Show me pictures of your mixed breeds

[Tstraub]

Here is my only mix breed. he is the only survivor from my first time hatching eggs. I got the eggs from a friend that wasn’t intending to breed them so he didn’t pair up any specific birds for breeding so I can’t say positively what his parents were. But he hatched from a light brown egg. Mother could have been ISA brown, barred rock, or EE without the blue gene. Father was either leghorn or EE. My best guess based on all possible parents and the way he looks it that the cross is leghorn x ISA brown.

 

[Gigachad poultry]

Sounds very close to my own goals. A large dual purpose breed that is sustainable, produces its own replacements, can withstand cold temperatures, heat, and a certain level of predator pressure. I am introducing the rose comb for cold tolerance. All of my starting breeds are large bodied foragers, most of them go broody and make good mothers. All are either patterned or dark solid for predator evasion. Several are known to lay in winter. I chose BA and RIR for early maturity and egg laying.

That's really cool! I forgot to mention that I want these guys to almost be as broody as silkies. Darcy was actually hatched from a broody hen! I hope that at least 2 in every 3 hens will go broody at least once a year! Sense they are so big they should hopefully be able to hatch tons of chicks! I've noticed their incubation takes at least 22 days before hatching but it's usually 23-24 days! Darcy hatched on day 24 and my newest chick hatched day 23! Although the others hatched day 20-21!

 

[Gigachad poultry]

Here is the chick I just hatched!

I also hatched another one with the resesive white gene from the Light Sussex dad!

 

[LaurenRitz]

Here is the chick I just hatched!
View attachment 3647480
I also hatched another one with the resesive white gene from the Light Sussex dad!
View attachment 3647481

This is my first year with this group. I'm hoping to initially have two breeding groups and switch roosters every year. More groups would be better.

 

[LaurenRitz]

The two older birds will jump between her and any danger (usually me) and sleep on top of her at night, presumably to keep her warm.

Case in point.

I went over to take a picture of the 2nd, they herded the baby into a corner and stand guard.

I can see the RIR coloring starting to come out

 

[fluffycrow]

This is my first year with this group. I'm hoping to initially have two breeding groups and switch roosters every year. More groups would be better.

Be careful with that. You said that you want good free rangers. If by switching roosters you mean moving them from one pen to another then there is less of a problem, but getting an entirely new one every year can be. Hens can take awhile to warm up to a new male, which leaves you with even less time to evaluate how good your male is at completing his free ranging duties (hence why even switching between two males can be iffy). Even worse is an entirely new male. You'll have to wait till they're FULLY mature to evaluate them, so at 1 year old. Waiting 2 years in between two males will be better

 

[Gigachad poultry]

This is my first year with this group. I'm hoping to initially have two breeding groups and switch roosters every year. More groups would be better.

I plan on inbreeding mine in sibling groups for the first 4 generations. At the end of that time I will know if I'm staying at my current house or if I have to move. That way I know if I need to build more coops/breeding pens or if I need to wait until I'm done moving. After I've figured that out I will make the same cross again and add in the new genetics from crosses if the same breeds. I will continue to switch out different unrelated roosters until generation 7-8 and then I should definitely be breeding them true and to the standard I've made for the breed. After that I will try to get my new breed recognized! Then I will try to spread it everywhere throughout Europe and hopefully into the US!

 

[Gigachad poultry]

Be careful with that. You said that you want good free rangers. If by switching roosters you mean moving them from one pen to another then there is less of a problem, but getting an entirely new one every year can be. Hens can take awhile to warm up to a new male, which leaves you with even less time to evaluate how good your male is at completing his free ranging duties (hence why even switching between two males can be iffy). Even worse is an entirely new male. You'll have to wait till they're FULLY mature to evaluate them, so at 1 year old. Waiting 2 years in between two males will be better

I plan on doing two unrelated batches of the same cross, that way I can pick roosters and hens from each to add to the pullets from the previous hatch (generation 4-5) the new pullets/cockerels with only be a few months behind and they will grow up with the others so I won't see as big as a problem imo.

 

[LaurenRitz]

Be careful with that. You said that you want good free rangers. If by switching roosters you mean moving them from one pen to another then there is less of a problem, but getting an entirely new one every year can be. Hens can take awhile to warm up to a new male, which leaves you with even less time to evaluate how good your male is at completing his free ranging duties (hence why even switching between two males can be iffy). Even worse is an entirely new male. You'll have to wait till they're FULLY mature to evaluate them, so at 1 year old. Waiting 2 years in between two males will be better

Thanks. Would you suggest mob breeding instead, and just cull the worst? That was a possibility during the planning stages. I thought doing two different groups would speed up the mixing.

 

[Gigachad poultry]

One of my biggest goals to breeding true is getting completely rid of the resesive white gene from the Light Sussex side, and making the straw lacing a constant characteristic! I will only use birds up to the standard I've made for them