Show off your Delawares! *PIC HEAVY*

[Laney]

I'd like to announce that while I was busy being Chicken obsessed about my Hatch. Tootsie, my daughter's new Boer/Pygmy cross goat sneaked one by us. We new she was pregnant, but not her due date due to a silent heat.

Tootsie has been with us for about 7 months as a boarder. My daughter bought her and her sister when the owners could no longer afford them for $50, as long as the owners could keep any kids. (They are a 4H family who can't afford to keep a non-showing goat)

I was awoken to shows of Mom Tootsie is in Labor and got out side to see a baby on the ground. There was Oatmeal (Friends kids got to name their own goat). So forgive a little OT Brag and Pic in this thread and then I'll slink away and talk about Dels again....

Just to stay a little on topic, my Dels were sure that the extra protein provided by the birth sac got recycled and that no other chicken got a share.

Laney

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

Quote:
Whitmore is very easy to work with. I have only had their Dels, so I could not tell you if the are particularly large. I know they put on size much faster than the Welsummers and Sussexs initially.

I had 5 from Whitmore, 3 cockerels, 2 pullets, as part of a flock of 40ish straight-run young birds. We butchered the cockerels at 18 weeks, mainly because I could not get a set up to separate the cockerels from the pullets. It would have been better to keep to 20-24 weeks. {Sigh} live and learn.

One of the cockerels was extremely off type, very narrow and thin and human-aggressive. The other two were heftier, but were extremely rough with the pullets (too many cockerels in the pen for the number of pullets, all the boys were grabbing what they could get) and started to go after the DS a bit (he may have unintentionally provoked them).

The white feathers left a clean carcass, but understand they are not a CornX so the breast is much less developed. Very nice and very dark thighs and drumsticks. We have eaten one, very good.

These are big grass eaters, great foragers. The pullets were flightly, but are becoming friendlier over time. No eggs yet, currently at 20 weeks.

We will be looking to get Del chicks again this spring, might try a different source.

 

[McSpin]

Quote:
To add to that, you may also want to keep a couple and breed back to the parent that has the traits you're looking for. Sometimes great crosses don't give the results you're looking for until the F2 or F3 generation. It could be recessive genes, like Laney mentioned, or it could be a trait that is controlled by multiple genes.

 

[speckledhen]

I just read on a poultry farm's website that these are fairly easy to sex when they hatch, that the males have a black spot on the top of their heads... that is WRONG, wrong, wrong. If that was the case, I'd have had only 2 males from each hatch. The first one was 6 males and 2 females. The second hatch was 9 males and 5 females, with only a couple of black smudges on the heads out of that entire bunch.
I have never had more than one or two with any black on top of their heads in any one hatch. In my experience, it has no significance whatsoever, that I can determine. Certainly, it's not because they're males. Just thought I'd throw that out there, in case someone has told you that.

Think I'll start calling Ike the "Black-White Blur" just like Clark Kent on Smallville being called the Red-Blue Blur, LOL. Isaac never stays still unless his head is in a food bowl!

 

[heritagehabitatfarms]

**The heritage Del boys I got were a GREAT start on working toward a meat bird. All the breeder and hatchery boys too too light to be a starting point with any rapid progress**
so walkswithdog where did you get your heritage Delawares at???

and speckledhen do you know how much Isaac weighs??? he is a very nice looking bird but its hard to tell how big he is from the pics...
thanks Elias

 

[speckledhen]

No, I really don't. Pictures do not do him justice in showing how big he is. If you see the pic with my big blue Orpington rooster crowing, that boy is 14 lbs or so and you can tell that he doesn't dwarf Isaac too much at all.

BTW, I had an opportunity today to see my blue Orp/Buff Brahma cross hen next to the Delware girls and was amazed! Glenda, the Orp/Brahma hen, looks small compared to these chunky Del ladies! I didn't expect that. Glenda is the daughter of my 14 lb blue Orp rooster, Suede.

 

[walkswithdog]

Quote:
They weren't recessive genes, both the hatchery Dels showed quite a LOT of columbian rock - hatchery quality - in themselves. It shows in their offspring - they're white like hatchery columbian rock chicks, they're the size of hatchery rocks. So they produce hatchery rock type progeny. I'm not likely to keep them unless they show better growth later but it doesn't look like it.

That Roo is producing huge youngsters with the better bred girls, and his first son looks to be just huge. It's just funny how obvious it is at this stage.

He is even producing larger chicks than my Partridge Rocks were producing in the third generation up from hatchery, bred to my last 2nd generation hen.

Fortunately he's not the problem, they are.



And I agree with Cyn, those black head spots don't mean a dang thing - except a quick way to tell one from another for a little while.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

Thank you. I guess they will be sticking around a bit longer than I thought. It surprises me how quickly they change. If I hadn't taken pictures I would have thought I imagined the way they were last week.

And thanks for the advice that just because you have good birds doesn't always bring good chicks. I would have wondered who snuck in there when I wasn't looking!

Those Golden Cuckoo Marans are stunning. They have the most beautiful Hackle and saddle feathers. Sigh, maybe next year. I just want to see one of those roosters running around my yard.

 

[McSpin]

Quote:
I thought the cross was to a very large bird? If so, the large-bird traits did not come through because of either recessive genes or multiple genes (in the large bird, not the small one).

 

[Germaine_11.20]

Good Morning. I have a question about this Roo's tail feathers.

This barring is pretty dark. Will it continue to evolve and get stronger? and is it too dark? I am just happy it's there!

Thank you