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.

Exciting Blues ! (Self-Blue Mottled Rooster & Porcelain Hen )

Last year I hatched two d'uccles that I don't typically get out of my breeding pens.  The first color is a Self Blue Mottled d'uccle who has some gold leakage in his neck hackles.  Some of the other blue colors are, Blue, Self Blue and Blue mottled.  The Blue color is a mixture of blue and black, the Self Blue color is a solid gray blue. This color is also referred  to as Lavender. Then there are the Mottled versions of the Blue and Self Blue colors, which are the same as the colors above but have white spots throughout their body.

In this photo you can see the cream-gold leakage in his neck hackles. This most likely comes from the Mille Fleur in his background. Typically Self Blue Mottleds don't have this leakage. His parents are a Mille fleur and Black Mottled & both of the parents are half porcelain which is where he gets the lavender color gene. The lavender gene is a simple recessive gene that turns red or buff to cream, and black to light blue or lavender. His brother didn't get as much of the lavender gene and is therefore black with red leakage.

     A view of his wing.

And this is the Porcelain hen, one who stood out from the rest of my Porcelain chicks that I hatched last year. She has more blue and brighter, more defined color than my other porcelains. She is 1/4 Mille Fleur and 3/4 Porcelain. By crossing my Mille Fleurs with the Porcelains I was able to get better feather quality and color with my porcelains, this is where the hen got the brighter color.

So far these birds have been shaping up well and I'm very pleased with how they've turned out. We plan on breeding them soon. My guess is the chicks will look like the father. I have done a Porcelain Self Blue cross before and got Self Blue chicks from the pairing, however the lavender color carries a lethal gene and when I did this cross only one chick lived. Since both of these birds carry Mille genetics there is probably less of a chance of the lethal gene happening.

We're ( Granny Baa & myself )pretty excited to see chicks from this pair and expecting some exciting blues !  ~By Bugs.