the Blackest Ones: on exploring the significance of Cemani mutations

[Animallover606]

Hi your birds are amazing! I just have one question are those birds on the table stuffed or just tied down for examination?? Sorry just crossed my mind.

 

[Svarthona]

Thank you

I love them a lot, not only for how they look but also because they are outstanding broodies and perfect for our climate.
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I don't have much experience with butchering the black ones. Most of them find a new home because they are looking cool lol.
The only one we butchered didn't have black bones and his skin was bright blue.
But I have 9 eggs of a black hen under a broody and plan to do some test butchering this time when they reach kitchen size.

I've always had great hatch results from them, but they free range all day so their diet sure contains a lot of bugs, mice and wood-lemmings

 

[Resolution]

I had read that the Swedish hens came originally from the Dutch and had bright blue skin but it seemed dubious to me. So they truly have blue skin! Very interesting! Lovely birds. What colour eggs do they produce? Does the rooster have a crow similar to typical roosters or different?

 

[Resolution]

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These are specimen skins from a natural history museum. The birds were collected and preserved for science by naturalists during the 17-19th centuries.

 

[Svarthona]

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I am quite sure that the Swedish black hens do not originally come from the Netherlands. It's an old breed which was brought to Sweden/Norway around 1800 by seafarers. It's probably a translation bug that they came from the Netherlands. There seems to be a Dutch text from 1600something describing a similar breed in Mosambique, hence it is assumed that the seafarers got them from there, but it's not actually a Dutch breed. Reference link to a (hideous) google translation of a text from nordensark.se
Purebred Svarthöns are supposed to be "all black" with black skin, legs, beak, comb/wattles, meat and bones and lay light brown eggs.

My birds are just ordinary garden variety mutts and it's totally possible that the small fellow we butchered just didn't have black skin because he was a less melanized mutt. Except two hens laying white eggs, my flock produces slightly off white eggs, but it's closer to white than to light brown.
I found some pictures of the "bluebird" alive:

And *graphic pic disclaimer* that's him kitchen ready in his birthday suit.
I'm doing some test breeding with barred birds atm and there should hatch quite some melanistic non barred birds too... I'll keep the thread updated with the variations of how black they turn out to be.

 

[Resolution]

How cool! Reminds me of the Shetland hens I saw on the Shetland Isles. But they did not have black skin and they laid eggs that were greenish.

The Vikings certainly got around. Where do you think they found the Swedish black bone? Would you mind sending me a few blood feathers? I'd like to add it to a genome mapping project.What we know about Carnosine must surely apply to the Svarthön. What sort of vocalization does the rooster make? Is it like a typical rooster or different?

 

[Resolution]

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fascinating! Did she just hatch randomly or do you keep Tomaru as well?

 

[jocelynpei]

this is a black skinned male, mixed race South American

here is a hen, she is bald so you can see black skin in a living bird

then there are the usual ones, less black in males, still black in females

Jocelyn

 

[chrisf]

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fascinating! Did she just hatch randomly or do you keep Tomaru as well?

Her background hails from Marc King in Italy......he has access to Cemani and others........................................chrisf

 

[Resolution]

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fascinating! Did she just hatch randomly or do you keep Tomaru as well?

Her background hails from Marc King in Italy......he has access to Cemani and others........................................chrisf

He lives in Switzerland as does most of my family. Marc is a fascinating character. I'll assume she has Tomaru in her genetics as he's so involved with Japanese breeds. He's never told me about any Indonesian breeds.