The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Breeding
Shafting in silvers
John:
I crossed a bantam silver cock over a bantam black hen, that carried lavender, this year. Here is a pic of the 5 pullets, from the cross, that I'm keeping (so far) to breed from next year. As day-old chicks they were black with brown on their heads. They matured with silver (white) leakage, as in the photos. One doesn't show any silver as I recall, but would have to go out and check her out in-hand to know for sure. I expected the F1 chicks to be all black, assuming the bantam blacks were E/E. From the results I now assume the hen was ER/ER or maybe E/ER.
OldChurchEggery:
Hello everybody. I wanted to post a picture of my lonesome silver pullet that I hatched from eggs Russ Blair sent me this spring. She hatched on Easter 2012, so she's 6 1/2 months old and hasn't started laying yet. Let me know if I need to scale down the picture so that it's easier to view. I had just taken her out of her coop and some of the Jersey Giants I have were scratching around below the bin I set her on. She is a little startled, but it's a good shot of her beard and muffs! Does she have too much shafting on her breast? Does this change after an adult moult?
Russ:
I just saw this Erica, haven't been on here in a while. In my opinion she definitely has some shafting issues, probably a little more than I would like to see in my breeder pen. But that doesn't necessarily mean I would cull her either. I also look for some other serious faults in the silvers also like size, cross beaks, wing carriage, color etc. Then try to look for birds that have something I think will bring improvement in the area's I think need it. Wow I got a little off topic, lol I have been working better than 80hrs a week aahh. I hate to say it but the shafting will not get better in that pullet. At that age I would also like to think it will not get much worse either. Usually as they mature the shafting becomes more evident, at 6 mo you usually know how much shafting they will have. As far as laying it seems the silvers take longer to mature than some of the others. Here in Mi I usually do not expect to see eggs from my silver pullets until late winter early spring. Just one more thing to work on with the silvers ;) . I hope this year will be a better one for you with the silver's, you had some horrible mishaps with the coon and all. Hope this helps... Oh yeah one more thing. The shafting on the breast is not what concerns me it is more the shafting I think I see in her tail feathers, back and wings. I would also like to see more stippling like what she has on her secondaries/ wing bay. Just so you know though I have yet to see a Hen/Pullet with NO shafting. I have some with very little and hope to one day see some without any but that day has yet to come.
John:
I really like the part of the photo featuring her head. It shows off her muffs and although she isn't showing off her tail she looks quite nice.
OldChurchEggery:
Thank you, gentlemen! I'm hoping to have a better go this spring with another batch of silvers. The coons here are terrible. I had one Jersey Giant cockerel lose the end joint of a toe because the coons were so tenacious they decided to bite feet through a suspended hutch that had rat wire on the bottom of one side!
She's so very calm that I may end up taking her for "show and tell" at the school where my mother teaches. If she turns out to be a good layer, I might keep her as a back-up breeder in the future but for now she can just be my little ambassador.
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