Hi everyone!
I haven't posted on here for a while, but in the meantime I've been working (very, very slowly, sigh . . . ) on trying to get some BIG speckled chickens - similar to "Swedish Flower Hens" or imagine Speckled Sussex or Exchequer Leghorns, but in LOTS of neat colors.
Here is the link to the Swedish Spotted Chickens on Feathersite:
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGP/Swede/BRKSwedeSpot.html
OK, admittedly there hasn't been a lot of progress, (it's harder than I thought when I first got into this) but seeing a few bright spots at last, so I thought I'd finally tell folks what I've been up to.
Instead of droning on and on and on here, I built one of those easy "free" websites last night to share pix and info:
http://alohachickens.webs.com/
I was about to totally give up on this idea, when I found this bantam cross hen and a little roo next door just a few months ago. Here's the hen:
She is small, but I'm trying to increase the size, and so far two of the chicks I hatched from her are colorful, and one definately looks like it will be "standard" size with three colors of mottling. (Buff/black/white.)
So, is anyone else on here remotely interested in this sort of thing? A big chicken that is a good layer, but comes in a rainbow of mottled colors?
I'll be sharing eggs and stock with anyone who is interested in developing this idea. Eggs for hatching and chicks/culled adults will all be FREE just for the cost of shipping. (Or free for pick up in the Phoenix, AZ area.)
You just need to have the desire to try and develop this idea, and agree to stick with it for a year or two, then share your hatching eggs/culls with myself and others eventually, if you have any success with it.
In the meantime, I'd try to develop colorful "base stock" to supply to people who want to specialize in developing certain colors, (like blue/white, for example) and increase body size and egg production.
I'd just offer some base stock eggs at first, and I would be happy to share future eggs from hens that show any progress here on my end, to help you along as it goes. It would be up to *you* to decide what color to focus on, and what standard size breed to cross them with. (Buff Orpington? Black Austrolorps? Blue Marans?) So there would be lots of room for creativity and fun!
I have some chicks out of this hen right now, that are FREE to someone in the Phoenix area. I would just like to know if they develop color as they grow or not. Right now it doesn't look like they will be mottled, but if you live in my area, I can give you an extra rooster later on that does show mottling to see if color can be pulled out in the next generation. If the color is recessive, this may work.
Read more about that on the web site . . .
http://alohachickens.webs.com/currentprogress.htm
I'm not an "expert" in chicken genetics, I'm sure many people on here are much, much more knowledgeable than I am about all this. (I do have a good understanding of genetics in general, however, so feel free to "talk nerdy to me" about simple dominants and recessive genes, LOL, I'll probably understand.)
I thought it would be neat to see blue/white speckled, red and white, all kinds of fun colors on a standard size meat/egg "homestead" type chicken body type!
What do you think?
Sommer
I haven't posted on here for a while, but in the meantime I've been working (very, very slowly, sigh . . . ) on trying to get some BIG speckled chickens - similar to "Swedish Flower Hens" or imagine Speckled Sussex or Exchequer Leghorns, but in LOTS of neat colors.
Here is the link to the Swedish Spotted Chickens on Feathersite:
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGP/Swede/BRKSwedeSpot.html
OK, admittedly there hasn't been a lot of progress, (it's harder than I thought when I first got into this) but seeing a few bright spots at last, so I thought I'd finally tell folks what I've been up to.
Instead of droning on and on and on here, I built one of those easy "free" websites last night to share pix and info:
http://alohachickens.webs.com/
I was about to totally give up on this idea, when I found this bantam cross hen and a little roo next door just a few months ago. Here's the hen:
She is small, but I'm trying to increase the size, and so far two of the chicks I hatched from her are colorful, and one definately looks like it will be "standard" size with three colors of mottling. (Buff/black/white.)
So, is anyone else on here remotely interested in this sort of thing? A big chicken that is a good layer, but comes in a rainbow of mottled colors?
I'll be sharing eggs and stock with anyone who is interested in developing this idea. Eggs for hatching and chicks/culled adults will all be FREE just for the cost of shipping. (Or free for pick up in the Phoenix, AZ area.)
You just need to have the desire to try and develop this idea, and agree to stick with it for a year or two, then share your hatching eggs/culls with myself and others eventually, if you have any success with it.
In the meantime, I'd try to develop colorful "base stock" to supply to people who want to specialize in developing certain colors, (like blue/white, for example) and increase body size and egg production.
I'd just offer some base stock eggs at first, and I would be happy to share future eggs from hens that show any progress here on my end, to help you along as it goes. It would be up to *you* to decide what color to focus on, and what standard size breed to cross them with. (Buff Orpington? Black Austrolorps? Blue Marans?) So there would be lots of room for creativity and fun!
I have some chicks out of this hen right now, that are FREE to someone in the Phoenix area. I would just like to know if they develop color as they grow or not. Right now it doesn't look like they will be mottled, but if you live in my area, I can give you an extra rooster later on that does show mottling to see if color can be pulled out in the next generation. If the color is recessive, this may work.
Read more about that on the web site . . .
http://alohachickens.webs.com/currentprogress.htm
I'm not an "expert" in chicken genetics, I'm sure many people on here are much, much more knowledgeable than I am about all this. (I do have a good understanding of genetics in general, however, so feel free to "talk nerdy to me" about simple dominants and recessive genes, LOL, I'll probably understand.)
I thought it would be neat to see blue/white speckled, red and white, all kinds of fun colors on a standard size meat/egg "homestead" type chicken body type!
What do you think?
Sommer
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