TwistedTayy
Songster
Ok so the name isn’t great but like all things, it’s a work in progress. Some background is that I love to do all kinds of things… with a twist. As far as chickens go, I have always been fascinated with Egyptian Fayoumis. Aside from the fact that they are uncommon, they are amazing birds for their disease resistance (which is something I’m sure everyone strives for). My bf and I bought our first house last year and I promptly went out and got all my dream birds. Including 5 fayoumis. They are hatchery quality (though they aren’t in the apa so they are all hatchery quality I guess). I was/am so impressed by them. The roosters started crowing right on time at 5 weeks and the hens started laying at 3.5-4 months. BUT they are not friendly (which isn’t to say they are aggressive), I knew that going in. That being said, even these wildly uncommon birds became common to me and I wanted a project.
The project is to maintain their size (4-6lbs), disease resistance, predator resistance, free range feed conversion and heat tolerance while trying to breed in friendliness and maybe increase egg size. A fun cherry on top would be fibromelanism (more on that later) but it is NOT a priority, neither are bird color or egg color.
For this, I culled one rooster (started with 2 roosters and 3 hens) because he was not up to the fayoumi standard that I could find. And I wound up selling a pair, leaving me with two hens. In the same hatchery order (to meet the minimum) I received 2 mix bantam roosters and 2 MF d’uccle hens. One rooster was a bully and was given away, so the 4 hens and one roo have been living together and I have just hatched out the first fayoumi chicks.
Now the rooster I kept back was just because he was very gentle and I wanted to have some body heat in the coop through winter. But he’s some kind of silkie Cochin mix and is fibro. He has feathered legs (and so do his chicks) which is about the only downside to him so far. Most importantly I was going for toning down the flightiness of the Fayoumi and I’d say that the chicks are much more calm so far. He will be finding a new home becauuuuuuuse…
I also ordered and hatched out some greenfire eggs. I went through the greenfire site looking at all the breeds because they have a decent selection of landrace breeds. This was important to me because landrace breeds have developed their own genetics to make them innately hardier. My top breeds just so happened to be from Sweden so I scooped up a “Sweden country of origin” egg box on eBay. Of that I wound up with:
3 55 flowery hens - they are auto sexing which is nice but they were not a breed I was looking for. Could very well contribute to increasing egg size though and have clean legs.
3 Hedemora - landrace. all have feathered legs but they are all calm and a good mature size. Hopefully with the extreme cold tolerance mixing with extreme heat tolerance we can meet in the middle and wind up with some good f2. One of the chicks is a heavy fibro with silver (lavender? Blue?) feathers that I’m hoping is a rooster.
3 Isbar - not landrace but good temperament. Unsure what I’ll do with that but probably keep back hens.
1 Svarthona - my number one breed choice. Fibro is cool but the size, temperament, LR, clean legs are all what I was looking for to mix with the fayoumi. Will keep whether rooster or hen. If it’s a hen I have a friend with a pure rooster I can trade for.
5 fayoumi X silkie x cochin x something - all very friendly and petite. Curious to see how they grow out.
So that will be my breeding stock until fall when I will be ordering some fresh, unrelated fayoumi to breed back over winter.
I will not be linebreeding or intentionally separating any birds unless I need egg due to predation or losses. I will just let them mingle while using selective culling to adjust the adults/ratios/breeds and reevaluating every 6 months for additions.
I will also not be vaccinating for mareks. This was a difficult choice. Because I want to breed for disease resistance, I don’t want to mask the symptoms and will want to breed only the strongest surviving birds. I do know that it’s a one shot deal though and will vaccinate any birds I hatch after. I also plan on (trying) to remain in contact with anyone who buys birds to see how mine fare if they are exposed.
I’ll update this thread as I go along just to track my own progress but any suggestions/anecdotes are always welcome.
The project is to maintain their size (4-6lbs), disease resistance, predator resistance, free range feed conversion and heat tolerance while trying to breed in friendliness and maybe increase egg size. A fun cherry on top would be fibromelanism (more on that later) but it is NOT a priority, neither are bird color or egg color.
For this, I culled one rooster (started with 2 roosters and 3 hens) because he was not up to the fayoumi standard that I could find. And I wound up selling a pair, leaving me with two hens. In the same hatchery order (to meet the minimum) I received 2 mix bantam roosters and 2 MF d’uccle hens. One rooster was a bully and was given away, so the 4 hens and one roo have been living together and I have just hatched out the first fayoumi chicks.
Now the rooster I kept back was just because he was very gentle and I wanted to have some body heat in the coop through winter. But he’s some kind of silkie Cochin mix and is fibro. He has feathered legs (and so do his chicks) which is about the only downside to him so far. Most importantly I was going for toning down the flightiness of the Fayoumi and I’d say that the chicks are much more calm so far. He will be finding a new home becauuuuuuuse…
I also ordered and hatched out some greenfire eggs. I went through the greenfire site looking at all the breeds because they have a decent selection of landrace breeds. This was important to me because landrace breeds have developed their own genetics to make them innately hardier. My top breeds just so happened to be from Sweden so I scooped up a “Sweden country of origin” egg box on eBay. Of that I wound up with:
3 55 flowery hens - they are auto sexing which is nice but they were not a breed I was looking for. Could very well contribute to increasing egg size though and have clean legs.
3 Hedemora - landrace. all have feathered legs but they are all calm and a good mature size. Hopefully with the extreme cold tolerance mixing with extreme heat tolerance we can meet in the middle and wind up with some good f2. One of the chicks is a heavy fibro with silver (lavender? Blue?) feathers that I’m hoping is a rooster.
3 Isbar - not landrace but good temperament. Unsure what I’ll do with that but probably keep back hens.
1 Svarthona - my number one breed choice. Fibro is cool but the size, temperament, LR, clean legs are all what I was looking for to mix with the fayoumi. Will keep whether rooster or hen. If it’s a hen I have a friend with a pure rooster I can trade for.
5 fayoumi X silkie x cochin x something - all very friendly and petite. Curious to see how they grow out.
So that will be my breeding stock until fall when I will be ordering some fresh, unrelated fayoumi to breed back over winter.
I will not be linebreeding or intentionally separating any birds unless I need egg due to predation or losses. I will just let them mingle while using selective culling to adjust the adults/ratios/breeds and reevaluating every 6 months for additions.
I will also not be vaccinating for mareks. This was a difficult choice. Because I want to breed for disease resistance, I don’t want to mask the symptoms and will want to breed only the strongest surviving birds. I do know that it’s a one shot deal though and will vaccinate any birds I hatch after. I also plan on (trying) to remain in contact with anyone who buys birds to see how mine fare if they are exposed.
I’ll update this thread as I go along just to track my own progress but any suggestions/anecdotes are always welcome.
. Thinking about adding liege fighter to the mix. They are very large but I think it would complement what the end result will be. It would definitely help make them more of a dual purpose chicken. I have a chicken keeper friend who I sold the ganders to that’s willing to trade ducklings for some chicks. Worth a try?
