The Dorking Breeders thread

[Sydney Acres]

Quote: Your red pullet looks very much like a few of the RD females I received, and they bred out some beautiful red pullets with more golden heads and hackles when bred to a nicely colored red rooster. One however did produce a single colored cockerel when bred to a red rooster (from the same shipment). Your "dark" female looks similar to my "supposed to be red but looks more colored" hens, which produced both red and colored chicks when bred to a red rooster. Your first colored cockerel seems to have almost as much red influences than the F1s that I bred out using a red cock, but with mine the colors did change out somewhat with time, so he may get less red with age (or perhaps more red with age -- hard to predict). The red cockerel and the second colored cockerel are somewhat unusual in their color pattern.

Colored Dorkings are definitely a challenge, and the few sources of them available aren't very good. No doubt that Sandhill has had some merging of reds into their colored flocks, and coloreds into their red flocks. Hopefully Rockashelle can give you some more specific comments on your birds. I know she has been working on colored dorkings for several years, and did get a few from Sandhill a while back, so she's shared your frustrations.

"I've come to believe this must be the most unloved chicken in the Standard." You might be right about that!! Too bad -- they're a fabulous breed.

 

[capayvalleychick]

I'm wondering other people's experience with Colored Dorking. I received 16 from Sand Hill last fall. I've got three, what I consider to be very nice pullets growing. Other pullets have fairly nice type and better size but the coloration is more towards Dark Dorking, one even has a rose comb. I may still use the single comb birds because I suspect the only difference between Colored and Dark is color selection. But the real mystery to me is this: the cockerel coloration varies from straw, to white and even red. The white one could pass for a silver grey. He had some black hackle stripping but so do many silver grey that I've seen. I didn't much care for him for other reasons as well and my neighbor is fattening him up. I'm saving the two straw colored, although one is very dark (as are most of the females) with a scant tail at this early stage. Finally I have a fourth that overall is the best of the bunch. Longer, heavier, not having a scanty tail, but looks like a pure Red Dorking to me. One of the females looks like a Red as well, but her hackle is more black than golden. I've read somewhere that the Colored Dorking is a silver based bird with red modifiers that don't always act consistently. Or, I'm wondering if perhaps a Red Dorking slipped into the box somehow. If that's the case, I don't want to use him. If he's a somewhat extremely modified Colored Dorking I would consider using him for his other fine qualities, and to give a shot of Red to the hens breast.
Any opinions? Is there a sure fire way to tell a Red Dorking from a reddish Colored Dorking?
I do have one Colored cockerel that will for sure be used for breeding. Even if the red cockerel is an extreme example of a Colored, and wouldn't ruin the female appearance, would you use him?
These are only four months old so I have lots of time to ponder the choices.

In my SH Dorkings, there turned out to be a hen who I thought was a Dark Dorking, but may have been Colored. Similar color to your photo of the Dark. Her pullets, when crossed with a Silver male, looked just like her. She and her offspring were sold to someone in OR. I had hung on to her for a while because I liked looking at her.
Many years ago, when I had McMurray SGDs, a cockerel was born that had straw hackles and bricking colored wing markings. I figured he was a cross and culled him.
Another male I had was from another breeder who had purchased from Superior Farms. She had Reds & Silvers. He looked like a Silver Gray, except his hackles were not silvery white but more of a dingy, off white. He did have some hackle striping. He produced reddish colored pullet chicks and males with lots of bricking. He went bye bye, also.
These are reasons why I get so irate about variety crossing.

I am glad to see someone seriously working with the Coloreds. Hope to see you at the shows in the future.

 

[capayvalleychick]

I haven't weighed my trio from Canada. I'm taking one of the pullets to a show, so washed her yesterday. Popped her on the scale, beforehand. 6 pounds 14 oz. @ 9 months!

 

[Sydney Acres]

I haven't weighed my trio from Canada. I'm taking one of the pullets to a show, so washed her yesterday. Popped her on the scale, beforehand. 6 pounds 14 oz. @ 9 months!

Pictures??? Would love to see her.

 

[capayvalleychick]

Pictures??? Would love to see her.

We could not get a photo of her that gives justice to her true shape. She is, in real life, a great example of the rectangular type desired.



She was placed first, out of the two pullets that I entered. My hen, out of my line, was placed BB and one of my line cockerels got RB. I was shocked, since I thought this pullet was clearly of better type. I discussed the placings and my Dorkings with the judge, Tom Roebuck.
I learned so much and wanted to discuss it, but I'm not sure which forum would be best. Plus, I'm not still not happy with them, even though I got so much positive feedback from judges and breeders. This show was an amazing experience.

 

[kimberly35042]

She's so pretty -- I think she looks very typey and look at that breast and tailset all in a pretty grey jacket. You should be very proud. Are you saying she placed over your Canadian bred birds?

 

[kimberly35042]

I have some Red Dorkings that I ordered from Sandhill 2 years ago. Originally I received 13 total, 7 pullet chicks and 6 cockerel chicks. Although they were listed as Reds, two of the hens (now two years old) are more Colored in appearance than Red. This year I did test breedings with the one Red rooster that I kept, mated to the two "Colored" hens and the two best Red hens (the "Colored" hens had the best frame and size, which is why I used them). The best "Colored" hen produced two Colored pullets and 5 Red cockerels, and the second best "Colored" hen produced one Red pullet, one Red cockerel, and one Colored cockerel with reddish saddle feathers. The best Red hen produced two Red pullets, one Red cockerel, and one Colored cockerel with reddish saddle feathers. The other Red hen produced only Red cockerels and pullets. (All four hens were mated to the same Red rooster.)

Sydney, do you have pictures you can share? Were the hens penned separately, or how did you determine which hen laid which egg?
Thanks!
Kim

 

[capayvalleychick]

She's so pretty -- I think she looks very typey and look at that breast and tailset all in a pretty grey jacket. You should be very proud. Are you saying she placed over your Canadian bred birds?

The pullet pictured is one of the trio of Canadian/Dutch Dorkings that I bought from Liz. I expected her to be placed BB, but a hen and cockerel of my own breeding, from my old line, were placed BB & RB.

 

[Sydney Acres]

Quote:
Oh dear, I really need to get my pictures organized and onto the computer where I can share them. Right now the card in my camera has over 3400 photos on it, more than half them are of the chickens, clearly not all masterpieces but I rarely delete any picture that is in focus. I think this project is number 87 on my "to do" list. Maybe I need to move it up.

(Is this the right emoticom for overwhelmed? Not sure about that.)

At the time I collected eggs for hatching last year all 7 hens were free ranging with the one rooster. But the eggs of each hen looked different, and each hen had her own preferred nest site. I only collected eggs on the days I was home so I could verify that the right hen was in the right nest, in addition to only using eggs that were typical for that hen. The hens follow the rooster around like he's a rock star, and only leave his side to eat or lay eggs if he's out ranging around. So on days that I collected eggs, I set a timer to look for him every half hour. If one of the four best hens was missing from the group I then checked her preferred nest. I checked again every half hour until she left the nest, or reached under her to remove the egg if she was lingering too long.

It's a bit labor intensive, but I only collected for a short time and only from four hens, so it wasn't too bad. Since I was doing test hatchings to see what was hiding in their genetics, I needed to be certain, but I wasn't willing to do anything that will eliminate their free ranging. This worked well for this small and short trial.

Once my breeding infrastructure is fully set up, I plan to have 6-8 different one-acre free range areas. A single Dorking pair will occupy each area, along with 5-6 Delaware hens. The Dorking egg will be easily distinguished from the Delaware eggs, so I will have all the advantages of pair mating without the stress of overbreeding on the the single Dorking hen. Alternatively, the hens could remain as a permanent group within each area, and a chosen Dorking cock could be rotated into each selected field as fertile eggs are needed, but all the cocks would otherwise live permanently in a bachelor area. Several management options available and still keep the goals of pair breeding, low stress to the hens, and free ranging. It all depends on the individual birds as to how they'll be happiest.

 

[Sydney Acres]

Quote:
It sounds like you had a great time. And what better place to discuss what you learned than on the Dorking Breeders thread? I'm all ears.

Beautiful pullet!!