Progeny from heroic rooster

[Mother of Chaos]

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The four JGs have been sleeping on the roosting bars with the adults. They are the second to come out of the coop after Ares (and sometimes another rooster), before any of the hens or pullets.

Speaking of "pullets", I noticed that Arthur's daughters are already bigger than their mothers. I'm not sure if that's a general Delaware thing or due to Arthur's size, or due to them being hybrids, or from all of these factors.

A note about the appearance of the pullets that resulted from DE rooster X Buff Orpington hen is that the black patterns around their necks were most visible before they reached full size. At their current age of 6 months, those patterns have faded into a somewhat less impressive gray, kind of like it was drawn with a pencil and lazily crossed over with an eraser once. For reference, here's a picture of a hen where it's barely possible to see what I mean:

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Hanging one of the waterers by the outside roosting bars lets hens drink when they want to avoid roosters. I won't say things have been perfect with 6 maturing cockerels, but by now they've all calmed down a lot. Some hens have lost feathers due to mating, they all appear to be growing back new ones now.

Ares has been and continues to be a perfect rooster. He's the one walking on the ground in the first image.

Love the elevated waterer! Even for those without cockerels and roosters, it's got to help keep the water cleaner and also simplify refills.

 

[sakerobot]

It really does help to keep the water cleaner when it's elevated, much less debris accumulation.

Today we had a few hours of free ranging in the evening. Here's some of Arthur's progeny doing something we haven't done since we lost him, along with all of the recently noted additions to the flock:

 

[sakerobot]

We finally opened up the new coop a few days ago, and closed the small coop. As a result, 4 pullets joined the adult coop (two Colombian Wyandottes and two Arctic Blue Eggers), and 18 pullets went into the new roomier coop. For now, all of the adults keep staying in the original adult coop.

There will be some interesting breeding options in the spring.

The roosters have been less and less chaotic, and they have been tending to the pullets for a while by offering them food and by usually not pinching (looking at Apollo). Especially the lower ranked roosters have been developing a repertoire, and the pullets can start mating and laying eggs any day.

 

[sakerobot]

Love the elevated waterer! Even for those without cockerels and roosters, it's got to help keep the water cleaner and also simplify refills.

And to follow up on this, after months of having it up there - it's about a thousand times cleaner than when it was hanging at ground level. The maintenance is also significantly easier. Even algae seems uninterested.

 

[sakerobot]

Today marks the day that the first egg in the new coop's new nesting box was laid. It was christened by one of Arthur's two BR daughters:

A few weeks ago, while browsing our local store's chicken offerings, I noticed they had Dominiques. We discussed how they would be a very interesting breed to add, and then I lamented in despair because it's not feasible for us to add any young chicks at this point. "Perhaps next year," we invariably concluded.

In the earlier July 22nd forum post, I had announced bringing in four "BR pullets". Yesterday while walking around the yard and looking at the perched birds, we noticed that one of the young "BR" combs didn't quite look like a single comb.

When I had originally went to get them, the posting for that day was of "hatchery choice brown egg layers", and the breeds weren't actually specified. When I approached the arrival pen, the other birds were Naked Necks and something red which I wasn't sure about. Some of their upper backs looked short of feathers, and one of them was an enlarged dinosaur that kept picking on the other reds by violently pecking at their backs. I was hoping for some Orpingtons but didn't see any. And there were familiar black and white stripes, so when my turn to pick came I grunted "give me four Barred Rocks", and four striped birds were then made to be mine in exchange for some coin.

Here are some pictures I managed to take at closing time:

At first we thought one was a Dominique or some kind of hybrid, but it kind of looks like they're all developing what might turn out to be rose combs. And regarding the barring, are we understanding the Stripes vs V shapes correctly?

Here's one of the suspected Dominiques inside the new coop as I type this:

The cold hardiness feature is a trait we consider advantageous in our NH zone 5B climate. From reading about various rooster problems others have had, it seems that we don't have any "bad" roosters at all - our biggest issues were with their maturing phases. All of them are very gentlemanly to the hens and the maturing pullets, with the exception of the "pinch" which is also reducing in frequency. So I actually want to say that we have no bad roosters.

I'm wondering if to keep this thread tied strictly to Arthur and his progeny lines as those developments happen, or if to use it for our entire flock, since any of the new hens can be candidates of carrying on the genes. The former path is more scientific, but the latter could be more interesting, but could also risk being redundant. Any input from those of you who have been following this thread on this would be valuable.

 

[NatJ]

I'm wondering if to keep this thread tied strictly to Arthur and his progeny lines as those developments happen, or if to use it for our entire flock, since any of the new hens can be candidates of carrying on the genes. The former path is more scientific, but the latter could be more interesting, but could also risk being redundant. Any input from those of you who have been following this thread on this would be valuable.

I have a slight preference for everything being in this one thread, rather than skipping some things or splitting among two or more threads. One thing that affects my preference: this thread is in the section "Pictures and Stories of My Flock." It is still a story of your flock, with a particular beginning point. Threads in some other areas work better if they stay more strictly limited to the original topic, especially for things like emergencies or breed/sex identifications.

But I don't see it as a big deal either way.

If you do start another thread, please include a link so anyone interested can find the new one easily.

 

[sakerobot]

Good point about this being in the "stories of our flocks" section, so I'll gladly continue here.

I managed to get some decent pictures of the four Barred pullets for closer examination:

(Behind them are two Arctic Blue Eggers)
Out of the three in that picture, the one closest to the camera is the only one that seems to have a straight comb. We'll call her Pullet 1:

(To her left is a Partridge Chantecler, to the right a Buff Brahma)
As far as I can tell, her comb looks completely like a standard single comb on a BR.

Here's Pullet 2:

(Buff Chantecler behind her)
Hers seems to be a rose comb, the smallest (so far) of the 3 with this comb type.

This is Pullet 3:

(With a Blue Olive Egger)
Her comb is the medium of the three.

And finally, Pullet 4

(Between a Partridge Chantecler and a Blue Olive Egger)
Hers is by far the most developed comb of them all, she was the first one we noticed having such a comb.

Some things to wonder:

- Is P1 a BR and the other three Dominiques? The store's hatchery has sold both before, but the BRs are more common.

- Is there any difference in the barring between P1 and P4? I've googled for the differences but I'm not sure I understand what to look for on a hen.

- Can any of them be hybrids?

- Can Dominiques grow single combs on occasion? I saw this claimed in a hatchery's user comments, but it seemed anecdotal.

- Can these be some other breed altogether?

 

[NatJ]

- Can Dominiques grow single combs on occasion? I saw this claimed in a hatchery's user comments, but it seemed anecdotal.

Yes.

Any rose comb breed can have some birds carrying the gene for single comb but without showing it because single comb is recessive. If two birds that carry single comb are mated together, they will produce some chicks with single combs.

That makes it very difficult for anyone, hatchery or breeder, to get a flock of chickens that really do breed true for rose comb. It is possible, but often not worth the effort.

- Can these be some other breed altogether?

That is always a possibility.

Dominiques should lay brown eggs. If your birds lay other colors, especially if they lay blue or green, then they would be some other breed or mix.

But if they do lay brown eggs, then I think they most likely are Dominiques.

Traits of your birds that are right for Dominique:
black with white barring
dual-purpose body shape
rose comb (or occasional single comb)
yellow skin on the feet
red earlobes
brown eggs (assuming they do lay brown eggs)

 

[sakerobot]

Today, we were honored with our first pullet egg from the last batch. The first official layer was one of the Dominiques, probably "P4" from the earlier pictures.

The marked egg is a training egg, her egg is by the back wall:

Meanwhile, the adults are molting, including at least half of Arthur's daughters. We've been only getting at most 3 eggs per day for the last couple weeks. Until today, this was the 4th egg.

Last year the molting didn't start until late December, so it's great that they started in October this time. The hens who had lost all feathers on their backs from the young rooster phase have recovered their dignity.