D'uccle Chick Update

Last time I wrote about the new chicks and some of the different colors that hatched, in this post I will be updating on the chicks growth.  Above is one of my Mille Fleur hens, as far as color she is a little brighter than my past Mille hens and has thicker shape, although her foot feathering isn't as thick as I would like.

Above is the chipmunk patterned chick which still has the stripes on her back and dot on her head, she has also developed a lot of pattern at an early age, below is a close up of the wing patterning.

Now this chick is unique compared to the rest, it has a completely different feather type then the rest, it almost looks like the chick is wet,  the feathers are similar to frizzled but not curly , it will be interesting to see how this chick turns out.

This is one of the Porcelain chicks, the Porcelain chicks from this batch are similar to my other batches but have brighter color and better feather quality.

This is my Self blue Mottled chick, one of two colors to come from my black mottled hen.

And this is my Blue Mottled with red leakage , the difference between the Blue and Self blue Mottled is self Blue is all one color, Blue Mottled is black with splotches of blue and in this case with some red leakage, both colors having white spots.  This rooster is turning out to be pretty nice bird and with genetics from all three of my lines there is a lot of potential for this chick. By Bugs

My Black Mottled D'uccle Project

 In this post I will be writing about how my Black Mottled breeding project is going , as I wrote in my post Black Mottleds a challenging color, breeding Mottleds has been a challenge , mainly focusing on getting good pattern, above is Domino my Black Mottled pullet.

Above are my two black roosters.

This is my black rooster that I will be culling because of the red lacing, the reason red lacing popped up is  because I bred his mom with a Porcelain and since Porcelains came from Mille Fleur's and are basically Mille Fleur's with the delude gene red leakage commonly happens if you cross these two colors together.

This is my hen Milkshake who I used for this project because she has good type for the color, on occasion you will get a blue Mottled which is blue with black lacing and white spots, out of my 3 black chicks only the one above has red leakage the other two are a good quality pair.

This is my rooster Platinum who is the Father of the chicks above I crossed him with the black hen to experiment because I heard that if you breed these two colors together you get a blue mottled with red leakage, the part about red leakage is right but didn't happen to all of my chicks just 1 , as for getting blue mottleds out of these colors I'm not sure.

This is Oreo who I was using for breeding but since he has disqualifications and defects which are squirrel tail and to many complete white feathers he would pass them on as seen in the chick below, there's nothing wrong with them except you can't show them, one way I can tell if their good quality or not is the chicks like the one below grow up to look like Oreo and solid black chicks with a little white are worth keeping , some of you might also be wondering if its cross breeding and that it going off the breed the answer is no  I'm crossing two colors of the breed not two breeds and as long as the bird meets the color and breed requirements  it can be showed.

Raising roosters with chicks

 If you're going to raise roosters with chicks you first want to start with a good rooster. This is my rooster Crimsons (above) first time with chicks and is handling it very well and has a good Personality for being raised with chicks , He guards the chicks from dogs me and even my turkey even though the turkey and me aren't trying to harm them, yet he is kind to the chicks and does every thing except keep them warm, if you are going to raise chicks in with your flock I suggest raising only broody hens in the pen as hens that aren't brooding will seriously injure or kill the small chicks.

Above is another photo of Crimson (Left) Cookie Dough (center) and Fluffy( Right) Their are 7 Chicks total 3 Mille Fleur's & 4 Porcelains hatched on June 18th  most of which will be for sale.

How to Tell Different Colored d'uccles Apart

 Above is a Porcelain chick. It is a pale blue and cream color. Note~ all pure- bred d'uccle chicks have a beard feathered legs and a single comb.

 Above is my porcelain rooster  Platinum ,who is the father of the chick above. This is an example of what a Porcelain will grow to look like.

 Here are two Mille Fleur d'uccles chicks. They are orange and black or orange and gray. Note the beard feathered  legs and single comb.

 Here is my Mille Fleur rooster, Crimson. He is the father of the chicks above. He is a good example of an adult Mille Fleur.

 Above is a Black Mottled d'uccle chick. They can be the color above or solid black with a little white .

 Here is my Black- Mottled hen, the mother of the chick above. Black- Mottled adults are solid black with white dots. You can read more about the color in another post I did called Black- Mottleds, a challenging color.

 Here are a pair of white d'uccles that I used to have. The chicks are a white or pale yellow. I've found that by one month old you can sex d'uccle chicks and pretty much get guaranteed results. Roosters have a taller bright red comb and taller tails, hens have short pale orange or pink combs. If you would like to sex them earlier you should get  the book 'Sexing All Fowl' from the library or a  hatchery. So far I've had 100% success  from the sexing methods , as far as
I know My pet chicken is the only hatchery that sells sexed bantams so its a good skill to have .

Above are a Golden Neck and Self -Blue d'uccle .As chicks these colors can get mixed up with Mille Fleur's and Porcelains. Golden-Necks  are solid orange as chicks and self- blues are solid light blue.

 Above is a diagram of 6 of the 10 standard colors , colors not shown here are Porcelain, Gray , Buff, and Blue, Self blue pullet below. by Bugs.

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.