The Plymouth Rock Breeders thread

[Wynette]

Scott, I agree with Ken on the pullet with the nice tail spread - I was actually going to say the same thing. I also see improvement in the tails this go-round. And I am G R E E N about those yellow legs...just sayin'....have been for some time, as you know!

 

[Yard full o' rocks]

Lots of great info, by variety, in this book....its OLD but you will recognize a lot of the pictures, illustrations, etc still being used today. You can download it free in PDF format

Breed book

 

[catdaddyfro]

Hey, Jeff - thanks for the feedaback; the problem I found, and I'm guessing PEI Chickens has found this as well, is that there are plain & simply NO silver penciled rock lines out there without the smutty issue. Believe me....if there was a line out there without it, I SURELY would have found it by now. I've been looking for 7+ years, via judge friends, longtime breeders (such as Bob Blosl), "friends of friends" with Plymouth Rocks, even into Canada (I have some lovely PEI chicks & juveniles on my farm now - MANY MANY thanks, Janet!)

I'll have to get some updated pics of my little ones from Janet. I haven't noted the smutty issue as of yet, but honestly, I hatch them & grow them for a few months before I begin looking awfully closely at them.

OH yes I realized this dilemma just as I was reading PIE's post featuring the info from 1915 on breeding SPPRs yes ya'll got a long row to hoe I'd say, (something to do for sure) LOL

goes to show how much I know of the matte at hand, huh? LOL

Jeff

 

[Fred's Hens]

Took some up close photos of a couple of F1 cross chicks today. We were fully aware that this cross would muddy up the barring in F1. Actually, I thought it would be worse than it is. Selection of F1 breeders will not be based primarily on barring, as we will improve that with F2. We just want to maintain type. All three chicks photo'd had the same sire, but different hens were used. My thinking, and comment freely if you believe differently, is that I needed to know the dam for our record keeping and make a judgement, based on the offspring.

These photos feature pullet chick from dam #1

 

[Fred's Hens]

Here' an F1 cockerel. We were a bit disappointed in the cockerels. We may have used the wrong sire. He is one of the uber "light" cocks you can get in these XW/GSBR birds. Since we're not planning on using the cockerels back over their dams, they won't be used in the project for F2 anyway. We'll watch this young fellow for his late juvie moult, and see what, if anything, happens.

 

[Fred's Hens]

The pullet was from hen #3. Her barring, although the photos doesn't help at all, is much better, she has those more classic GSBR "wrinkles" in her feathering. She has fair type, but the tail isn't as good and the legs are very slow to yellow.
Don't like her head as well either. But, there ya go. This is a process of looking through these pullets for the next step in the project. It's far too soon to make any serious decisions. We're just thankful for getting a bunch of good looking pullets to go forward with.

 

[Fred's Hens]

So, right now and it is certainly subject to the ever changing situation, here are the current three best pullets for the F2 breeding.









Frankly, three is enough. We've got until Nov 1 to watch and see if anything changes. They've a fairly major juvie moult coming up and you can't tell a whole lot until after that's over. There is time. I try to just enjoy them at every stage of their growth and development.

 

[cbnovick]

So, right now and it is certainly subject to the ever changing situation, here are the current three best pullets for the F2 breeding.









Frankly, three is enough. We've got until Nov 1 to watch and see if anything changes. They've a fairly major juvie moult coming up and you can't tell a whole lot until after that's over. There is time. I try to just enjoy them at every stage of their growth and development.

Fred, it's nice that you have 3 F1 pullets nice enought to proceed onto the F2 step...will be great to see them in the late Fall.

 

[PEI chicken]

Hi all

Here are pics that I took today of my silver pencilled plymouth rocks. (These are the PEI Chicken ones that are being complimented by Silver Rock in the Plymouth Rock Thread; but really, these are just chickens - and no better than anyone else's chickens.) I lucked into them in 2010. I was looking for barred plymouth rocks and someone directed me to an old gent in Nova Scotia who no longer keeps chickens. When I first talked to him on the phone and asked for heritage barred rocks, he said he had something better. I had never heard of silver pencilled rocks before, so I did look them up and found out that there really were such as thing as silver pencilled PRs. He wanted to sell me 3 breeding pairs. I only had a small chicken coop that I had built (a City Biddy coop) so I knew that 6 chickens (with 3 cocks) wouldn't be for me. I indicated that I would buy 3 pullets and 1 cockerel for the same price as the 3 breeding pairs and he did reluctantly agree. In hindsight, and with what I know now, it was a shame that I didn't take them all. When I picked them up they were about three months old and had been closely penned up and all were missing their tail feathers because of feather picking. I had a happy year with them, but one day (in broad daylight) a fox got all but one hen early in 2011. Poor hen was terrified; but she did have a few fertile eggs which I was able to successfully hatch, and these are her offspring. I feel that the fact that I have any spprs at all is a blessing! They are very friendly and taking care of them is a great hobby for me.

Laying hens looking ragged. They are starting to moult and I removed 3 saddles from bare backs this week. The cock is now penned up in the woodshed.

3 pics of 2013 pullets hatched in mid March and mid April; noted that they are not holding their tails up yet, but I expect that their tails will be beautifully tented by the end of the year.

3 pics of the 2013 cockerels; I will be choosing one of these to keep, as well as keeping the mature cock

Pic of my original hen, Big Bertha and she is happily looking after some chicks.

I'm still looking in the Maritimes for other silver pencilled plymouth rock breeders.

 

[aoxa]

Hi all

Here are pics that I took today of my silver pencilled plymouth rocks. (These are the PEI Chicken ones that are being complimented by Silver Rock in the Plymouth Rock Thread; but really, these are just chickens - and no better than anyone else's chickens.) I lucked into them in 2010. I was looking for barred plymouth rocks and someone directed me to an old gent in Nova Scotia who no longer keeps chickens. When I first talked to him on the phone and asked for heritage barred rocks, he said he had something better. I had never heard of silver pencilled rocks before, so I did look them up and found out that there really were such as thing as silver pencilled PRs. He wanted to sell me 3 breeding pairs. I only had a small chicken coop that I had built (a City Biddy coop) so I knew that 6 chickens (with 3 cocks) wouldn't be for me. I indicated that I would buy 3 pullets and 1 cockerel for the same price as the 3 breeding pairs and he did reluctantly agree. In hindsight, and with what I know now, it was a shame that I didn't take them all. When I picked them up they were about three months old and had been closely penned up and all were missing their tail feathers because of feather picking. I had a happy year with them, but one day (in broad daylight) a fox got all but one hen early in 2011. Poor hen was terrified; but she did have a few fertile eggs which I was able to successfully hatch, and these are her offspring. I feel that the fact that I have any spprs at all is a blessing! They are very friendly and taking care of them is a great hobby for me.

Laying hens looking ragged. They are starting to moult and I removed 3 saddles from bare backs this week. The cock is now penned up in the woodshed.


3 pics of 2013 pullets hatched in mid March and mid April; noted that they are not holding their tails up yet, but I expect that their tails will be beautifully tented by the end of the year.




3 pics of the 2013 cockerels; I will be choosing one of these to keep, as well as keeping the mature cock




Pic of my original hen, Big Bertha and she is happily looking after some chicks.


I'm still looking in the Maritimes for other silver pencilled plymouth rock breeders.

Are you keeping that older cock bird that we saw?