Project Birds

[Mike Gilbert]

I have three bantam pullets available in the Light Brown variety (as in Light Brown Leghorn).   But there is no Leghorn blood in these pullets, just a little Dutch.    I know Jerry Segler bred this color for a time back in the 1970's.    If someone wanted to create a line of these, they could breed them to a Wheaten male (preferably with black hackle striping), and then take the best cockerels back to the same pullets, which would be hens by that time.   So it is basically a two generation project.    I could deliver these to our national meets in either Michigan or Missouri

[Michael Muenks]

Mike, it is ironic that you post this. I have been looking at Light Brown Dutch and Silver Dutch over the last week remembering conversations we had years ago about improving the silver Ameraucana bantams. I will have to think about this project. It is definitely more appealing to my eye than chocolate (no offense intended to any who really like the chocolate color.)

Michael

[Mike Gilbert]

Michael, will you be at both Nationals or just the Southern in Missouri?    If I had no takers I was going to take them to Michigan and put them in the sale area.   But if you are not attending the northern national meet I could save them for you.

[Michael Muenks]

I am definitely going to be at the Southern National. I've toyed with driving up to the Northern National. This will sound terrible, but I have such a list of pre-winter things to get done around the farm that if the weather is nice I think I need to stay home and do those, but if the weather is bad here, I'd drive up. So, I'm going to hold off on committing to attending the Northern National. My pullets and cockerels will not be ready for the Northern National, so it would be a visit trip. I'm in for the the light browns. I do like parti-colored varieties.

Michael

[Mike Gilbert]

Okay, these three pullets are promised to Michael Muenks for delivery to the Southern National around October 30th.

[John W Blehm]

Last year I borrowed a bantam silver Dutch hen from Mike to work on this project...trying to improve our bantam silver Ameraucanas.  I've kept a couple crossbred birds to breed this year.  Mike gave me a silver cockerel this past fall that is part Dutch.  I'm using him over my only silver Ameraucana hen.  She isn't laying very well anymore, but out of 4 eggs all 4 hatched today.  The cockerel has nice color and pattern, but his comb has become very large.  Large almost "single comb" looking combs on bantam silver males has been a big problem. 

[Mike Gilbert]

Good to see!   With that Dutch blood in your rooster, he could very well carry only one copy of the pea comb gene, so in a roundabout way split for single comb.  That would help explain the size increase.   The cockerel I kept (and showed in Missouri) has a nice pea comb, but it turned out he is split for sex-linked gold.  Hopefully yours is not.  On the plus side, I have a good number of Silver chicks out already, even after culling the Light Brown pullets soon after hatching. 

[Michael Muenks]

I put 21 silver/light brown bantam eggs into the incubator Sunday. These are the silver cockerel I got from Mike G. at the Southern National over the light brown pullets from him and the two silver bantam hens I have that are the last of silver bantams I got from Curtis Beck years ago when he had to get out of chickens. I will just hatch away this spring, sort, grow out, and cull from this pen. The old silver hens are producing some eggs, so I'm hopeful that the cross of the two lines is a good one.