What does a black BLR Wyandotte look like?

[turbo]

Serious breeders of BLRW should try and keep at least one good black laced roo...I try to breed only blue to blue...to get and keep a consistant blue in my BLRW, however over time that blue can get lighter so I will use a black laced red rooster over my hens to give me a darker blue..

The black laced BLRW tend to have alot of lancing in their feathers which is not a good thing, but the lacing itself is normaly pretty darn good...and the red on a black BLRW is always alot darker than on a GLW...

Many BLRW breeders dont like to use splash BLRW in their breeding pens because blue is what we want and using splash will make the blue a little lighter on her offspring that hatch out blue..

...however everytime someone comes to my house looking for BLRW they always want the splash hens....and i agree they are pretty but not what I am looking for.

 

[Kelpie]

Thank you, Turbo! The color you've achieved in your birds is really nice! What does lancing look like? Is that when the feather shaft is a different color? (just a guess)

 

[Blisschick]

Lancing is where the the lacing has kind of a pointed tip where it meets the shaft, rather than having a nice, rounded edge. If you look at the photo of my girl, on the breast, she has some lancing of the lacing, where on her sides and back, the lacing is more evenly rounded to the contour of the edge of the feather.

You have some very beautiful birds! I'm trying to shoot for that same blue myself. The majority of the original chicks I ended up with were light, with a few darker ones, but the dark ones had double lacing, so I sold them. This is the first year I've had nice dark blue girls to work with, but only two and the black laced one, so they went in with the light roo. I have 12 light girls, all in with a very dark blue roo. I'm really hoping that what blue chicks I get out of them will be the prettier pidgeon blue. I had a nice black laced roo, but he got out of the pen one day without my knowledge and was eaten before I could do anything about it.

 

[pipermark]

Quote:
That hen is one of the best US birds I have seen, congratulations.

 

[turbo]

Thanks for the compliment! That pullet took alot of work to bring into this world.

Good Wyandotte type has been the hardest thing to breed for while keeping the BLRW color...it has been very difficult to get red hackles and not brassy coloring on the saddle feathers and hackles of the roosters...I am getting there slowly. we have been trying to improve them for several years now...hopefully one day they will get there..

I have to admit it drives me crazy when the Germans talk about how much better their BLRW look than the American version....well the Wyandotte is an American bird...not German...so lets get the American BLRW up to standard.

Jerry

 

[Blisschick]

I totally agree. The things I think is holding a lot of progress back is all the poor hatchery birds being cirulated and lack of education on what the ideal BLRW is.

I've been fighting the brassiness since day one. I'm just now getting that problem rooted out after 4 years.

 

[ceadar post]

New to this but could someone explain brassiness? Or show it in a pic. Thanks Mike

 

[Cara]

I thought rose combs were dominant. How would a single combed Wyandotte come about, and how can I prevent it?

 

[Kelpie]

I read somewhere that while not desirable for type, it is important not to cull the odd single that pops up because it adds genetic diversity. I think it's expected in a small % of birds hatched.

 

[blackdotte]

Cara, you can not tell the difference between a pure rosecomb bird R/R and an impure rosecomb bird R/r+ just by looking at them. If you get a single comb bird you know both its parents are impure. Even if you cull every single comb bird you will not get rid of the problem unless you test mate and get rid of all the birds carrying single comb. The reason this problem continues is that when a cock mates a hen she stores his semen internally. The rosecomb fraction dies after about 3 days but the single comb fraction is viable for about 2-3 weeks.
David