New d'Uccle Chicks ! ( With a couple of Silkies thrown in. )

 This week we had some more chicks hatch out from the Porcelain hen and Self Blue rooster. Here she is in the food bowl with the chicks under her.

 Here is the chicks father who is a Self Blue Mottled d'Uccle.

 Above is the nest box that the hen hatched the chicks in, which was made using a board and a milk crate. I have found the d'Uccles tend to spend most of  their time off the ground if given the chance, and it seems also that they prefer to nest off the ground. Most of my d'Uccles won't lay eggs or go broody if the nest box is on the ground, so keeping the nest box about two feet off the ground has worked well.

 Here are the seven new chicks, two of which are silkies . The other five are purebred d'Uccles, one of which is a Self Blue Mottled. The fact that this pairing produced both Porcelains and Self Blue Mottleds is still puzzling to me but is probably because of the mix of Porcelain, Mille Fleur and Black Mottled genetics involved. ( To read about the parents' breeding click here * )

 This is the Self Blue Mottled chick from this batch, and the second one out of this pairing.

 Above is the Porcelain hen with all the chicks.

 And here is the rooster and hen guarding the chicks. By Bugs.

New Chicks! of 2015

 Two weeks ago we went to Oregon for a poultry swap to sell the extra doves and chickens we had, on the way back we picked up four Silver Quail d'Anvers that were about 4 weeks old. D'Anvers are one of the breeds used to create the d'Uccle. These chicks will be used to breed a Silver Mille Fleur d'Uccle, which is a rare color in the U.S and since d'Anvers are closely related to the d'Uccles I won't lose a lot of type when I cross the two colors. Above is a Silver Quail rooster. 

 This is one of my Silver Quail d'Anver hens.

 This is the Silver Mille Fleur color I will be trying to breed using the Silver Quail d'Anvers . Photo from www.Feathersite.com

 This is one of the new chicks hatched this week from the Self Blue Mottled rooster and Porcelain hen, this chick is a Self Blue Mottled.

This is a Porcelain chick hatched from my Porcelain rooster and 3/4 Mille Fleur 1/4 Porcelain hen.

D'uccle Breeding Program Update

 Since the last update Ive been busy selecting the chicks I'm going to keep, overall I'm looking for good combs,beards,feet,color and good body shape, so far these chicks have grown into very nice birds.  Above is my 3 color cross which I will be using to try and breed a chocolate colored Mille Fleur.

 This is one of the Mille Fleur roosters that I have chosen to keep for the future Mille breeding pen, he is good in most areas of the breed, with thickly feathered feet , thick beard, good comb and decent color.

 This Mille hen has been shaping up to look a lot like her mom Cookie Dough ,  although her foot feathering isn't as thick as I like she has good shape and a thick beard, I will pair her with a rooster that has thickly feathered feet.

 This is one of a few Porcelain chicks that hatched this year, she has a lot more blue than any of my Porcelain chicks, we will be breeding her to the Self blue Mottled below, what the color will be I'm not sure but my guess is a Self Blue Mottled with some cream lacing?.

 This is a comparison of 3rd and 4th generation Porcelains that shows the feather quality difference, the one on the left is a pure bred Porcelain with typical feather quality, the one on the right is 3/4 Porcelain 1/4 Mille Fleur with a lot of improvement in feather quality.

And this is the Self Blue surprise chick that I didn't expect, which we will be breeding to the porcelain hen above.

Chick update

 Spring is here and I've got lots of chicks hatching out and my other baby poultry growing very quickly so I thought I would update on them to, above are my Bronze turkey poults who are already as big as my bantams and are now outside in their own kennel.

 Here is Colonel Blue one of my Porcelain cockerels who is learning to crow but right now sounds like a  toy.

 Here is Glacier my other Porcelain cockerel who hatched out in January.

 Above are my two Mille Fleur's that hatched out last week and are being raised in a brooder on top of my incubator.

 And here are my new D'uccle chicks who are all pure breds.

Here's another photo of them in their nest with there mom Silver mist , most of them were hatched on the 28th of April the others were hatched out today on the 29th, theirs 4 Mille Fleur's and 1 Porcelain.

New Shed

I thought I would do a post on what I've been doing this week and what's been happening. Above is the shed I finished  to store my supplies and feed.

Above is a photo of the turkeys I just moved outside. They are now fully feathered .

Here are the Porcelain roosters that hatched in January and are already the same size as their mom.

Above are my porcelain hens that hatched in January. Their names are China ,Mist Flower and their mom is Silver Bell.

I've also got a few hens that are incubating eggs Silver Mist's eggs are due the 28th of April and the black hen's eggs are due to hatch any time now.

Below are the two Mille Fleur's my other hen hatched out.

Porcelain chicks growing quickly

 I though I would do a  post on how fast my new Porcelain chicks are growing .  Above is my porcelain rooster Glacier who is turning out to be a nice show quality bird which is good because I originally hatched out some Porcelains to get a rooster.

 This is Polar my other Porcelain rooster who isn't as nice as Glacier because his comb has one to many points.

 This is Mist flower my Porcelain hen who I might give to my sister as a show  bird.

 And this is China my hen named after China Porcelain dining ware which is how the Porcelain color got its name.  Ive also been studying some of there color genetics and the Porcelain color can be created crossing a Self Blue  and a Mille Fleur this gene is called the lavender gene and turns black to silvery blue and buff or orange to cream which is why they have a cream base color and silver barring with white dots.

This is one of the chicks at two weeks old, right now the chicks are 5 weeks old.

And this is when one of the chicks were just fluff balls and only a few days old.

New Porcelain chicks

 This week I had some new chicks hatch and I thought I would do a short post on them, above is my breeding flock which has 1 Porcelain rooster and 4 Porcelain hens, and when I ordered 5 from a hatchery I got lucky and ended up with 1 rooster and 4 hens.

 Here is Silver Bell the hen that incubated the eggs, and here's two of the four Porcelain chicks, the other two were probably under the hen.

 Here is the 2 chicks learning to eat and drink.

The chicks personality's are a lot like there parents they love eating shredded pieces of grass from my hand , the other thing is they are very friendly and don't run away when I pet or hold them, which the parents also love eating grass from my hand and are all very friendly.

Incubation

 

 First to start incubating you must have a rooster in order for the eggs to be fertile , then gather some eggs , you can store eggs at 55 degrees for up to ten days in order to set all the eggs at the same time and so all eggs hatch around the same time, if you put eggs under a hen at different times all the eggs might not get incubated long enough to hatch, above is whats called natural incubation this is a brooding black Austrolorp.

 Hatching eggs in an incubator is called artificial incubation, it takes 21 days for a chick to hatch, on the 20th day the chick gets so squished that it breaks a little hole in the egg where it gets its first breath of air then rests for 3 to 8 hours then chips around the shell then pops out exhausted.

 Above is two chicks that hatched early , chicks also need special feed such as chick starter because foods such as lay ration have extra calcium that can seriously damage their kidneys.

 This is a Black Mottled d'uccle that hatched on time.

 This is the early Porcelain chick from above.

 This is the same chick from above at about 2 months old, below is his dad at the same age, chicks get fully feathered at 4-6 weeks cockerels learn to crow at 6-8 weeks and pullets start laying at20-24 weeks.

This is Platinum at 2-3 months old compare to how much he looks like his son,