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Aspen

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Posts posted by Aspen


  1. I have also noticed that OB males take longer to get their solid breast feathers than the normal blacks.  Any idea why?  I have chicks from September that are only now almost coloured in.  Still not totally there.


  2. Thanks to you both.  

    Andyn - what do you mean "the dummy egg method"?  I have dummy eggs to try to stop them from laying but haven't used them when I am trying to get chicks.

    Jeff, which bird do you trim - male or female?  Any hints on how to do this?


  3. Two of the pairs I set up produced non-fertile eggs - a first for me.  Two sisters about a year old that haven't been bred before, both with experienced males.  My question is - should I remove the nest for now and then put it back in after a while, and if so, how long?  Or should I just leave the nests in place (eggs have been removed) and hope they try again?  Thanks.

     


  4. Thanks for the answer, Trevor.  I thought that CFW would have chestnut cheeks and flanks unless they were full BC.  This guy is grey flanked.  Am I totally out to lunch on this?

    This clutch had fawn hens, a CFW hen and these two CFW males.  I wouldn't think it is possible for him to be a fawn CFW from these two birds.  Here's my thinking - The male looks NG but carries both fawn and CFW.  For this male to be fawn CFW, then he would have had to get the fawn gene from his father as well as the CFW and if that were the case the father would be fawn.  Is this correct thinking or not?  


  5. The brother in the top picture is definitely pied - something which both surprised and disappointed me.  NOT what I wanted!!  But I don't think the second one - the one in question - is.  He has very pale grey flanking, not white like his brother, and his cheek patches streak back and are not cut off/missing like his brothers.  I am attaching the best picture I have of his tail.  Hope this helps someone help me!

    tail.JPG


  6. I bred a what looked like CFW female to a black cheek male.  No history on either bird.  The chicks hatched in September.  I got three fawn females, one pied, one CFW female and these two CFW males, one of which is also pied.  My question is for the non-pied male.  He has zebra striping on his breast, but no solid color there.  He has light grey flanking with white dots.  His beak appears to be red like the other male - who I know for sure sings.  (They are in a cage with 9 males so it is hard to catch this one singing for sure.)  The sister CFW to these two has no zebra stripings on her breast and she has the darker feathers on her head typical of a lot of poorly marked CFWs (like her mother).  Neither of these two had the darker head markings as chicks.

    Questions - Is this a male for sure?  If not, why the breast and flank markings?  If so, why is there no solid chest marking?  If this is a split to BC male, why are there no chestnut cheek patches and sides?  Might this be a poor full BC CFW?  (The hen has a very thick tear.) Does anyone have other ideas on what might be in this bird?

    Thanks

    CFW split bc and CFW pied split bc.JPG

    CFW split bc male 1.JPG

    CFW split bc male 2.JPG

    CFW split bc male 3.JPG

    father.JPG

    mother.JPG


  7. Following up here.  Don't think they are continental as the tail has very pale stripes.  I notice I didn't mention that the male was Black Cheek split to CFW and fawn, or at least he must be based on his chicks.

    The one male is pied so he only has the breast striping half way and no real cheek patches - so I'll put that to pied.  But the other one has breast striping, still has the black smudging on the cheeks - no orange - and the sides are a faint grey with the white dots.  His beak looks red like the other males he is with, not orange like a female's.  He is in a large cage so is difficult to catch for pictures but I can try in a couple days if no one has any ideas for me as to what is going on here.  I'm very confused...


  8. I have my first clutch with CFWs.  They are over a week older than a clutch with fawns and normals.  The normal and fawn males have their chestnut sides and cheek patching coming in well - very obvious.  The CFWs I thought were females - no color coming at all yet.  Then I noticed a couple of striped chest feathers and I caught one of them trying to sing.  Question - to CFWs normally color up a lot more slowly than other mutations?


  9. I have had people look at my pictures and say fawn but when I knew it was a grey in real life, so there is a similarity.  But this girl (she has to be a girl if she is LB in this case) looks different than her brothers for sure, but is also grey.


  10. Thanks for the info.  Glad to hear from someone who has had them.

     

    I'm really thinking this is a lightback female chick.  She is different than her brothers - lighter (silver looking) on top and quite white underneath - where she is clean.  The nest is very messy and the chicks are the dirtiest I have seen yet, so it may be a while before I get pictures up.


  11. Thanks!  I haven't thought to check that one.  Some people say lightbacks have horn colored beaks, but it sure looks black like a normal chick in those pictures.  I wonder if it really is?  I have one I am wondering about being lightback but it had a normal black beak.  Sure is a different color than it's grey siblings though, and not fawn.


  12. Thanks for the responses!  I have that same parents of this one starting to lay again so we'll see what they come up with this time.  NG male and fawn female.  They have had both fawn and NG males and females, so he carries fawn.  The fawn hens were not white underneath (see picture), but the grey ones (including this one) were.  This is another reason - besides the color I saw in real life - I don't believer this hen is fawn.  If she were fawn and lightback, the other fawn hens would have to have been lightback (barring crossing over) and they weren't.

     

    The only other grey hen is also very light with a grey tail. (see picture)  Not sure what she is - lightback and isabel combination is a possibility. 

     

    So it appears my NG male actually carries two sex linked variations, so he can't have a true NG hen chick, but he looks NG because the gene that carries fawn doesn't carry lightback and the gene that carries lightback doesn't carry fawn.  Now, to figure out what the silver hen is.  

    post-3279-0-86459400-1426832222_thumb.jp

    post-3279-0-72294100-1426832226_thumb.jp


  13. Here's some more pictures.  She was definitely grey as compared to her fawn sisters.  She is definitely lighter backed compared to her grey brothers.  I expect she was at least split OB if not full OB based on tail and lack of tear mark.  She is also likely split BB.

     

    What about her tail says that she isn't lightback?  My understanding is that they should have normal tail markings and a lighter back.

    post-3279-0-70285300-1426566975_thumb.jp

    post-3279-0-52416900-1426566981_thumb.jp

    post-3279-0-99529900-1426566988_thumb.jp

    post-3279-0-58986300-1426566994_thumb.jp