The Island Project

[Lauravonsmurf]

Buckeyes progress

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

Our youngest Naked Neck… she is definitely Na/Na… if one of the eggs hatched out a rooster RIR (really having incubator issues this year so pray with me we get chicks this time… if not I will order more eggs) the plan is improve the RIR stock we have and work towards SOP but also cross breed with the Buckeyes, and the red/buff Naked Necks to improve them. Hopefully get a nice either RIRBuckeyeX male or a nice RIRNNX to then use to keep improving the NNs towards a nicer type in colour, more uniformed leg, ear, beak and eye colour and nicer body. Improving size and egg laying ability would be nice too.

Our other Red NNs
Second youngest, she is not a bad shade,

The oldest “red”

They are from different hatcheries… the oldest girl clearly has additional patterning genes.

The RIR chicks

The second RIR is not as nice as her sister…

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

A RIW and RIR egg hatched…

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

Okay Baby pictures… RIW and RIR chicks next to each other… so far only these 2 have hatched of our RI eggs.

I had my nephew hold this way so you all can see the leg colour difference between them and the hatchery RIW

Note this older chick picture the whites have a more pink leg while the hatched chick has a definite yellow hue…the red is orange

One of the hatchery RIW… look how pale she is. They are beginning to be free ranged with the older birds starting today, so we shall see how that effects hue… but my gut is the birds are white legged. White legs are dominate genes. Yellow legs are recessive… which means our hatchery pullets if white legged could be WW or Ww. (W= white leg gene, w= yellow leg gene). I have also noticed a shading variation in yellow legged chicks, which means some other factors besides diet (diet is important to bring out that yellow) may effect the brightness of the yellow. Birds that start pale yellow as chick then turn white are probably Ww genetically anyway that is my hunch.

The Red Newley hatched

The RIW next to a day older Spitzhauben… note the frame difference is obvious between these two breeds. The Spitz will be a light small framed bird when mature.

A not so good picture of the Spitz and two Ayams… the Ayams are a few days older but I think will be bigger framed birds as well.

We have more eggs in lock down, with all the problems this year we ar3 super jazzed to have just these chicks so far.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

What we have to work with so far… we do have eggs in incubators, but not hopeful on hatching, the rate so far has been super low. Keep in mind breeding can’t happen till birds are mature enough… I broke them into groups based on general size, purpose, frame of birds.

Naked Neck 5 girls
Blue French Marans 3 girls
RIW 3 girls, 1 unknown
RIR 2 girls, 1 unknown
Buckeye 2 girls
Australorp 1 girl
Plymouth Rock 1 girl
Olive Eggers 2 girls
EEs 3 girls

Jersey Giants 2

Saipan 3 boys

Phoenix 2 girls
Ayam/Black Swedish 1 girl, 2 unknown
Egyptians 3 boys 1 girl
Spitzhauben 1 unknown

D’Uccle 1 boy, 1 girl

From this pool I am thinking crossing the NN with the Saipan or if I am super lucky and one or both the RI chicks turn out to be roosters. Right now the Saipan should mature into our largest boys. I can only hope we hatch more RIW and RIR and get at least one good rooster of each. I want to have a small pure pool of each colour… and use them to cross with as well.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

The known boys I have to work with so far…

D’Uccle Bantam

Egyptians

Saipans

Waiting to see how the chicks in brooder mature as far as gender…

 

[CNJ]

Saipans

They remind me of fighting chicken........https://www.cacklehatchery.com/product/saipanjunglefowl/

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

Most likely they are related to Shamo, I don’t know if DNA testing has been done to compare them to other upright “Asil” type birds. The original importer thought they were the hypothetical jungle fowl wild ancestor of “Asil” type fighting birds. He found them running wild on the island. They no longer exist on the island.

 

[CNJ]

Most likely they are related to Shamo, I don’t know if DNA testing has been done to compare them to other upright “Asil” type birds.

They don't look like the feral chickens we have on Oahu. I agree, they are most likely related to Shamo or Asil.