Sub-tropical chooks - picture heavy

[cwrite]

You're welcome, and it certainly does take some trawling for info, doesn't it! I'm still working on learning all this myself, looks complicated even for the experts, especially when dominant /recessive designations don't necessarily apply to all cases and multiple genes can have the same effects and some are only guessed at then passed around like truth, and others long-believed are now in contention, and so forth...

I wonder, do lavender-and-whatever-other-color birds have the same issues? I read it's just pure lavender, which means perhaps a breeding program to incorporate other colors, or just buying birds of mixed lavender and other colors, would solve the poor size and poor feathering issues. I'm not a fan of solid colored birds myself, but lacing would sway me, lol.

Best wishes.

From what I've read so far it's just the lavender Ara's that have feather fretting and size problems. It's a relatively new colour and from what I understand the lavender recessive gene was introduced from other breeds that were lavender. The size issue comes from bantams being used by some to introduce the colour and the fretting comes with the colour gene itself. Apparently breeding with balck ara's is the best way to improve feather quality and culling for size I guess.

After taking 6 boys off to a farm this morning I am left with three cream/lavender pullets and two lavenders - Dotty and Baby. The late hatcher, Baby, still has a pullets body shape but is very red around her face and I'm sure I heard a hoarse crow just after I returned from dropping the boys off. I'm not doing such a long trip for one chook so am keeping a close eye on them as the Caboolture market sometimes take them and it is on tomorrow. I don't want to be stuck with 4am crowing for a week!

I'm almost in a position to enjoy the wait for my first blue egg.

The lavender colour is very pretty, but I know what you mean about solids. Next on my list are Welsummers. At least with those I won't have to worry about so many genetic problems, but a challenge also keeps things interesting. : )

 

[ChickyChickens]

Great photos. You must have been pretty close? I tried to get some when a couple visited us but even with my long lens couldn't get as clear as those!

X2!! Very good pics!!! What birds are those??

 

[K Spot]

X2!! Very good pics!!! What birds are those??

They are Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoos

@cwrite I'm also going to take my Ara pair to the Caboolture markets if they don't sell soon.

 

[cwrite]

K Spot I missed the market yesterday as we were doing yard work trying to repair a large area of lawn that has nasty grass growing on it that takes over and the chickens won't eat.

Today I was treated to a full flapping wings crowing attempt by Baby. Now I have to wait a whole week until I can get there again.

It's amazing how fast he 'grew up' as soon as the bigger boys were removed. It's a pretty clear example of what you said about a mature rooster suppressing the younger ones Chooks4life.

I'm going to scrutinise Dotty before I go to the market so that I don't have the same thing happen with 'her.' She has the triangle hump in her tail that I've noticed my hens have so I'm still a bit hopeful that she's a girl. I don't know what it's called & I've never seen it mentioned, but all my hens have a thick triangular base to their tail and then a narrower spray of feathers coming out the end. The three cream chicks I think are pullets have this as well. I'll try to get a photo so people can know what I'm going on about.

Anyway, I've ended up with some pretty cream and grey girls with large crests, but no muffs or beards. It will be interesting to see what colour eggs they lay in another 3 months.

 

[K Spot]

I may give mine a week or so here before I take them, will all depend on if they sell, which I really don't hold high hopes of happening.

I know what you're on about when you mention the triangle shape Cwrite. My BSL girls have the same.

 

[cwrite]

I don't even have an add up for Baby boy. Compared to the bog boys that no one wanted I can't imagine he will do better. Anyway, aside from a honk early this morning, Baby seems to have settled down and hasn't taken up crowing. It looks like we won't have too much of a noise problem until Sunday. I wonder if the hens put him in his place. They seem to be reclaiming their space since the flock of chicks halved.

I'm having trouble finding a good day to deworm. It's either really hot or raining. Today is 32C at the moment and 71% humidity and yesterday the humidity was in the low 80's. I broke a sweat just calling them into the run & moving their water.

I don't think it will be a good idea to worm when it's so hot and humid, but maybe it will encourage them to drink more. When it's raining I'm convinced they will find other sources of water and not drink the medicated water so it won't be effective. Hmm... I'm really not sure which is better, or the least worst option.

 

[chooks4life]

I'm in the same basket as you lately, either it's too hot or it's raining nonstop. :/

Finally got some 'animal chores' done today but man, it was baking! I'd forgotten about that sort of heat where even objects in the shade can melt or burn at the touch and the roads are partially liquid.

Good luck with rehoming your little fellow. Never too many openings for a permanent home for a male, unfortunately. Luckily for him he's a semi-uncommon color and type, it seems fairly popular around Australia at the moment. Problem is it's the season for the glut of unwanted males to hit the market, so he's got plenty of competition, but if you hang in there you should be able to rehome him somewhere not immediately fatal. Small comfort perhaps.

I had one male that only crowed a few times in his life, only when all the other boys were locked away for the day as I was selling some, but he was let loose, being a special needs chook and a pet besides, so not for sale. He remained silent for all his other years, but when the other boys were gone he cranked out a few crows, lol. Next day they were out again and he was silent again. Your description of your little cockerel flapping and trying to crow does indeed sound like he feels 'embiggened' by the other boys' absence, lol, certainly sounds very exuberant.

Best wishes.

 

[cwrite]

Happy New Year to everyone reading!

@chooks4life I had managed to convince myself that going to market was not going to be immediately fatal.

Oh well, there are a few people that take roosters, but none closer than an hours drive. We might make an outing of it and take him to a farm along the way. He's certainly not a frequent crower, but he slept in the spare bedroom (in a box) just for last night so the neighbours could sleep in on New Year's day just in case and of course Snowy outdid herself at 6am. I'm fairly sure she woke the entire suburb.

What breeds of chickens do you keep?


In other chicken news, Dotty has been renamed Sprinkles and is still looking like a pullet. When I went to collect the little roo after midnight she was right in between the big girls on their roost and they seemed fine with that. : )

 

[chooks4life]

I don't keep almost any purebreds these days, I prefer mongrels/mutts. I have had purebreds of a few types over the years. Out of all of them I still have a Light Sussex hen whose purity I doubt (she has some red feathers) and I've had Black Australorps, Langshan, White Leghorns, Yokohama, Silkies, Araucana and derivatives, Buff Orps, IsaBrowns (not really a breed but whatever), Colored Leghorns, and a bunch of others. I vastly prefer mixed breeds though, the more mixed the better, really mongrelized randoms are my favorite. Even quarterbreds are too close to homogenicity/homogeneity for my liking. Purebreds are terribly overrated in my opinion. Not that there aren't some great ones, because there surely are, just that there's too much hype about them overall, making all purebreds out to be reliable and refined and improved, when really many are merely pretty but useless.

Despite what so many people (almost always with zero experience with mongrels) say, you can and do get decent or even great productivity out of mongrels. They're generally dual purpose and temperament is generally better than with purebreds, as well as general disease/parasite resistance and overall hardiness. Feed efficiency is great in my more mongrelized chooks and poorer in those genetically closer to the much-lauded 'super efficient' commercial breeds which I've found to be anything but efficient as regards feed intake to meat or egg conversion ratios.

Compared to more valuable purebreds, mongrels tend to get less excuses made for bad traits, being likelier to be culled for negative traits since they're kept for function more than anything else, and they are also more commonly allowed a more natural lifestyle and social environment than purebreds (which are likelier to be caged due to value and need to keep them pure). The often somewhat more neglectful rearing of mongrels tends to make them tougher too. There's usually some degree of consistent and unforgiving pressure on them (as well as a more natural environment and rearing method, usually), assisting in holding them to higher standards than more valuable purebreds in many ways, not counting show type obviously. A weakly purebred with perfect type is far more likely to be bred on than a weakly mongrel. Purebreds generally disappoint me, there's very few I think are worth keeping. I love landraces and ferals, too.

The variety of rare breed genetics that are out there including very obscure and unusual breeds is astonishing. I've seen Sumatra in QLD, which many people believe isn't in Australia, and other breeds too which never arrived legally. Plenty of illegal importation has occurred, and plenty of legal importations went unrecorded or just had the records lost. (Apparently Sumatra did arrive legally many decades ago, but the information is obscure and no records have been kept that enable tracing of them, but for a time they were shown in poultry shows in QLD or NSW, I forget which. Anyway most people don't believe we have them here).

In my experience from buying up random mongrels from many regions of QLD over the years, you mostly find the rarest genetics in mongrelized flocks where someone's clearly just let rare breeds mix willy nilly for dozens of generations. I guess illegal importing does come with the caveat that you're unlikely to be able to build a support group that understands the risks of the situation, and has the resources and interest, to sufficiently to be able to carry on your projects in the event of your demise, and illegal importers are probably often involved in other illegal activities too which makes it harder for them. (I'm not pro-illegal importing, just to clarify, I just wonder at the reasons why so many rare genetic lines have been let to mongrelize, and I think that's one potential reason).

My flock regularly churns out carbon copies of some extremely rare breeds (which aren't pure, obviously, but which could pass for it). It's amazing what a mixed chook can hide in its genetics. I like the guessing and experimenting and variability. For an education on genetics interacting, I reckon you can't go past mongrels, even if you like purebreds I think you'd benefit educationally from keeping a flock of complete randoms as well, the more mixed the better. Homogenous/purebred chooks have little to teach the newbie in terms of watching genetics at play.

Some of the more random places I've gotten some very interesting genetics include hard drug dealers --- in answering their local paper ad for chooks for sale, I found they had some absolutely fascinating genetics mingling in their flocks, including mongrels of the same appearance as the finest Silver Grey Dorkings, that put official breeders' efforts to shame --- I ended up going back to their place a few times to get more chooks from them, lol. Other places I've found interesting genetics include hobby farmers that could recognize very few breeds and had no idea what they had in their pens. Best Sebright female I've ever seen belonged to a retired train driver with no interest in the almost sparrow sized little hen, she lived in with his turkey toms, laying the tiniest little eggs all over the cage floor.

Best wishes.

 

[ChickyChickens]

Awesome!!! Had some reading to do on here