The Wyandotte Thread

[WyandotteTX]

I am just going off of my own experience and no I do not always have small matings. I do for bantams just because its easy to keep them contained that way. Large birds I will allow fairly large matings at times.
Like I mentioned before, there is a value to scientific knowledge but without the wisdom of experience it may be irrelevant.
I just go off of my own experiences of talking to long time Wyandotte breeders when I would talk to them about single combs. Their response was always the exact same. GET RID OF THEM NOW! Their logic was, that if you keep just one female bird and you hatch single comb progeny from her then you are only perpetuating a known defect of the breed.
I am not trying to diminish the beauty of your bird, she is a lovely female. BUT, not a Wyandotte in spite of her heritage. If you were to show her at a show they would write in big red letters "DQ" on her cage card. They would cite failure to exhibit qualities of that breed. So you are correct, I would not call her a Wyandotte.
If someone was to try and sell me birds with single comb and they wanted to call them a Wyandotte I would not buy them.
If a Plymouth Rock has a rose comb should we still call it a Plymouth Rock? Probably not.
We will agree to disagree I suppose. And that is perfectly fine with me

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[WyandotteTX]

I will be quiet now also. Dont want the thread to get locked down for no good reason on a Friday afternoon.
Mrs Turbo put it succinctly. We will all do what we think is the best in our own opinion. Like religions, we are never going to "convert" the other believer to our way of thinking.

 

[Duramaxgirl]

So my blrw girls are looking kinda ratty like I said above, 3 have bare backs... its because they are over 'loved' by my roos. I have 7 girls in a pen with 2 roos... I had 3 roos but when I noticed the girls looking poorly I removed one. What is the best way to house breeder chickens? Someone recomended to me that I keep them in trios only meaning 1 roo to 2 hens. What do all you guys do? I was thinking of getting some saddles for the girls. Any sugestions for a newbie? Thanks

 

[Mrs. Turbo]

We had issues with some rooster being too aggressive with breeding and only used them as long as we had to then switched to another rooster. All of our Wyandottes are in breeding pens with 1 rooster to 8-12 hens. Depends on space and what the rooster can cover. The SLWs are in smaller breeding pens. they are our biggest roosters and they do better with less hens. Just how we do things....we change it around if needed.

 

[BooBear]

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Ummm So your saying that my hen below isnt a Pure Wyandotte just cause she has a single comb even though she came from two wyandottes with rose combs and a very well known breeder in the wyandotte chicken world??? Im sorry I dont agree with that statement.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/11721_chickens_june_010.jpg

She is pretty. Looks like a wyadotte that has single comb cross somewhere down the gene pool. Genitics are funny like that.

 

[colby318]

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I bought hen saddles from www.hensaver.com. I like the camo colored ones with double straps.

 

[Duramaxgirl]

Mrs. Turbo :

We had issues with some rooster being too aggressive with breeding and only used them as long as we had to then switched to another rooster. All of our Wyandottes are in breeding pens with 1 rooster to 8-12 hens. Depends on space and what the rooster can cover. The SLWs are in smaller breeding pens. they are our biggest roosters and they do better with less hens. Just how we do things....we change it around if needed.

Ok thanks so maybe I need only 1 rooster on my hens then. They have, I think, plenty of space with a 500 sq ft run and a 5ishx8 coop. So far every egg I've cracked open is fertile.​

 

[Duramaxgirl]

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I bought hen saddles from www.hensaver.com. I like the camo colored ones with double straps.

Thanks I look those up! Do yours slide off at all or do they stay on fairly good?

 

[BlacksheepCardigans]

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If Kathie took her to a show she couldn't compete because she's a splash-laced blue, even before the comb. Your duns and barred couldn't compete either. So does that mean they're not Wyandottes?

A DQ is a DQ - it's a fault. Some of them are functional or production faults, which should (I absolutely agree) be reamed out of a flock with zero sentimentality. And some are cosmetic faults, which don't contribute to the breed as a working animal. Cosmetic faults in a superior functioning animal will always get a pass from me. It's pureBRED, not pureLOOKS. know Kathie's hen (who is absolutely gorgeous in person) and I know that when she was shipped to Kathie from a very good breeder she arrived as a Wyandotte. She's produced some of the rose comb chicks in my brooder right now, who are demonstrably the product of two Wyandottes, not a Wyandotte and a mixed-breed.

Every animal I can think of - barring, I guess, chickens - has an incredibly valuable population of "breeding quality" non-showable individuals. The ones who have the body and brain and pedigree but not the spots or stripes or whatever. Since color (and, in chickens, comb type) can be solved in one generation, whereas the fundamental issues take years to even begin to get consistent, focusing on the fundamentals and making them consistent is what creates a strong breeding population. Making easily solved cosmetic issues your first culling criteria is, I think, not a great idea, unless your definition of success is consistent cosmetics. It's just not mine.

 

[WyandotteTX]

I dont look at it as "cosmetic" traits. They are traits of the breed, bred to a standard decided upon many years ago of what that breed should look like.
As for my Duns. They are a project bird that I do not sell to anyone but they could be shown as Wyandottes because they represent the characteristics of the breed but would be put into All Other Varieties category and ineligible for any awards past the variety level. Meaning they could win best Dun Wyandotte or AOV but could not win best Wyandotte or RCCL etc....