Show off your Delawares! *PIC HEAVY*

[kathyinmo]

Quote:
They came to me with BRIGHT yellow legs. The breeder uses alot of corn in addition to commercial feed. My Barred Rocks eat the same feed my other layers eat. Their legs are always yellow, but are brighter in winter (when inside alot). I still believe the sun has something to do with this.

 

[bt2000]

Any update as to if the New Hamps are effected or not?

 

[kathyinmo]

Quote:
I am going out to get pictures in a few minutes.

 

[kathyinmo]

First, I have to mention..... I do not know what the accommodations of these birds when before I picked them up..... free ranged, inside, feed?
This is the day I got them, Nov 5, 2010....

Today:

One of the 2 Delaware cockerels returned to me June 12 (with one of my free ranging Dels on the right) ....

today, one of the 2 birds (legs ARE beginning to fade):

 

[bt2000]

Interesting..

I will be interesting to see what changes you get with the different feed and if the "returns" continue to fade.

Has the New Hamp roo faded as well?... I would have expected the hens to now that they're laying.

 

[kathyinmo]

The New Hampshire roosters are penned, and not free ranging for the past 3 weeks. (The girls need a break, ya know) Notice they are in a shaded pen.

 

[bt2000]

Have you changed the feed on all your chickens?..

If so. You may want to try feeding some the feed you were using and see what differences you get, if any, compared to the ones with the new feed. And anything else you may be adding to the feed.

If that doesn't lead to anything, then I would start looking at things in the environment. Specifically soil, considering you aren't letting the Roos out to free range.

 

[kathyinmo]

I just bought the feed yesterday. I really do not have room to divide them and feed them differently. I have 16 pens already. I am using this new feed on all of them.

They free range over a minimum of 2 acres, some travel as far as 3-4 acres during the day. What could possibly be in the soil?

 

[bt2000]

That's what I'm trying to figure out. What all you birds have in common.

At the moment it does seem to be affecting them all.. Even the roos that aren't free ranging with the others.

So at the moment, I guess see if the feed makes a difference. If not, that's when I would start looking for something they all would be exposed to. And the only thing I can think of beyond feed, would be the soil itself, or possibly something growing there also?.. though that would exclude the roos that aren't free ranging.

It will be interesting to find out if it is the feed, how long it takes to effect them.

 

[fowlman01]

Quote:
Thank you for your kind words in an earlier post. Yes, this is a debate and and don't think either of us wrong. I have noticed that posts on BYC are sometimes taken as "gospel" without regard to reading all the posts related to the discussion and making a well informed decision. I was also concerned that some people may throw the baby out with the bathwater. I have always thought that any leg color problems other that white legs was as result of the BR part of the cross in Dels....it may still be, but I had a very interesting discovery today, that brought back some memories. The problem with doing this so long is that we sometimes get into auto pilot and don't make sure that we are really on course. I helped a friend grade a bunch of white Cornish bantams. Cornish should have yellow legs and they did, with one glaring exception. One of the females had green legs. I am talking about green....not green tinged. One side of the shank had the nicest bright yellow you would ever want to see and the other side was green...no other way to describe it. I have seen plenty of BR's with green tinged legs, but I have never seen anything this dark green.

Now this goes back to one of the things we both agree on and that is if you don't know what is really in your bird anything can pop out. I checked his breeding pen and he is only using one male and one female, so we know what two birds produced the green. This was the only one of about 30 one month old chicks. They belong to the fellow I show with, so I know that he has not introduced any new/different blood for 20 years. This is a good example of how far back something can lurk in the background. I asked him to keep it (pullet) so that I can check it again as it matures. This appears to be another sex link related incident...hard to tell as the rest were fine. Generally yellow leg problems show externally in females and not so much if at all in males. The remainder of the cockerels and pullets had perfect yellow leg color. It was filmed by a video crew for a series that will come out next year, so I can't get copies of the film, but I will take pictures of it next time I am over there unless he knocks it on the head before then. It is an unreal green color.

Walt