For this reason, I personally think it is better to immediately cull those chicks with more than two white wing primaries as soon as you see the trait popping up....saves you lots of feed....and those hens can still be great layers for somebody else...
Well, last night I checked my 2 black splits and only one of them has the white feathers on 2 of her wings (not the full wing maybe 1/8-1/4 of the wing).
What I am thinking of doing is this, please let me know if this is a good idea or not. Is lock her and the other black up during the day until they lay there eggs and mark who laid what egg. I will incubate a bunch of there eggs and see what ends up happening/hatching in regards to if I get white tips or not. Is this a totally bad idea? Right now I have a limited amount of stock and one of the reasons why I kept that hen. I have also have another Lavender hen that I will probably sell this year too after I know what I have female wise in Lav chicks as one of my hens has a very sloppy tail that I don\'t like. Trying to increase my flock size by hatching a bunch of chicks for this season. I can only work w/ what I got when finances and amount of birds are limited.
When you say cull, do you end up killing the birds at day olds or do you try to find a new non breeding home for them where if the chick ends up being female at least she will be useful for eggs and not breeding purposes? Also, on something like this what would you sell a not up to par day old or older for?
Finally, getting a bit off topic from the original post but as day olds how can you tell what to keep and what to remove from the flock? Anything specific you look for in day olds? Perhaps down color if it\'s a consistent color throughout, what else do you look at in day olds? I know a lot of times it is very hard to tell what they are going to mature into when they are that young. Thus the reason to keep them for a few months until say they are full feathered or a bit older. I know I have a few lavenders that are much darker than some of my other ones. I don\'t like the dark ones and am wondering if there is a way to tell when they are day olds which ones will be darker than the others or is that a sit and wait one too?
Thanks