The Dorking Breeders thread

[CGilbert]

I am not sure who told you that. Both Red and Silver Gray Dorkings have the Duckwing pattern. The cuckoo pattern is seen on Dominiques.

Best wishes,
Angela

Is that what it's called. I don't know the names of the patterns. I was taking a stab at it.

 

[CyndiD]

Aww what a sweetie, she was walking so well maybe try her one more day with hobbles and see how she is doing Sunday with out them. Maybe her toes will be okay by then too.

I got home Sunday afternoon and shoes were off, laying in the corner, like he took them off by himself. the hobbles were still on, however. right foot, 2 toes still a little curled, so i taped just the 2 toes in a straight position, and i took off old hobbles and put a fresh one on and put legs a tiny bit closer. will leave the hobbles on for 2 more days, then take off and see how he is doing. the toes, i will keep taped for longer. thanks

 

[CGilbert]

I got home Sunday afternoon and shoes were off, laying in the corner, like he took them off by himself. the hobbles were still on, however. right foot, 2 toes still a little curled, so i taped just the 2 toes in a straight position, and i took off old hobbles and put a fresh one on and put legs a tiny bit closer. will leave the hobbles on for 2 more days, then take off and see how he is doing. the toes, i will keep taped for longer. thanks

Good to hear he's doing a little better

 

[CyndiD]

Good to hear he's doing a little better

thanks Chelsea

he has Attitude

 

[CGilbert]

thanks Chelsea

he has Attitude

Oh my goodness! That is the cutest macho look I've ever seen!

 

[kittydoc]

I think she is a she. she is walking much better in just having the hobbles and shoes on for 12 hours.
how long do you think i should keep them on? I will ck w/t site you gave me...
Thank you sooooo very much for the site. it is a GREAT site. I appreciate you Miss Lydia!!

Hi Cyndi. I don't have Dorkings yet (have been on a wait list for a year with Sand Hill for a couple of silver grays), but regarding your questions...

Hobbles usually need to stay on 2-3 days, occasionally an extra day. If they aren't better by then, they aren't likely to get better. Chick sandals for the feet are the right way to go. I had a malpositioned chick (because my autoturner died and I am apparently a poor substitute for it) that had one foot/leg just smashed against the side of the egg and when I helped it hatch, it has no use of one foot at all. It's about 7-10 days old now and doing much better. I had hobbles on for a few days, then off, now back on since I've gotten the toes pretty well fixed.

If it turns out to be a pullet, we'll just put her in our general layer flock (we sell eggs too), but I wouldn't breed it either. Even though I think it was an incubation issue. Most of the chicks died from that incubation, late in the process. I'd never had it happen before. Now my autoturner is back and my current embryos look good.

If ALL I have to do is use hobbles on a chick that hatched out normal but got run down by a sibling a day or two later, then I don't consider that a defect. The chick I described above is the first I'd ever hatched with curled toes and I know it was from being malpositioned, but in general, if you have multiple foot/leg problems the chick should not be bred even if they wind up perfect with care. Your chick looks like it is doing well with support. I also highly recommend either putting a pinch of powdered vitamin supplement in the chicks' water daily for a while, or giving this one a couple of mini-drops of Poly-Visol without iron. The "without iron" part is important--to much iron is very bad for chicks. Vitamins also seem to help many chicks with bum legs/feet along with the supports.

We used half a Breathe Right strip to make the bottom of chick sandals. I suck at putting them on with Vet Wrap strips! Sometimes we just used the half Breathe Right strip (trimmed a little to fit well) on the bottom, sometimes both top and bottom. I think one on the bottom and a little tape on top is probably best, but it will stay on for a day or two even with just the bottom part stuck to the chick's foot to put the toes in correct position.

Also, if we have a normal hatch, we use a "hospital brooder" for these chicks so they don't get run over by healthy, vigorous chicks, and also so they don't get picked on or bullied. Usually just hobbles (we use stretchable fabric bandaids cut in half lengthwise) you can get away with, but still it's best to have them isolated so they can get their strength back.

 

[kittydoc]

Could some of you do me a huge favor? A small group of us is expecting a group of chicks from Sand Hill, and many are different colors of Dorking. None of us has much of an idea of what they will look like as day old chicks since none of us already have Dorkings. We know they'll have 5 toes (but I know someone ordered another 5-toed breed, too!).

If you have some good photos of what 1-2 day old Silver Gray, Rose Comb Red, and Colored Dorking chicks look like, I would love to see them so we can figure out whose chicks are whose!!!

Thank you all in advance,

 

[CGilbert]

Could some of you do me a huge favor? A small group of us is expecting a group of chicks from Sand Hill, and many are different colors of Dorking. None of us has much of an idea of what they will look like as day old chicks since none of us already have Dorkings. We know they'll have 5 toes (but I know someone ordered another 5-toed breed, too!).

If you have some good photos of what 1-2 day old Silver Gray, Rose Comb Red, and Colored Dorking chicks look like, I would love to see them so we can figure out whose chicks are whose!!!

Thank you all in advance,

Silver Grey Dorking (only had 1, a pullet)








Red Dorkings
Other lines may not be able to be sexed at Day-olds, but these ones definitely were - 2 pullets, and a cockerel


I am getting some coloreds, reds, and whites from Sandhill as well. I expect coloreds and reds to be hard to differentiate. Yesterday was the first possible ship date... it came and went with no phone call. Next expected is 4/26, then 5/10. Good luck to everyone else!

 

[CGilbert]

Silver Grey Dorking (only had 1, a pullet)








Red Dorkings
Other lines may not be able to be sexed at Day-olds, but these ones definitely were - 2 pullets, and a cockerel
I am getting some coloreds, reds, and whites from Sandhill as well. I expect coloreds and reds to be hard to differentiate. Yesterday was the first possible ship date... it came and went with no phone call. Next expected is 4/26, then 5/10. Good luck to everyone else!

Actually, the SG & Reds are hard to tell the difference on too.. Red's have a warm hue to their down, it's barely noticeable, so maybe it won't be so in the Sandhill line.

 

[Sydney Acres]

Could some of you do me a huge favor? A small group of us is expecting a group of chicks from Sand Hill, and many are different colors of Dorking. None of us has much of an idea of what they will look like as day old chicks since none of us already have Dorkings. We know they'll have 5 toes (but I know someone ordered another 5-toed breed, too!).

If you have some good photos of what 1-2 day old Silver Gray, Rose Comb Red, and Colored Dorking chicks look like, I would love to see them so we can figure out whose chicks are whose!!!

Thank you all in advance,

Oh, I've been through that before. Depending on what you've got in your order, it can be quite challenging. Here's some tips for organizing the chicks.

Sandhilll will give you a detailed list of the number of each chick variety sent. Knowing exactly how many of what will help. Many hatcheries don't do that, and you can really get messed up if they send you an extra of something, or are short on something else, and it's a shared order. Be sure to refer to your packing list. Sandhill is a unique "hatchery," in that is has a large number of uncommon/rare breeds, but not that many breeder birds of each variety. So they often have difficulty filling complex orders in the same shipment -- complex being numerous breeds all at the same time. You may have several substitutions that you weren't expecting. Biology is unpredictable, and they do the best they can to stick as close to your order as possible, but they also don't want to hold up your order forever until they can fill a multifactored order perfectly. I once had a large order with them for turkeys and chicks. The turkey order was the variety pack, so no pressure on them with that one. But the chick order had 3 different breeds, and a specific list of desired substitutes for 2 of the breeds, but with a request to not sent the order until the breed without an acceptable substitute was available. Well, their breeder turkeys got almost wiped out by buffalo gnats that year, and the breed where I didn't want a substitution was having problems, but one week it did well. So that week I was sent 13 of my non-substituted breed (I had ordered 10), 10 out of 15 turkeys, 1 out of 10 Buckeye (it's all they had!), none of 5 Specked Sussex, and none of my "acceptable substitutions" were available (I had listed 4 options). So to fill the box, I was sent Barnevelders and Dominiques as free packing peanuts. It was a shared order, and some people were disappointed, but it all ended well. Several people got free birds that ended up being great pets, layers, or dinners. So fair warning, with complex orders you may not get exactly what you ordered, but they will do their best.

Set up a separate tote for each breed when you're sorting them out. Not a separate tote for each person, but for each breed. It will help keep you organized. Put a label on each tote saying which breed it is, and how many chicks should be in it. That will be your "final sort line."

You will ideally have some "preliminary sort lines." These will be a line of totes that are labeled with obvious features. In your case, it would be things like rose comb vs single comb, or 5 toes vs 4 toes. Or depending on how frantic things are, you might be able to combine things more efficiently with rose combed + 5 toes, or single comb + 5 toes, or single comb + 4 toes, etc, depending on what breeds you've got. You should be able to tell rose comb from single comb on day old chicks (although, be aware that some of your RC Reds may have a single comb from SH).

IF all your RC RDs truly have a rose comb, and you have no other 5-toed rose comb chicks expected, those should be easy to sort out. Don't go by color with the SH RD chicks. Sandhill got their RDs originally from Craig Russell. He loves all varieties of RDs, not just the U.S. standard, so their RDs don't all look alike. Some are more like the UK reds (which look almost exactly like the US Colored), some are more "wheaten" in color, some have a lemon modifier, some are the U.S. Standard, etc. (There may be other colors also, but that's just in my group.) The chick down on mine ranged from blond to almost black, all with chipmunk stripes, eye liner, and most with arrowhead markings on their skull.

The SGDs will all likely look different than the CDs, but you may have some overlapping features, depending on the lines.

You might want to contact Sandhill and ask that they mark the chicks in some way so you will be able to tell look-alike chicks apart. A swipe across the head with a green sharpie is how one hatchery marked some of my chicks. It worked quite well. Sandhill is just a family operation, and doesn't have a big customer service department like most hatcheries, so it can take a while to contact them this time of year. If you want this done and there's enough lead time, I would duplicate my efforts with e-mail, snail mail, and voicemail, and let them know that you are trying to reach them via duplicate methods. For SH, snail mail may be the most effective, so don't ignore that option.