What is a rock Island white? and what will I get when mixed with ??

[karlamaria]

I had the blessed opportunity to get 6 eggs today from a gal as my chicken went broody ( for the 4th time this winter ) and I figured my girl can have some babies if she wants to.

the eggs were fertilized by a rhode island red male, and the female was a rock island white . what the heck is this white bird ( never heard of it before ) and will these two make sex links then? I appreciate you all answering my questions, Im so excited even though I was not going to do any eggs or chickens this year, we are having our pen increased double so we have room for more chickens

 

[Illia]

Sounds like someone's making mutts.

There's no such thing as a Rock Island White, the owner probably got White production birds (hatcheries call them Rhode Island Whites but they aren't) and crossed them with Rocks, then is now crossing back to White prodution layers again.

Or something along those lines, either way, you'll get mutts. Not sex-links though.

 

[hdowden]

Sounds like someone's making mutts.

There's no such thing as a Rock Island White, the owner probably got White production birds (hatcheries call them Rhode Island Whites but they aren't) and crossed them with Rocks, then is now crossing back to White prodution layers again.

Or something along those lines, either way, you'll get mutts. Not sex-links though.

x2

 

[karlamaria]

Wow, ok well I was thinking any white bird mating with a rhode island made sex links, but I'm ok with what ever. Mutts are fine with me, problem is my austrolorp was just finishing up an egg, never saw that be fore and she ate the whole egg. Never even saw a shell! Would not have know unless i marked the eggs and one was missing and the bedding was wet with yolk .looks like freezer camp. the buff sitting on the eggs was off and when I was looking for the egg on the floor, I saw my lorp jump in and try to peck another. This made me so sad

 

[JenellYB]

Yeah, this is real bad, and real sad. I think usually what happens is an egg gets broken accidentally, the hen naturally eats it and learns from there. A really good reason to keep eggs gathered frequently, try to avoid letting lots of eggs build up in the nests, This risk can be worse when there are too few nest boxes, too many hens using them...the more times a hen gets into and out of a nest with eggs in it, the more chances there are for one to get accidentally broken.

Jenell

 

[karlamaria]

My eggs are gathered with in an hour, so we always find our eggs and we have 3 nest boxes to five chickens. There also fed extremely well and have wonderful eggs and nice hard shells. We went back out, found a new egg and she did not touch it. This is the weird part, the eggs she tried to peck, and the one she ate was not ours! She left ours alone, and only those we got this morning from the gal who gave them to put under my girl( 6 of them) im wondering if my Bertie knew they were not our eggs and decided to destroy them? The girl I figured was broodie was not and she got off them and when I did discover the egg gone and yolk mess I figured they knew it was not our eggs, sounds weird but she leaned over my egg( there was 2 in the same nest of ours) to get to the egg I got from a friend .

 

[JenellYB]

Wow! That IS interesting! I think chickens can smell pretty good, maybe they smelled like "strangers". You just might be onto something there!

 

[BlazeJester]

I've heard here on the forums of chickens pecking at colors they don't recognize, ie brown egg layers pecking blue/green eggs, etc.

 

[karlamaria]

My chickens lay brown eggs, these were also brown eggs. I believe now that when the chicken got off the eggs,( the buff ) the lorp got up there smelled a different egg and then began to destroy and eat it. After this a few hours later another Lorp laid and egg, it was not touched . I left it in the coop for 2 hours to see if she indeed was going to eat the egg, she did not.

 

[kari_dawn]

Wow! That IS interesting! I think chickens can smell pretty good, maybe they smelled like "strangers". You just might be onto something there!

birds actually have a terribly poor sense of smell, but make up for it with good eye sight. karlamaria, it may have just been a fluke...I would put up a game cam and see what she does durring the rest of the day. As far as rock island white, it is possible they ment white rock? Do you have pictures of the birds you can post?