What's wrong with their feathers?

[alicefelldown]

Yep - the illusive Pat in Josephine, TX. I think I've been able to track them down - PM me if you want their contact info. It looks like their 'farm' went out of business, but I think I've located some emails for their new venture. I'm still waiting on a reply confirming before I'm ready to post it openly.

 

[pips&peeps]

Here is a link with some more information about this Pat person in TX from an Ovabid ad. It appears in the picture, that the birds are easter eggers. She also mentions she got birds from a breeder in WA about 5 years ago, which would put that date at 2003, wouldn't have been me.

http://www.ovabid.com/detail.asp?id=2251

And, she was selling some special large sized silkies she bred......

http://www.ovabid.com/detail.asp?id=1737

It's amazing what you can find on the internet!

 

[alicefelldown]

That's interesting.

So in 1996 Pat/Dennis started with McMurray EEs. They have added stock from "private breeders (some of those birds show quality)". How long would it take to breed pure from that kind of start?

The new stock addition listed from 2003, ("a show breeder in Washington state") - might not count genetically for these birds as Anissa purchased the eggs/birds from Pat/Dennis in 2003 as well.

Jean, do you think the "large fowl silkies" played a part without having any of its genetic contributions being noticed until these feathers popped up?

I wish they would reply to email.

Julie was nice enough to send me some feathers from her birds along with the eggs - they are a little ratty but, they aren't 'silkie' like silkie feathers (which another BYC member kindly sent). The bottom part of the feather, above the normal fluff, is like a normal feather. The 'velcro' works fine. Toward the tips, it gets 'stringy' and even has chunks that work normally. I really need to take pictures - but to me, they don't act at all like a normal Silkie chicken's feathers.

 

[pips&peeps]

If you were breeding black and blue into easter eggers, I don't think it would take much more than a couple years to get white skinned, correctly colored birds. McMurray used to have his own private stock of real ameraucanas and did occasionally send out some of them when they shipped their easter eggers.

The show breeder in WA could have been Lisa Cree or Ramona Iwan at that time. I think I still had easter eggers. I think I got my first real ameraucans from Lisa in 2005.

There is no telling if the large fowl silkie they were developing did this until you can determine if the feather is a silkied feather or not. It does seem like a good possibility, when you take look at the photos supplied on those auctions.

 

[tls_ranch]

pips&peeps :

Here is a link with some more information about this Pat person in TX from an Ovabid ad. It appears in the picture, that the birds are easter eggers. She also mentions she got birds from a breeder in WA about 5 years ago, which would put that date at 2003, wouldn't have been me.

http://www.ovabid.com/detail.asp?id=2251

And, she was selling some special large sized silkies she bred......

http://www.ovabid.com/detail.asp?id=1737

It's amazing what you can find on the internet!

If you read the Large silkie auction, the breeder mentions getting new blood. There's also breeder here in Northern California that's working on Large Fowl Silkies. She has some large light skined silkies. Here is a link to the California breeder's web site. Maybe these are related?

http://freestepfarm.com/poultry.htm​

 

[pips&peeps]

Like I said, it's amazing what you can find on the internet.

Some of those pictures just show you that you never know what a cross will turn out like. In two generations she changed the skin color and increased size, by picking which attributes she wanted to keep in the bird.

 

[kathyinmo]

Quote:
Oh, I so agree with you!

 

[kathyinmo]

Quote:
It would be rather insulting, to accuse a breeder of interbreeding, wouldn't it?

 

[Minniechickmama]

I am glad I saw this thread yesterday, and the two birds in the original post are definitely worth propogating. This is obviously a mutation, and a desirable one at that. If there is a way to expand this lineage, that is great. Why do we all think it is necessary to second guess the background on every bird someone posts? I am guilty of playing the game of "guess what breed", but sometimes you just have to admit that it is a mutation, or the bird is a mixes breed or whatever and move on. I can see if someone is selling mutt birds as SQ and causing a stir, but I don't think that is the case here.
So, bottom line, are these breeding true? And where does the breeder go from here?

 

[onthespot]

They are breeding true. Update, the one splash chick I hatched is not having silkied feathers, so I'm on the sidelines for now.