Show off your Delawares! *PIC HEAVY*

[speckledhen]

I have yet to understand why a solid white bird like a white Rock (yuk) or a Leghorn (double yuk) would ever be more popular than a Delaware! Ridiculous!

 

[joletabey]

DOUBLE ridiculous.

Did you all note that Cynthia did NOT address Kathy's idea about me taking Ike to shows. . . . . . .

 

[Yard full o' rocks]

Del babies are winning the race!! A little late (think my bator needs to be tweaked up 1/2 degree) but we have new Del babies here. So far I have a del x buff orp and a del x black rock that are out. All of L'il Bits eggs are pipped, but seem to be taking a break. Hopefully all the "cheeping" going on will get the others to come on out. Will try to post pix but this darn cabinet bator doesn't have the greatest picture window. Once I get "employed" I am getting one of those full acrylic doors you can see thru everywhere.

Headed out to get pix of L'il Bit and Pepper....be back after while

 

[joletabey]

Del babies!

 

[kathyinmo]

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I noticed that! I would venture to guess that Cetawin will have something to say though!

Good luck on the hatch, Scott!

Looking forward to seeing the pictures!

 

[Yard full o' rocks]

Ok Cyn....L'il Bit no longer has ANY black on her beak at all. Color is not really yellow, but not white either, somewhere in between. Pepper's is definitely "yellower" than L'il Bits.

I did notice that Sasha (Gracies full sister), Harley and DOT all have dark streaks on their beaks. My 2 "un-named" girls, the lighter colored ones, have nothing on their beaks at all. I did notice that Sasha, Harley and DOT also have MUCH yellower legs than the two un-named girls if that might make any difference.

Ok, finally, here are 2 pix of L'il Bit and 2 of Pepper. L'il Bit WILL NOT hold still long enough to get a really good picture, sorry.

L'il Bit is VERY dirty today....I think she must have found every muddy spot on the property to play in.

 

[speckledhen]

Pepper looks pretty good there, Scott. L'il Bit has excellent tail black.

Janet added some info for us, in regard to the solid-hackled-looking boy Kathy hatched up there in MA.

I bred George to all the girls in my flock. If he had been heterozygous (one copy of barring gene), he'd have thrown some girls with no barring. He never did. Every female offspring was barred. All of my hens are likewise barred, and in most cases I could trace their lineage back several generations. All male offspring were also barred, except for, apparently, that one weird male. I couldn't believe he wasn't barred, so I held him up in the sunlight, and I could see barring, very faint, but very present in tail and hackle. In my experience, males that are heterozygous have some feathers without even faint barring--just solid. Obviously, George wasn't like that, and neither were his sons, even the odd one.

I don't know exactly why these occasional odd birds look like they do, but it makes sense that birds like George with a lot of black in the tail would occasionally throw a male with way too much black. We don't notice it as much in the girls because we're breeding them for no tail barring and lots of tail black.​

 

[Laney]

That makes sense Cyn. It's good to have someone we can call on for applied genetics. All I have is the research I'm doing so far. Eventually I'll have a few generations under my belt and I'll understand what I'm reading a bit better as it's applied to our beloved Delawares.

They truly are complicated birds because of the combinations of genes that it takes to make them. I think that makes them that much more attractive.

Laney

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

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They'd hatch...and have a wonderful, fun summer on pasture...and then their beautiful combs would freeze off...I can't stand it!

The answer is simply, much better insulated coops next year, especially the Bachelor pad.

As if the cold was not enough of an insult, RATS have moved from the surrounding corn fields into the shed.

Got my peanut butter and plaster of paris and will also try traps of various sorts. With all the coyotes we have, you'd think there wouldn't be any rodents.

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

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and Attitude.

I'd take Ike for attitude alone.