#poultry breeding

[east-europe-redneck]

​The most anticipated moment. 🥚✨

​You wait for almost a month, tracking every single day. And then, finally... the magic happens. The birth of a new life.

P.S. The brilliant Tumblr AI insisted that the birth of a chick is "graphic violence" and wouldn't let me post without a warning label. Apparently, hatching is too hardcore for robots. 🤷‍♂️🤖

[homeofhousechickens]

Baby Bird has an interesting "negative" gene known as Split Wing.

Split wing is basically where the feathers have a gap between the primary feathers and the secondary feathers.  It is a recessive gene or collection of genes so its important to not breed birds with it since their children will be carriers. In many breed standards its considered a serious fault but it some hard feathered game varieties it is part of their breed standard.

Split wing doesnt hurt the bird health wise but will severely impact the birds ability to fly and can be a sign of other structural feather issues coming up in a line such as twisted feathers which are basically feathers incorrectly lined in their follicles.

Baby bird has twisted feathers, the twisted feathers can be tender and painful for the bird sometimes so its important to weed these issues out of your breeding pool so you have happy healthy birds.

 

[allosaurusrock]

One of the new girls I picked up at the show- a fairly small serama girl named gravy. I try not to breed my birds to be too little for health reasons, so she’s just a tad bigger than as small as I’d purposefully go. She’s in poor feather right now from being bottom of the pecking order, but I know that as soon as she molts she’ll be a cutie!

[homeofhousechickens]

So earlier I was explaining that fibro chickens have weaker immune systems. (Silkies,Ayam Cemani, Moasic, ect)

I kind of wanted to go over in layman’s terms for my followers so I can better explain why birds like my Scoot Man are more likely to develop immune problems.

First of all I always try to back up my claims with sources. This source uses silkies which are also a fibro breed in their study but it still applies to all fibro birds and I’ll get to that in a second

https://europepmc.org/article/med/26047316

(Keep in mind I may misinterprete things incorrectly feel free to correct me if I misunderstood something)

So basically a main thing that we have been seeing in some studies is that hyperpigmentation causes the endocrine system to develop at a much slower rate then birds who aren’t hyperpigmented. We are talking about slowed embryo development related stuff.

The endocrine system is very important for your development of an immune system and when organs that are a part of the system malfunction so can the immune system.

An example of this is that fibro birds develop a spleen much later then other non pigmented birds more then likely due to the distrubuted sheer amount of melanin is through out the body. (And the body producing so much)

So basically to explain it frankly a bird who hatched with fibro will be at more of a disadvantage then a bird who is hatched without hyperpigmentation.

Silkies are known for being fragile especially to common chicken illnesses and prone to vitamin deficiency if not given the correct nutrition this is more then likely due to the hyperpigmentation and not something that is inherit to silkies as a breed though the sometimes vaulted skull and exposed brain more then likely doesn’t help either in poorly bred birds. But we cannot throw aside the fact that hyperpigmentation has a profound effect on immune system development.

A lot of chicken illnesses effect the immune system to and even suppress them like Mareks for example. A chicken with fibro is more likely to suffer from secondary illness then other birds are when a fibro bird is ill. Because the immune system just isn’t as beefy as other birds and more then likely under developed compared to its peers.

The immune system is also important in eliminating damaged or confused cells before they start replicating and causing tumors. Cells get damaged all the time but nothing really happens from it because our immune system helps kill them off. A bird with a weakened immune system will have more trouble keeping these cells from replicating especially if the bird has had its immune system further suppressed by an illness even if the bird has survived the illness.

The study above showed even birds with a single copy of fibro/hyperpigmentation still showed decreased immune system development compared to their nonfibro peers.

Now does this mean all fibro birds are unhealthy? No.

Why? Because with careful and proper breeding practices and good husbandry you can minimize the risks associated with the under developed immune system.

Scoot more then likely comes from generations of line breeding to related birds over and over again with no outcrossing. You can tell due to his shitty feather quality. Black feathered birds who are line bred without healthy outcrossing or careful breeding have their feather quality sharply declined

A lot (not all) Ayam Cemani breeders also rarely wait for a pullet to be at least a year old before using her eggs for hatching because good quality birds loose pigmentation as they get older and you want to produce birds together that are the darkest to get the best looking bird 😒

It’s important to wait for a hen to be at least a year old before breeding because her children will have longer telomeres and will have a better lifespan from it and more stable dna 🧬

The reason why Twinkle is a lot healthier base line then Scoot is because Twinkle is from a very genetically diverse flock and his breeder has very strict biosecurity (NPIP certified) so Twinkle and his flock had time to develop their immune systems vs birds who aren’t in a biosecure location.

Scoot had time to develop his immune system due to being an indoor bird but he did have a few key things that happened to him that maybe made his immune system take a hit like being stuck in the egg and needed help and suffering from delays in growth due to hormone issues

(hmm remember the endocrine system also influences growth!)

What I have learned this year especially from observing fibro breed breeders is that fibro breeds need a higher amount of thiamine and other vitimins in their diet alone with extra protein to help develop things easier if they are to thrive compared to their nonpigmented flock mates.

It’s important for healthy birds to come from healthy hardy parents so you pass on that trait and minimize bad traits.

Fibro birds should also be in their “brooder” or grow out area longer then other breeds so they can catch up with their immune system

With the correct husbandry and knowledge fibro birds can flourish. Personally I find it much less debilitating then huge feathered feet which cause chronic pain and sore feet in the bird. While fibro can be managed fine with correct husbarndry and doesn’t cause pain!

I hopefully I explained everything coherently!

[homeofhousechickens]

Checking on little miss Princess Cream. She is broody and will be broody for longer then the usual 21 days so i have to make sure she is eating enough food to keep her weight.

To be honest this broodiness is good for her since she is actually a very productive layer for a serama and was a little fat so this bout of broodiness wont effect her weight to much.

I bring her out and check her keel and feather cleanliness, make sure she does a broody poop and i clean it up and disinfect the area. I trim and file nails and beaks if needed. I check her throat and mouth for anything weird and see if there is any weird smells. After a snack she is put back on her infertile eggs, her future adopted children are still in the mail so they will be swapped with fertile ones soon.

Princess Cream is a good broody since i have always supported her every time she has went broody and have allowed her to already set two seperate clutches of large fowl birds, there is alot of hard work and dedication on both our ends lol

[homeofhousechickens]

My goal for breeding birds is to create the perfect house chicken that urban families who don’t have any land can raise easily and enjoy them as a companion animal and as a production animal.

-So a breed that is bantam sized so it’s easier for most people to house

-a breed that isn’t active but engaging

-deals with confinement well

-Silkie feathers preferred due to softness and pleasing texture but any feathers but frizzle are alright

-clean legs no feathered feet to prevent messy feathers and bumble foot

-friendly personable personalities

-laying small to medium sized eggs moderately well but not as much as modern production breeds.

-short non floppy single combs or pea combs for good vision and good thermoregulation

-nonaggressive to other animals and extremely low prey drive

-quiet for both hens and roosters. Roosters will always crow but the amount of crowing can be bred down

-Roosters should be nonaggressive to other roosters

-hens should go broody but not super often

Now for aesthetics I think I prefer blue earlobes and dark skin :)

[homeofhousechickens]

Blue x Twinkle babies are now over a month old :)

Cosmo! ^

Comet! ^

Nebby! ^

Celeste! ^

[homeofhousechickens]

Tried to take father and daughter photos and they would not cooperate 😩