Same! When my husband breaks the news that this favorite bird died or that favorite bird I have learned to not even be surprised anymore. One year, I raised a Marans hen that was better than any I ever owned. Big beautiful, glossy black hen with lovely copper hackles and perfect type. I paired her with her sire and when my husband came to me and told me my best hen was dead in the pen I thought he was joking. Yeah that one stung quite a bit. Made me physically ill.
If you are raising them for your own personal use, so far their quality looks great. If you are shooting for show type offspring, its too early to judge their qualities vs flaws.
You’re lucky they are friendly! So far my juveniles have been pretty skittish, but they will follow me around outside because they know I am the bringer of feed. lol
Aww she is really nice!!
I hope I get some nice looking crele hens like that soon. And I love the tail angle on the Brown Leghorn male. Do you have a full pic of him? That cross will be an autosexing cross, and will produce crele males and gold DW females. Hopefully you get a nice single barred crele male out of the pair to mate back to the hen next year.
Too early to tell yet, but they look friendly and healthy!
Yeah, the best bird I ever bred was lost in her first year to a raccoon, she was handpicked, her and some chicks stolen from a broody hen box. Why those birds and no others I will never understand. They weren't even near each other and the raccoon didn't harm the broody Silkie herself. It was while we were moving, too, so I don't know that we hatched any chicks from that yearling hen that year. That's why the pen was so insecure, we had them in cages in an open garage.
She's gorgeous!
Yay!
