Sumatra Thread!

[flyingmonkeypoop]

I think I might have posted it before but when picking a good cockerel I always go for one that has a tail above the horizontal. A good rooster will have a heavy tail that will weigh it down. If it has a horizontal tail as a cockerel it will have a droopy tail as a cock. Always look for the best bright yellow bottoms as well. Hens should have the spur 'scales' as well, atleast 3. I have seen quite a few inverted combs on hatchery stock. Even as chicks they should have black faces and good sumatras will keep black faces even when kept inside for a few months. Keep an eye on feather width, alot of the sumatras I have seen at local shows have really thin wispy looking feathers, I like to see average wide looking feathers. Make sure they arent too loose. That has got to be one of the things that bugs me the most is the loose feathered sumatras that are showing up all over the place, they are an oriental type and supposed to look more gamey instead of fluffy domestic birds.

 

[gallo4319]

Quote:
I know you have been around sumatras longer than I had.
most of the info I know about sumatras I have rid it from previous posts you have wrote.
I would like to know what do you have to say about hens tail ?
a lot of thanks in advance

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

Hens in my opinion should have a nice fanned out tail. I will try to get pics of some of our better sumatra hens with good tails. The blue bantam I posted doesnt have the best tail, it is low and too close together, the dun hens tail is alittle high when she is excited and slightly pinched. Our black bantam x largefowl has a great tail, it is the right angle but still fanned out

 

[Soli]

Of all the Sumatra I've seen, I prefer Schock's birds.

I had a very hard time finding acceptable stock when I decided I wanted to keep Sumatra. I ordered countless batches of eggs to hatch, and only ended up with six chicks, although they are looking decent. I happened to find a spring hatch trio at a local exotic sale, and thought that they looked better than anything else I could find, so bought them.

Here is the rooster. I first tried to take photos in their pen, but that did not succeed (see following photo) so I made a makeshift leash out of some baling twine, and took him to the (dying) grass for photos in the sun. He is not quite as bulky as he looks as he isn't standing up straight in these. He's contemplating how to get away from the crazy woman with the camera.

And here's what I got in the pen, not so good, eh? But you can see one of the hens a bit.

He has 4 spurs growing on one side, 3 on the other.

Some of the fall hatch blue pullets

The lightest faced chick.

Dark blue. Not sure if this is a cockerel or pullet yet.

 

[peachick]

when I first discovered sumatra I STALKED the Internet for photos of Richards birds.
He was the sumatra king back then. But now, Tom Kernan is the sumatra king (in my opinion).
Tom was at a show near me several years ago.
When I asked if he brought any birds for sale he said no.
But later that day he said if I wanted the blue pair he was exhibiting in the show he'd sell them to me.
OMG i couldn't give him my money fast enough. I felt SO lucky to get a breeding pair from him!!
Since then I chat with Tom every year at that same show. He's bought several of my wheaten ameracauna and now exhibits them.

 

[Henferno]

Agreed, I'm still stalking around for Schock's Sumatras, probably some day I'll shoot him an email if I can find that address again. I'd also wanted to get some eggs from a place on the Internet called "Infinity Heart Farm" but I didn't learn the breeder's name and now the website's down. >_>

Anyway, doesn't it seem to some of you that the splash birds have lighter faces than the others? And my blues always have light eyes! It's very frustrating. My evil splash rooster has solid black eyes, so dark we call them 'dead fish eyes'. LOL.

 

[jeremy]

flyingmonkeypoop, how many generations do you think it would take to bring the Dun birds you have back to standard LF?

 

[peachick]

Quote:
yes the blue and splash both have less pigment, so naturally their faces and legs are not as black. It does make it difficult when choosing breeders.... So as long as you know their parents had dark faces we can still use them.
If you go back a few pages and look at my roos, the splash has a red face, but the blue boy has an excellent dark face, for being blue. And you can see that their black brother has an excellent dark face.

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

Quote:
My mom is Infinity Heart Farm, made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside when I saw it mentioned. Like Ive said in previous posts we mainly just have the bantams now but the dun hen is related to the amazing rooster that used to be on the site, that was Diablo the foundation sire for our LF sumatras we used to have. The more we talk about it, the more we are tempted to gather up some birds from our old stock and start a small flock of LF again.

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

Quote:
Well the hen is LF and Im like 90% sure the cockerel is pure LF dun. If we breed them to bantams the rooster that is planned to be used with her is larger so if you crossed her chicks to a nice large rooster you would have them back to good big birds. Next year we have a tiny bantam cock that will be used with her chicks, hoping that he will balance everything out. My mom loves the look of your platinum cockerel, is he a 'splash' type (splash x khaki) so if bred to black he would throw all dun blue chicks? We might have to cross CocoDiablo the dun cockerel with a blue hen just to try to get the color.