Predation plain old sucks. Sorry for your losses, Chris. And the worst of it is, the scoundrels always have impeccable taste and go for the best birds…or maybe they read the SOP now too. heh
Anyway, I’m glad to hear you are keeping on with the project, (and everyone else too) because I think the blue silvers are stunning to behold!
In fact, I’m excited because I may have inadvertently made some (or the means to make some) when I bred a silver cock over two splash hens. One of my original objectives was to make blue S/- based pullets, from which the best would be chosen to bring sex linked silver over to my blue/splash families, as well as improve overall feather quality in the line. The pure silver birds I have all have superior feathers to my other stock, and I’m pleased to see the F1 generation are already showing much better feather width/strength than their parents. One of the splash hens I used has somewhat brittle feathers, (she often looks ratty around the edges) but man, does she ever throw pullets with nice shape. If only they'd all gotten her tail too...Ah well. Rome wasn't built in a day.
The blue silver splits in the picture below are the splash hen's daughters. They range in age from 9 weeks up to 12 weeks. They still have a lot of growing to do, but a couple are looking promising.
I love the silvery sheen to their feathers
I didn’t plan on getting hooked on silvers, but somehow they’ve become one of my favorite varieties over the last year. Add blue... beautiful, elusive blue; a colour so lovely when clean and even, yet so hard to achieve and maintain. Well, it just doesn’t get much better than that.
I’m in.
