two years old.

Sorry to have not gotten back to you about the Penes. I plan on popping in a test batch of at least 10 today to see if they are fertile. Those that hatch go to Jason but I can start collecting later for either another hatch or shipping eggs.

do you have any Pitas in there cooking too?

 

[ronott1]

do you have any Pitas in there cooking too?

Not yet but likely soon. I need to move the Basque girl out. The Wheaten Penedesenca has been in with her for a week so I should be able to move the two of them in with the layers this weekend, get the Rooster in with them daily and stare collecting next weekend.

The Basque eggs look too much like the Pita Pinta eggs so I have to separate them. The Wheaten Pene egg is very obvious.

 

[ronott1]

Oh yes, I should be starting a hatch of 40 eggs a week now. This year I will be running three incubators for incubating and one for hatching.

I wonder how many I will hatch this year?

 

[Hangtown Farms]

Appears Canada had a black penedesenca import from Spain around 2009

 

[gjensen]

Hey Guys.

Ron, nice pictures. It was good to see some pictures. Ron, could you share anything about the birds? I do not know a lot about them, but would like to know more. How did these particular birds get here. What part of Spain are they associated with? What are they like to keep?

I have a few new pictures that I shared with a friend. I will get a couple up. They are not to bad I guess, but I was disappointed with how the color appears on my monitor. That can really make a difference when looking at shades of color on the computer. I have heard Walt mention this, and I am seeing it for myself.

We faired well in the weather. There is some still without power east of us, where they got a lot of ice. We got snow and sleet. Just a thin layer of ice. We are not equipped for that kind of weather in the south, but I will take snow over ice any day. Ice makes a mess. It is good to be reminded that it can happen.

That earthquake was centered where Tiger Creek (Stan) lives. It was minor of course. We did not feel it, but some in our area did. There is a major fault near our coast that is overdue. It has the potential to be big. Charleston was hit hard back in the day. A lot of old buildings in Charleston SC.

My incubator is not running yet. These birds are so quick there is no advantage, and only a disadvantage. They molt the first year if hatched early. The plus is you do not have to wait forever like some breeds out there. In 5 months you are getting eggs.

It is good to hear that incubators are running though. I would like to hear about what some of the goals are for the year.

 

[ronott1]

Hey Guys.

Ron, nice pictures. It was good to see some pictures. Ron, could you share anything about the birds? I do not know a lot about them, but would like to know more. How did these particular birds get here. What part of Spain are they associated with? What are they like to keep?

I have a few new pictures that I shared with a friend. I will get a couple up. They are not to bad I guess, but I was disappointed with how the color appears on my monitor. That can really make a difference when looking at shades of color on the computer. I have heard Walt mention this, and I am seeing it for myself.

We faired well in the weather. There is some still without power east of us, where they got a lot of ice. We got snow and sleet. Just a thin layer of ice. We are not equipped for that kind of weather in the south, but I will take snow over ice any day. Ice makes a mess. It is good to be reminded that it can happen.

That earthquake was centered where Tiger Creek (Stan) lives. It was minor of course. We did not feel it, but some in our area did. There is a major fault near our coast that is overdue. It has the potential to be big. Charleston was hit hard back in the day. A lot of old buildings in Charleston SC.

My incubator is not running yet. These birds are so quick there is no advantage, and only a disadvantage. They molt the first year if hatched early. The plus is you do not have to wait forever like some breeds out there. In 5 months you are getting eggs.

It is good to hear that incubators are running though. I would like to hear about what some of the goals are for the year.

@Meg2000000 Got them from a Breeder in Spain. I do not know where in Spain they came from. They are not from Germany. Germany has a lot of Pitas.

@PetRock Has them too and we both have had similar experiences with them. The Boys are big! I can't weigh mine because the scale does not go over 6.5 pounds. He is very attentive to the girls and talks to them. He talks to me quite a bit too.

The meat is very tasty too:



The pullets are very quiet and friendly. They remind me of the Australorps which are quiet too, except for when they lay an egg. They also seem to be very healthy and they hatched well too.

Hopefully Megan and Deb will pop in and share a bit too.

 

[ronott1]

Appears Canada had a black penedesenca import from Spain around 2009

Have you found out who has them? It should be easier getting them from Canada if you can get someone to work with you there.

 

[Hangtown Farms]

Have you found out who has them? It should be easier getting them from Canada if you can get someone to work with you there.

Yes probably real easy as I have birds from my flock up there lol

 

[gjensen]

The first male is an 8month old cockerel.

The second male is a 7month old cockerel, and his wing color. Part of learning this color will be learning to balance the qty of black and keeping it in the right sections.

As Jason likes them called Prat Leonoda.

You know Jason, I do not know a breed that I have seen so many variations of the name used. Personally, I like just Prat, but know one here would know what you were talking about. The full name is lengthy.

This breed is rare in the States, but has been recognized here. Though this breed is rare here, it has had it's share of influence. It used to be an important breed in all of Latin America, where it was noted for it's heat tolerance, ruggedness, egg laying ability and quality of flesh. The breed was and still is used to make capon in Spain. The quality of the flesh has been likened to the La Bresse in France. They had been developed much farther than the land race fowl they were originally. A breed worthy of it's name.

The general consensus is that the Cochin was used to improve the carcass of local farm birds, and that this breed contributed the color. From what I gather it seams most likely that it was what is known as the Cochin China, and it would also be important to note that Cochin at the time was much different than what we know now.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Hey Guys.

Ron, nice pictures. It was good to see some pictures. Ron, could you share anything about the birds? I do not know a lot about them, but would like to know more. How did these particular birds get here. What part of Spain are they associated with? What are they like to keep?

I have a few new pictures that I shared with a friend. I will get a couple up. They are not to bad I guess, but I was disappointed with how the color appears on my monitor. That can really make a difference when looking at shades of color on the computer. I have heard Walt mention this, and I am seeing it for myself.

We faired well in the weather. There is some still without power east of us, where they got a lot of ice. We got snow and sleet. Just a thin layer of ice. We are not equipped for that kind of weather in the south, but I will take snow over ice any day. Ice makes a mess. It is good to be reminded that it can happen.

That earthquake was centered where Tiger Creek (Stan) lives. It was minor of course. We did not feel it, but some in our area did. There is a major fault near our coast that is overdue. It has the potential to be big. Charleston was hit hard back in the day. A lot of old buildings in Charleston SC.

My incubator is not running yet. These birds are so quick there is no advantage, and only a disadvantage. They molt the first year if hatched early. The plus is you do not have to wait forever like some breeds out there. In 5 months you are getting eggs.

It is good to hear that incubators are running though. I would like to hear about what some of the goals are for the year.

Right now, my incubator is full. I started it on Wednesday afternoon so it's only been 3 days. The only eggs in there right now are bantams. With this project, I am mainly selecting for size but also keeping color and definition of lacing on the back burner. This set of eggs is from my best looking birds, not my smallest, but beautiful birds... just too big. Most all of them are too big at this point. One of the hens in that pen is a sister to the male. The way I understand it, one of the first things you'll notice in mating brother/sister is a reduction in size. However, I'm not sure that they are from the same hen. The sire is the same over them both. We'll see how it goes.

In the pen I am working with currently, I have a splash male who is showing quite a bit of red in his shoulders. He is being mated to a splash hen so that hopefully, any that show any red can be culled and maybe that will be the last I see of it from that particular line. He is also being mated to a teeny tiny little black girl with no foreign colors.

I have another rooster that is black and for him I have another splash hen who hasn't returned to laying after her molt yet. Same situation (at least part sister) and I need to pick another hen to go with him. His comb flops just the smallest amount right at the top. Its more like the points of his comb lean over just a tiny bit, maybe 10* so I want to choose a hen with a fully upright comb to go with him. He has no foreign colors so I don't want to introduce any. His mates will be as clean as possible in the color department. His comb is the only problem I see in him, other than the fact that he is too big, and he's one of the smallest.

For the last bantam pen, I have a blue male that has a tremendous amount of white, not only in his feathers, but in under color and his legs are white as well. He has really nice type and I want to use him with a darker blue girl (a sister if I can find one) and maybe a black girl. I definitely have a black girl that is a sister and she's a beauty so I'll have to see what I have that is blue that can be put with him.

I only have two bantam splashes. The male and the female that isn't back to laying after her molt yet. I have two "large fowl" splash hens that are so ridiculously small that I am using them in the bantam pens.

For my large fowl pens, I'm working on color and size mostly. I have some birds that look big but really aren't very big at all. I'm kind of perplexed about this though. I am wondering if my birds have too much fluff as you can see their hock joints but just barely. I'm supposed to be able to see them "well below the body line." So I will be keeping mental notes to keep this part of my breeding project strong. I've seen pictures online of other people's birds and their legs appear to be quite a bit longer than what I see in my flock. I have started throwing fermented grains for them into their deep litter to make them work for it. They need a little exercise as I'm thinking they have gotten fat and lazy and maybe that is part of the problem. This next spring/summer along with putting a proper roof onto my barn, I want to dramatically increase the size of their runs so they can actually get out there and run. We have too many stray dogs around here so they cannot "free-range."

I'll keep trying to get pictures of some of my birds and get them posted here. Andalusians are also coming up on the CSU thread and I don't know if anyone else will post pictures but I will be making a strong attempt to do so.