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

jina and Goose

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! 

First hatchling! Success!

My very first hatchling. This little one sure was determined to get on out and into this world. When he broke open his shell he peeped up a storm. His entire body rocketed out of the shell that only a lone leg was still half in. He had kicked his shell away within 5 minutes... then to much surprise, circumnavigated the entire incubator within 15 minutes (re)organizing every other egg into a jumbled heap. I have been saving various sized boxes over the past 3 weeks and so i put one in the incubator at 45 minutes to get him to settle down so he could rest and the others could develop without issue! Time line: First peeping i heard was at 6ish this morning. seven hours later came the first pip. From pip to hatch was 13 hours almost to the minute. Zipping didn’t occur till right before he kicked his way out!! Let's welcome this little guy/girl with lots of love and cuddles and mealworms :)