The Wyandotte Thread

[dracoe19]

I have been torn whether this boy is a keeper or not so I thought I would ask everyone here. I only have him and one other cockerel left from last years hatch so I am a bit clingy with them and want an outside opinion. He is about 11 months old. His back is a bit straight and not heart shape like I would like. He also has 2 points at the end of his comb with a deep dip in the middle making a kind of canyon look... Due to the 2 leaders I know I can never show him but want to see if he would be worth breeding and seeing what he throws since combs are easy to correct. Some of the pictures are a bit muted due to fog. The last picture best shows his natural color.

 

[delisha]

I have been torn whether this boy is a keeper or not so I thought I would ask everyone here. I only have him and one other cockerel left from last years hatch so I am a bit clingy with them and want an outside opinion. He is about 11 months old. His back is a bit straight and not heart shape like I would like. He also has 2 points at the end of his comb with a deep dip in the middle making a kind of canyon look... Due to the 2 leaders I know I can never show him but want to see if he would be worth breeding and seeing what he throws since combs are easy to correct. Some of the pictures are a bit muted due to fog. The last picture best shows his natural color.

He is very pretty..nice front. You have beautiful birds. I should say he is really ugly, you should pack him up and send him to me.

 

[forgetful]

Hello all! I will be a first time Wyandotte owner on the 31st, and am embarking on a project. I will be trying to 'start from scratch' with hatchery quality GLWs, and increase health, type, and color until they are as close to standard as possible. It will most definitely be a long term thing. This project, however, has posed me with a question. I've always heard the saying build the barn before you paint it, but where does vigor fit in here? This is the first time I've done this, and I'd like to start off in the correct mindset. Let me give you my plan: I'm starting with five pullets and a cockerel. I'll hatch out everything I can for the first mating year and let them all grow. It may be a hundred birds. Anything with excessive health problems will be culled. Any with extreme deviations from standard will be culled. I then hope to have about ten hens and two cocks from that first generation. Twelve out of a hundred may seem low, but from what I've read extreme culling is the only way to make good progress. ( Only birds with health issues will actually be culled. Those with disqualifications will either be saved for the pot or put with my laying flock. I'm not wasteful.) From there, I'll hatch out as much as I can from the F1s, and while still focusing on health and vigor, start making more culls based on type. I figured I would go on this way until vigor is no longer an issue and type is good. Then I'd start on color.

Where do you guys place vigor according to importance? If you have a hen with great type and color, but poor vigor, what do you do?

Also, does anyone know common problems hatchery stock have? I haven't ordered from a hatchery before, but I know there is no quality as far as standard goes. Do they commonly have health problems? I see a lot of folks treating for split leg and cross beak and such.

Basically what I'm asking is if I'm going astray here or if I'm way off base. I haven't decided what type of breeding system I'll use, but considering my parent generation only has one cockerel, that won't be an issue for a year or two.

 

[delisha]

Hello all! I will be a first time Wyandotte owner on the 31st, and am embarking on a project. I will be trying to 'start from scratch' with hatchery quality GLWs, and increase health, type, and color until they are as close to standard as possible. It will most definitely be a long term thing. This project, however, has posed me with a question. I've always heard the saying build the barn before you paint it, but where does vigor fit in here? This is the first time I've done this, and I'd like to start off in the correct mindset. Let me give you my plan: I'm starting with five pullets and a cockerel. I'll hatch out everything I can for the first mating year and let them all grow. It may be a hundred birds. Anything with excessive health problems will be culled. Any with extreme deviations from standard will be culled. I then hope to have about ten hens and two cocks from that first generation. Twelve out of a hundred may seem low, but from what I've read extreme culling is the only way to make good progress. ( Only birds with health issues will actually be culled. Those with disqualifications will either be saved for the pot or put with my laying flock. I'm not wasteful.) From there, I'll hatch out as much as I can from the F1s, and while still focusing on health and vigor, start making more culls based on type. I figured I would go on this way until vigor is no longer an issue and type is good. Then I'd start on color.

Where do you guys place vigor according to importance? If you have a hen with great type and color, but poor vigor, what do you do?

Also, does anyone know common problems hatchery stock have? I haven't ordered from a hatchery before, but I know there is no quality as far as standard goes. Do they commonly have health problems? I see a lot of folks treating for split leg and cross beak and such.

Basically what I'm asking is if I'm going astray here or if I'm way off base. I haven't decided what type of breeding system I'll use, but considering my parent generation only has one cockerel, that won't be an issue for a year or two.

Just food for thought...and my opinion


It sounds like you have a plan, a very hard plan. A long journey that will take years and years with emotional and financial stress. It costs hundreds of dollars to feed a small flock of birds. ( I winter 30 birds and breed 150 chicks a year and my feed cost was $1137.00 last year(I free range during three seasons and do not feed my free rangers for those three season)You are talking about feeding hundreds of bird that in all probability will not even come close to the SOP for years and possibly never. You are trying to re-invent the wheel. There are many quality breeders with great stock. If you truly want quality birds would it not be in your best interest to invest in two quality quads? You still can breed a hundred chicks in a year, but you will not be culling most. The vigor will be there already if you find breeders who do not over medicate, have natural resistance and have already done the ground work. You save thousands of dollars in the beginning. If you love doing things the hard way and love challenges your plan could work. I guess i am too old to think it would be fun. I get a headache imagining all the work and feed costs.lol. I also admire people who take on those types of challenges, however I also think they do not understand the over whelming difficulty of breeding good quality healthy birds with poor stock.

 

[ocap]

Hello all! I will be a first time Wyandotte owner on the 31st, and am embarking on a project. I will be trying to 'start from scratch' with hatchery quality GLWs, and increase health, type, and color until they are as close to standard as possible. It will most definitely be a long term thing. This project, however, has posed me with a question. I've always heard the saying build the barn before you paint it, but where does vigor fit in here? This is the first time I've done this, and I'd like to start off in the correct mindset. Let me give you my plan: I'm starting with five pullets and a cockerel. I'll hatch out everything I can for the first mating year and let them all grow. It may be a hundred birds. Anything with excessive health problems will be culled. Any with extreme deviations from standard will be culled. I then hope to have about ten hens and two cocks from that first generation. Twelve out of a hundred may seem low, but from what I've read extreme culling is the only way to make good progress. ( Only birds with health issues will actually be culled. Those with disqualifications will either be saved for the pot or put with my laying flock. I'm not wasteful.) From there, I'll hatch out as much as I can from the F1s, and while still focusing on health and vigor, start making more culls based on type. I figured I would go on this way until vigor is no longer an issue and type is good. Then I'd start on color.

Where do you guys place vigor according to importance? If you have a hen with great type and color, but poor vigor, what do you do?

Also, does anyone know common problems hatchery stock have? I haven't ordered from a hatchery before, but I know there is no quality as far as standard goes. Do they commonly have health problems? I see a lot of folks treating for split leg and cross beak and such.

Basically what I'm asking is if I'm going astray here or if I'm way off base. I haven't decided what type of breeding system I'll use, but considering my parent generation only has one cockerel, that won't be an issue for a year or two.

I have two Australorp orders this year, one from a breeder with a remarkable reputation and another from a hatchery, the difference was eye color and I could tell at the end of the first week. The difference in cost of chicks was minimal. Do the best you can in shopping and enjoy whichever path you take. The problem I ended up with was only two pullets and eight cockerels. so.... I have a lot of chicken enchiladas

 

[NestingHillsSC]

I got 6 GLW chicks from a local breeder. ALL COCKERELS!!!

Going to cull down to 3. Now the problem is trying to find some pullets. ANYBODY!!!!!!!

 

[ki4got]

Hello all! I will be a first time Wyandotte owner on the 31st, and am embarking on a project. I will be trying to 'start from scratch' with hatchery quality GLWs, and increase health, type, and color until they are as close to standard as possible. It will most definitely be a long term thing. This project, however, has posed me with a question. I've always heard the saying build the barn before you paint it, but where does vigor fit in here? This is the first time I've done this, and I'd like to start off in the correct mindset. Let me give you my plan: I'm starting with five pullets and a cockerel. I'll hatch out everything I can for the first mating year and let them all grow. It may be a hundred birds. Anything with excessive health problems will be culled. Any with extreme deviations from standard will be culled. I then hope to have about ten hens and two cocks from that first generation. Twelve out of a hundred may seem low, but from what I've read extreme culling is the only way to make good progress. ( Only birds with health issues will actually be culled. Those with disqualifications will either be saved for the pot or put with my laying flock. I'm not wasteful.) From there, I'll hatch out as much as I can from the F1s, and while still focusing on health and vigor, start making more culls based on type. I figured I would go on this way until vigor is no longer an issue and type is good. Then I'd start on color.

Where do you guys place vigor according to importance? If you have a hen with great type and color, but poor vigor, what do you do?

Also, does anyone know common problems hatchery stock have? I haven't ordered from a hatchery before, but I know there is no quality as far as standard goes. Do they commonly have health problems? I see a lot of folks treating for split leg and cross beak and such.

Basically what I'm asking is if I'm going astray here or if I'm way off base. I haven't decided what type of breeding system I'll use, but considering my parent generation only has one cockerel, that won't be an issue for a year or two.

I'll warn you... you can plan and plan and plan, and the birds usually have different ideas of how it all works. LOL

yes, hatching lots and culling hard is always a good idea when striving for the standard.

here's a couple general tips that I never thought of when I first started breeding...
if you haven't already, build your coops ASAP. and build for twice as many birds as you 'think' you'll have.
keep an extra rooster. you never know when you'll lose one, whether to accident disease or predators...

unless you REALLY like a challenge, save yourself years of time effort and money and just start with the best stock you can find and improve upon that line.

in my case, show quality silver grey or red Dorkings don't exist in the us. if there are, I haven't heard about them. so the only readily available sg and reds ARE from hatcheries. There are a few breeders that are selling slightly better stock, but again I wouldn't consider them SQ yet. so in your case, with gold laced 'dottes, you're a few steps ahead of me on that aspect, since SQ stock IS available to work with.

also, don't forget that they're slow growing so in order to determine type, you'll have to keep a number of them for at least 3 months, sometimes more. their full type won't develop probably until closer to 4-5 months IMO. and yes, you 'build the barn' first, but I would personally cull hard also for poor lacing. sometimes the hatcheries produce birds that don't have complete lacing, which means the genetics for the color aren't completely there. so once the lacing is complete, with a nice narrow edge all the way around, THEN you can worry about the type and not worry about losing the color WHILE you work on type. the laced varieties are the only ones i'd say that about typically... since there are 3 different mutations that HAVE to be homozygous for lacing to show properly. otherwise you may have a gorgeous Wyandotte that has incomplete lacing or none at all, which would defeat the purpose of breeding glw up to standard, since you'd then have to incorporate someone that does have the correct lacing pattern but not the type maybe.

 

[Texasmja]

I got 6 GLW chicks from a local breeder. ALL COCKERELS!!!

Going to cull down to 3. Now the problem is trying to find some pullets. ANYBODY!!!!!!!

Breed your best cockerel to a SLW hen and keep all of the pullets. The pullets will be GLW. Dispose of the male chicks they will be splits.

 

[ki4got]

Just food for thought...and my opinion

It sounds like you have a plan, a very hard plan. A long journey that will take years and years with emotional and financial stress. It costs hundreds of dollars to feed a small flock of birds. ( I winter 30 birds and breed 150 chicks a year and my feed cost was $1137.00 last year(I free range during three seasons and do not feed my free rangers for those three season)You are talking about feeding hundreds of bird that in all probability will not even come close to the SOP for years and possibly never. You are trying to re-invent the wheel. There are many quality breeders with great stock. If you truly want quality birds would it not be in your best interest to invest in two quality quads? You still can breed a hundred chicks in a year, but you will not be culling most. The vigor will be there already if you find breeders who do not over medicate, have natural resistance and have already done the ground work. You save thousands of dollars in the beginning. If you love doing things the hard way and love challenges your plan could work. I guess i am too old to think it would be fun. I get a headache imagining all the work and feed costs.lol. I also admire people who take on those types of challenges, however I also think they do not understand the over whelming difficulty of breeding good quality healthy birds with poor stock.

well said. I think I tried to say something very similar.

my mentor told me once, 'it costs less to breed the best' meaning if you start with the best birds you can find, it'll cost you a LOT less in the long run to produce the best you can.

Delisha's right, feed can get expensive. I also free range all my birds as much as possible, year round, but I also do feed them some in the yard, since most of my property is wooded mountainside, not a lot of greenery for them to pick on, except the bushes they hide under when hawks are overhead. but even free ranging 50+ birds year round, i'm still going thru 50 pounds of layer pellets a week, at $15 a bag. (and they still insist CONSTANTLY that they're absolutely starving! even tho none of them are skin and bones LOL) and that's not counting what goes into the breeding pens and chicks. the breeding pens use up probably another bag per week, and the chicks probably 25 pounds a week for feeding 30-50 chicks under 4 weeks old.

I usually buy my grain straight from the feed mill too, so your prices may be more depending on where in the country & such.

 

[ki4got]

I got 6 GLW chicks from a local breeder. ALL COCKERELS!!!

Going to cull down to 3. Now the problem is trying to find some pullets. ANYBODY!!!!!!!

I have 2 growing out, not sure what kind of stock they originated from, they were freebies in some hatching eggs I got... if you're travelling north let me know. 8) only asking $10 each at about 6-8 weeks old.