Eight Weeks and Genetics

Nothing quite like the cuteness of these chicks. I have been cross breeding them for a year now. Mabon and her sister are my f1's. mabon is a male orust with a female wells, and sister is a male wels with a female orust. you will see below with opal(f2) she has recessive traits already. Orust, though striking, is subjected to inbreeding, whereas other chickens of Sweden have a larger genetic pool to play with. Photos are surfacing of beautiful black dominated plumage. A contrast from the White dominated that Green Fire Farms has. Hopefully they are able to import a 3 genetic line. Native Swedish Chicken Link or Genetic Diversity of Five Swedish Chickens and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Analysis.

Iggi is heterozygous for the bl dilution gene. Though she has 'black' plumage on her head and neck, the rest of her feathers on her body are significantly more diluted. This is normal to see on a heterozygous bl.

here are the side shots  (not as beaut and dramatic as those above)

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opal

sophie looking a very proper hen

iggi again, bl dilution is seen very nicely

Two weeks old!

HATCH 11/5/16

 Here are the beautiful chicks!

second from left, and far right brown chick were from the same hen. I will single her out for any further hatching's. they had a pretty easy hatch and are a good size.

brown chick f1 + rj is either a

1. e⁺e^b Coco⁺ db⁺db⁺ Pgpg⁺ Mlml⁺ Cha⁺cha Mhmh⁺ di⁺di⁺ Ig⁺Ig⁺ cb⁺cb⁺ i⁺i⁺ Blbl⁺ Lav⁺Lav⁺ C⁺C⁺ Mo⁺mo b⁺b⁺ s⁺s⁺ Choc⁺Choc⁺

2. Ee⁺ Coco⁺ db⁺db⁺ Pgpg⁺ Mlml⁺ Cha⁺cha Mhmh⁺ di⁺di⁺ Ig⁺Ig⁺ cb⁺cb⁺ i⁺i⁺ Blbl⁺ Lav⁺Lav⁺ C⁺C⁺ Mo⁺mo b⁺b⁺ s⁺s⁺ Choc⁺Choc<sup>+

the black and white chicks are either

F1 + goose f2  1.</sup> EE co⁺co⁺ db⁺db⁺ pg⁺pg⁺ Mlml⁺ Cha⁺Cha⁺ mh⁺mh⁺ di⁺di⁺ Ig⁺Ig⁺ cb⁺cb⁺ Ii⁺ bl⁺bl⁺ Lav⁺Lav⁺ C⁺C⁺ momo b⁺b⁺ Ss⁺ Choc⁺Choc<sup>+

2.</sup> EE co⁺co⁺ db⁺db⁺ pg⁺pg⁺ Mlml⁺ Cha⁺Cha⁺ mh⁺mh⁺ di⁺di⁺ Ig⁺Ig⁺ cb⁺cb⁺ i⁺i⁺ bl⁺bl⁺ Lav⁺Lav⁺ C⁺C⁺ Mo⁺mo b⁺b⁺ Ss⁺ Choc⁺Choc<sup>+

not in this hatch.</sup>
dw mo f1 = Ee^b co⁺co⁺ db⁺db⁺ pg⁺pg⁺ Mlml⁺ Cha⁺Cha⁺ mh⁺mh⁺ di⁺di⁺ Ig⁺Ig⁺ cb⁺cb⁺ i⁺i⁺ bl⁺bl⁺ Lav⁺Lav⁺ C⁺C⁺ Mo⁺mo b⁺- s⁺- Choc⁺-
 
^{wellxorsut lt brown} 
orustxwell med brown

jina and Goose

Garden Time

ground cherry

next..a trimming for even height

finished product!

Mintaka

Sadly I lost mintaka in the most vicious Raccoon attack I've had. Two raccoons chewed through my fencing and devoured 10 chickens.   The chicken wire I was using was the typical wounded wire. No longer will I use that stuff.  Now I use hardware cloth. The raccoons do not chew as easily through this. Galvanized Hardware Cloth

He was a great bird. Always herding and guiding the young ones. Would help me get the babies into the coop at night. Definitely in charge but with a sweetness to humans.

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Look below at this beautiful cross between an

Orwell  x Splash Laced Red Wyandotte.

As a chick

...now older...

You can really see the bl dilution now. and so cute the tips of yellow lined with dark on the end of the feathers. Shows the mo gene working!

Stay cool in this heat!

SpotOnFarms

Silver x Splash

Hey all!!! hatchlings have arrived. My first f2 hatchling event! There are seperate breeds that i hatched under one mama hen.

Wyandotte. In short, the way genetics go in poultry, this chick will be silver female, S/- , or S/s+ spilt silver male. (the other spilt/half will be the red splash gene from father which is not phenotyped)

 Here are my other f2 hatchlings. There are orust x welsummer f1 crossed back with the orust or welsummer or with the wyandotte male. I just love love the wyandottes. We can get some extreme winters here and they just seem to know how to stay warm! I never have to worry about frost bite on their combs either. I do not heat my coops in winter (ill just bring them in if its that crazy out) Plus the size of RJ is just amazing. He is so calm and tolerant of kids and adults. Not a aggressive bone in his body. He does stand up for himself but would rather go scratch around the corner or be the last in the coop then to pick a fight with the other roosters. I feel very lucky I am able to free range all three roosters at once without blood shed or death. (in the beginning it was rough. baby steps to get them to house within sight without attacks, and then baby steps policing one male or the other with him in the yard at a time with the hens without attacks. Then all three all together while policing. And a lot of time i left him with the hens and kept my other two males in for the day. This gave him a ego boost and a sense of belonging to the coops and yard)

I know there were more chicks and several unhatched eggs still under mama hen, but she was getting quite frustrated with my intrusiveness so i decided that was enough for one evening. ;)

SpotOnFarm

Little Ones!

The joys of hatching seem to always come with midnight awakenings from the peeping of the new chicks. I may be a bit tired but these two beauties were worth it.
These two hatched fairly close in time which is wonderful! They will be each others best friends for a long time to come!

They are very healthy and actually still seem a bit bottom heavy from the massive yoke absorption. These two eggs barely were able to fit into my X-Large carton.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Spring!


<3  SpotOnFarms

4.21.2016

I know i promised gardening photos in my last post, but the lovely Spring days here on the farm has allowed for some wonderful outings for the chicks.

We have a total of eight! Momma hen June, is doing an excellent job raising them. When they get time out in the yard, June teaches the chicks everything about scratching the grass to get to the dirt!

The last chick to hatch was 2 days after the previous. When I candled everything seemed A-OK but during hatch a different story emerged. Last Thursday (today is the following Thursday) I heard the chick faintly peeping. I was relieved to finally have my last one coming! At this point of 2 weeks after the first hatchling i was ready to put away the the incubator (if you are following the blog you know there were several eggs that I had separated from under momma because of the poop on them. This occurred prior to me giving momma June her own coop to hatch in peace from the other fowl. Now i know to move her earlier. So the messy eggs I had to clean and isolate them. In the end, I had 3 'bad' eggs which were developed chicks but died of an obvious bacterial infection, and oh my goodness were the eggs stinky, no need to candle or crack em open!!!! yuck!, and the rest were a successful hatch. I actually buried them because of the stink.)

Well come the next day, on Friday evening, the sound of the peeping was more intense. I checked and made sure the humidity was good, that she was on a dry paper towel, etc etc. I thought we were ready to go. Well, come Saturday morning and fully expecting the chick to be out I was surprised she was not. And when i peered in to study the egg, I quickly found out why she had not yet hatched. She was upside down and trying to hatch out of the narrow end of the egg! Luckily she was strong and she had cracked a weird round area off. The chicken uses its beak under its tiny right wing to guide it in a circumnavigational pattern to hatch off the blunt end. When the chicks hatch on the short pointy end, they can not turn because there is no room or leverage for them to spin in a circle. And even worse, most chicks die from hatching on the short end because the air sac is usually on the blunt end as well.

Well I scooped her up, walked her to the bathroom and ran my hot water. I adjusted so temp it felt just perfect and let the water pool into the palm of my hand. I slowly pulled the membrane back to open the already cracked area. Well, its all she needed, she popped that shell right off onto my hand. She also stayed seated in the shell! So, I did a quick check that the yolk was fully absorbed, that there was no blood either, I supported her and I quick snapped this beautiful photo.

 

              Last But Not Least

She sure looked happy to be finally out! I don’t blame her!

June and the Eights

I hope everyone is enjoying the early spring. We sure are.

4/9/16 Five chicks and a hen.

Did you say snow? Pretty late season snow came today. Still flurrying as i type. So I seized the moment and went out and took some photographs of the yard. Sure was pretty!

The backyard: a view from the coop.

You can easily guess the age of the chicks by how Yellow their down is. They are born very yellow and loose that colouration within a week. So, from the photograph concerning the two chicks directly in front: The front left is 9 days old. The front right is 4 days old.

backyard beauty! with the temps hovering around 33 degrees, the snow fell very wet and clung to all the branches. Sure did make for an epic photo!

This is my road out front. Sometimes during bad weather I can not even leave my driveway!

I hope you enjoyed my pretty photos! Next up... Gardening!


SpotOnFarm

Meet RJ

Love at first sight.....

RJ is just under a year old. He has a very nice temperament and sure does love to crow. His broad chest allows him to be the loudest he can be. Youll see the pics of him he is alone in the run. I have put him into isolation for a week till we are sure the stress of the move did not stir up any latent or underlying health conditions. Always a good practice to do that with any bird not from your flock. My flock has been considerable healthy. So cross your fingers RJ benefits from the free range and special supplemented diet with VitE and calcium to name a couple.

Just pure beautiful. I can see why the APA has had the wyandotte listed since 1870. What a healthy, plush feathered, and pleasing to the eye bird.

looking out into the yard. he is antsy to get out there and free range!

looking handsome RJ!

love his comb!

Ill be updating very soon! So keep checking for updates!


SpotOnFarm

3/31/16 June's first hatch

What a lovely surprise! I moved June three nights ago to this hutch so that she could be alone to brood. Her coop mates were stressing her out so much and kept laying eggs into her nest. This lead to some dirty pile ups and 14 eggs under her. I currently have 5 of the dirtiest eggs in a brooder in my house. And left 9 under her. Not sure if the dirty 5 will make it, but i wiped the eggs best I could with warm water. For June I now use tiny containers for water and food. I have placed them nearby on a ledge. I made sure she was off layer feed and back onto regular food. I was definitely very nervous to move her since I knew the due dates started tomorrow, and ran till the 7th of April. Moving her at night seemed to be a good trick and she laid right back down on the nest.

Here is June looking all happy! She is no longer as pale as she was last week.

 The best news is, we already have 2 chicks. Here you can see a very healthy one peeping out from his mom. I bugged her three times, and so now ill give her another day till i check under her again. :)

Spring is definitely here! What loveliness to bear witness too. I enjoy having a broody hen far more than an incubator.

Happy Spring! 

Orusts in the snow.

What incredible camouflage! Some nights these birds do not go in to roost, and it takes putting on the flood lights and using a headlamp to find them. Here they are in broad daylight in the bush looking very much so like mottled leaves against the snow!

Here is a pic of them sunbathing best they can!

Enjoy! And we will post soon again! 

Egg comparison and Mabon at 3 months

As I have been crossing the orusts, I have a suspicious the orusts carry the brown egg color gene.