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Even though buff is a solid color it has it's challenges. The color is very hard to get right. The bird is supposed to be an even color with the buff in the under color and down the shaft. I have found that it is another color that you need to hatch in large quantities.
Cesar, that's a great question, made me think about it for a bit. I've not seen many of the bantams except for the national last year, so take this with a grain of salt. There were really nice birds there, some in larger quantities. The white, black, blue are advanced way beyond the others just like in LF. Buff has come a long way but few people have these, or at least few show them. The fewer colors on a bird the simpler to progress the bird. So solid colors are naturally going to excell, IMO, don't shoot me for saying this. There still can be leakage in blacks and blues. The lavs are coming along but need many more folks working here too.
There was a large class of wheatens and blue wheatens at the national too Several folks are working on these in different parts of the country, but not nearly enough given how nice the color. This color is complicated because of the many colors on the males and a different color balance on the females. This doesn't even take into account the lacing/edging on all blues. The brown red is a great color too. Mike says it's really hard to get the color to balance in very many birds, "lots of wasters" was his term. The silver is a complicated color too. They still have problems with shafting, type and color balance on the males, as well as combs. So I would say silver needs more help. But it is a really nice color too and the egg color in some of the strains is really nice. Now, have I talked you into getting some this year?
Cesar - how much of the Pink do you use? Do you spray it directly on the bird, or just wipe it on with a cloth? Do you spray the entire body, including feet and face, or just the upper parts?
LOL - sorry, I have a lot of questions.
I\'m bumping this back up, because I have yet to find a form of ID I like for growing birds.
Toe-punching will identify a group of birds (pen 1, pen 2) but not individual birds.
I like the butt-end aluminum bands on adults, but they can\'t be applied until the bird is nearly grown.
The NPIP bands break if you look at them - mine were done last month and at least 1/4 have already come off. Plus I test in the fall, so by that point they\'re old enough for permanent bands anyway.
Bandettes break or pull off, and last year the numbers rubbed off of ALL of them in just a few months.
Zip ties work for small hatches but with large numbers it\'s too easy to miss one and have it grow into the leg - not pretty.
Last year I spent a lot of time tattooing, thinking that would solve the problem once and for all, but over time some of the tattoos became unreadable. (Maybe the pen type tattoo kit would work better than the pliers?)
At the moment I\'m writing numbers on the wing-web with a sharpie, but that doesn\'t seem practical for very long.
That brings me to once again considering wing bands, since they can be applied to day-old chicks and supposedly stay on for life. Patty, you mentioned you had a problem with snagging - just wanted to clarify, were those wing bands or wing badges? The badges look really cumbersome, but the bands stick out, too. Has anyone else used wing bands? Do they stay on; do they break; do they get pulled out?
Any other suggestions on how to permanently ID a growing bird? (Or at least last long enough to get a butt-end band on it.)
I know that there are a lot of people working with LF Silvers now. But several folks that used to keep Bantams have stopped for a least a time. I know that Curtis Beck moved from the farm to the city and got rid of everything for a time. Jerry said raccoons have given him significant trouble in his silver pens too. There are several bantam silver flocks here in our area now and these are from the same 2-3 lines. But who in the US is working with this color and which lines are you working with now? I have a couple of lines and would like to see if everyone is having the same issues with specific lines.
There are a few flocks of bantams of any color here in the SE but very few showing on a regular basis. It would be great to see more competition in these classes all around.
Just drop me an email or post here if you have silver bantams now or are interested in bantams of any color. Thanks! drccash@yahoo.com
You may want to check with Jerry DeSmidt, Matt Parker, or Hannah Brush. Those are the only people I know offhand that raise whites (although I'm sure there are more in the Breeders Directory) and I know Jerry sometimes ships adult birds.
Does anybody ever seen a chart like this for Wheaton. I would like to get a project started with them.
Was not the Kippen calculator developed in Europe? Where they have no Ameraucanas? So how would they know? As a matter of fact, short of DNA testing, how would anyone know? I would not place a lot of trust in these on-line calculators once you get past the very basics. I believe there is a lot of guesswork built into them.
Yes I agree. Do you think the calculations are accurate? I mean after you sort of guess what genes your bird has and manually put that in?
I can already tell that how things work out on paper is not always how they work in real life...just with my first generation. Guess that's what makes it so interesting!
