Remudamom Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Silver Laced Cochin banties. I wanted red Silkies but they are out. I couldn't wait til spring. Too bad all these waiting mommies can't order their delivery date too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lailasmum Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Cool! I love silver laced chickens. They are so pretty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alenee Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 We have a broody hen and it looks like we're getting 11 fertile eggs from a friend for her to hatch-out for us. I'm on the fence about it but I need a new rooster. Enjoy your babies! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remudamom Posted November 7, 2011 Author Share Posted November 7, 2011 Oops, changed my order to Mille de Fleurs. Does anyone have any experience with slipping babies under a hen? I've got a broody silkie and I wonder what would happen if I let her set eggs for a week and then pulled a switch on her? I've heard if you do it at night it works? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrookValley. Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Oops, changed my order to Mille de Fleurs. Does anyone have any experience with slipping babies under a hen? I've got a broody silkie and I wonder what would happen if I let her set eggs for a week and then pulled a switch on her? I've heard if you do it at night it works? Mille Fleur is such a pretty color. :) I love the "calico" colors on a chicken--I breed Tolbunt Polish, which while not technically a Mille Fluer pattern, is comprised of the same colors and is a similar pattern. I just love it. A silkie is about the only bird I'd try that with (though I have a friend who has a wild bantam game hen on her property that stole 4 muscovy ducklings from a muscovy hen and is raising them as her own...they are twice her size now, and it is just hysterical). She'd probably love it. I would definitely try it at night, and I would keep careful watch to ensure that none of the babies wander away from the new momma and get chilled. And how many chicks do you have coming? A silkie hen can hatch and raise a larger clutch than one might imagine, but if I were pulling a switch I wouldn't want to put too many chicks under her for fear that some would get pushed out and get chilled. I probably wouldn't try putting more than 6 or so under a hen in this case, but that's just me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cajunrose Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 So jealous!!! Can't wait to see pictures. When are you getting them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simka2 Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Where are you orderinf from? I really want some chickens, but I need to build a coop first ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remudamom Posted November 7, 2011 Author Share Posted November 7, 2011 Ideal poultry still has a few hatching out. I've ordered eight. Little silkie probably can't cover that many. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brigitte Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 The question is will they be delivered before Imp and Pencil Pusher deliver theirs? :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCMom Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Silver Laced Cochin banties. I wanted red Silkies but they are out. I couldn't wait til spring. Too bad all these waiting mommies can't order their delivery date too. Cool! My dh brought me 4 Americana chicks on Friday from a friend who had an unexpected surplus, lol. Dang they are cute with their fluffy little faces. I always wanted colored eggs. :D Mille de Fleurs are so pretty! Didn't you have some set once? Our bantams (2 Black Japanese and 1 Black Rose Comb) are way too spazzy for that. I kinda want more bantams now though. Bantam envy! 'Cause you know...you can never have too many chickens... Georgia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Live2Ride Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Pretty! I want chickens again, but I'll have to start my practice with target shooting because our one neighbor is not a good dog owner..:glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomsintheGarden Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Sigh ... I want silkie bantams. They are so fluffy looking and they lay the cutest, most delicious eggs. You hear that, Reg? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remudamom Posted November 8, 2011 Author Share Posted November 8, 2011 Sigh ... I want silkie bantams. They are so fluffy looking and they lay the cutest, most delicious eggs. I've got six silkies, whites, black, partridge. This spring I'm ordering reds, the new color, but they're out of them right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaichiki Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Oops, changed my order to Mille de Fleurs. Does anyone have any experience with slipping babies under a hen? I've got a broody silkie and I wonder what would happen if I let her set eggs for a week and then pulled a switch on her? I've heard if you do it at night it works? Oh we just love Mille Fleurs! (D'uccle?) We've never had any trouble slipping babies/eggs under a broody: night is the best time. Enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RainySunday Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Fun! Our EE just hatched 5 buff orp. chicks last week; they are very cute and she is doing a great job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WistfulRidge Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 I'm jealous :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remudamom Posted November 8, 2011 Author Share Posted November 8, 2011 Oh we just love Mille Fleurs! (D'uccle?)We've never had any trouble slipping babies/eggs under a broody: night is the best time. Enjoy! Help me out here. What is Mille Fleur and what are D'uccles?? The description of my babies is blue mille de fleur d'uccles banties. I've had Millies before, the classic gold and black, but what are d'uccles and fleurs together? Can't find a good explanation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaichiki Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Help me out here. What is Mille Fleur and what are D'uccles?? The description of my babies is blue mille de fleur d'uccles banties. I've had Millies before, the classic gold and black, but what are d'uccles and fleurs together? Can't find a good explanation. Okay. Bantam is the size. D'uccle is the breed. Mille Fleur is the color/pattern markings. Many people just say "Mille Fleur" as a sort of shorthand when talking about Mille Fleur D'uccles, but other breeds/crosses can be Mille Fleur colored, too. My kids currently have a chick/young hen who is half Porcelain D'uccle (porcelain is the color), a quarter Mille Fleur D'uccle, and a quarter Golden Sebright (sebrights are another bantie breed). She turned out to be a mille fleur in color... they call her Chocolate Chip, but I think some name related to a snow flurry would be better. ;) Here's a link: http://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=10091-mille-fleur-cochin-progress Here the breed is cochin, but the coloring is mille fleur (a combo of black/red/brown with white tipping, I think). You said your chickens would also be blue... that is a base color, I think... so you'd have the mille fleur pattern on top of a gray color. Is there a picture? Sounds beautiful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaichiki Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGK/Millies/BRKMilleFleur.html Oh HERE'S a better explanation. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remudamom Posted November 8, 2011 Author Share Posted November 8, 2011 That's a big help, thanks. I've about decided that I want the reddish/black colored millies, but I'll just order some in Feb when I order my red silkies. I don't even really care if they lay well, or if I don't find the eggs. Mine free range in the day and I shut them up at night. I just like to have coffee with the chickens in the mornings! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrookValley. Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 What zaichiki said--mille fluer is a color, not a breed. Mille fluer is a mahogany-based bird with partial black (lacing or barring? unsure) and white spangling on the feathers. Not sure what they would mean by a blue mille fluer. There are two different genes that produce "blue" in chickens. If a solid blue (the andalusian blue gene) bird was crossed with a mille fluer,the blue gene would only affect the black on the feathers of a mille fluer bird, which should give you a mahogany-based bird with partial blue lacing/barring/whathaveyou and the white spangling on the tips (this would be my guess as to what blue mille fleur is and how they developed it), and any solid black feathers (e.g., the tail feathers) would be blue as well. To complicated that though, only half of the offspring from such a mating would show blue. Half would be mille fleur, half would be blue mille fleur (blue x black = 50% black, 50% blue). If you cross a self-blue bird (aka, lavender) with a mille fluer, you get what looks mille fleur in the first generation, but if the first generation is crossed back to lavender, the self-blue gene would affect/dilute both the mahogany and the black, giving you a cream-colored base with lavender instead of black, still with white spangling (the white being unaffected by the self-blue). But this is called Porcelain (zaichiki, your half-porcelain chick turned out mille fluer because the self-blue/lav gene needs two copies to express the color. So because your chick only had one porcelain parent, it had to be mahogony-based.) Anyway, sorry to take the long road, :tongue_smilie:but my guess is you'll get some chicks that look mille fleur and some on which the black on the feathers/black feathers in the pattern are blue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaichiki Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 (zaichiki, your half-porcelain chick turned out mille fluer because the self-blue/lav gene needs two copies to express the color. So because your chick only had one porcelain parent, it had to be mahogony-based.) Thanks for the details, BrookValley. I've read those kinds of color inheritance descriptions before, but the info didn't stick. I'd like to learn more. To complicate things... that chick doesn't actually have a porcelain parent. Her "mom" was the product of a golden sebright hen and a porcelain d'uccle rooster. Her "dad" was the product of a mille fleur d'uccle hen and that same porcelain d'uccle rooster. Genetically, though, I wonder if it matters. I would love to hear more about her color genetics. :001_smile: The kids would like to experiment (color genetics) with her and other bantam roosters. Any interesting suggestions? :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrookValley. Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Thanks for the details, BrookValley. I've read those kinds of color inheritance descriptions before, but the info didn't stick. I'd like to learn more. To complicate things... that chick doesn't actually have a porcelain parent. Her "mom" was the product of a golden sebright hen and a porcelain d'uccle rooster. Her "dad" was the product of a mille fleur d'uccle hen and that same porcelain d'uccle rooster. Genetically, though, I wonder if it matters. I would love to hear more about her color genetics. :001_smile: The kids would like to experiment (color genetics) with her and other bantam roosters. Any interesting suggestions? :bigear: Well, the first thing that pops into my mind is to breed her back to the porcelain rooster. With one porcelain (i.e., carrying the Lav gene) parent on each side, she has a 50-50 chance of being "split" to lavender. If so, you should get approximately half of the resulting offspring expressing the lavender and looking porcelain from a split-Lav to Lav breeding. It would be an interesting and relatively simple experiment to see if she is carrying the Lav gene. Or, you could forget about the lavender/porcelain (it's not going to matter if you cross her to anything else but a bird showing Lav, because of needing the gene on both sides) and play with the mille fleur coloring in future generations. Those folks working on the mille Cochins probably have some fun ideas. I don't know what they started with on the Cochin side--perhaps a black or a mottled black--to start getting the mille color? You could breed the mille hen to a black rooster of some type and you may get some mottled or spangled birds from crossing in the mille pattern. Of course now you're getting way outside my area of knowledge. :tongue_smilie: My Tolbunt Polish are the only patterned birds I work with, and to the best of my knowledge the color doesn't exist in any other breed (it's basically a gold laced bird, like your Sebright, with mottling. No one really knows how the originators got to that point, though I've heard it was from crossing a gold laced with a barred bird [cuckoo]). Things like blue (andalusian blue) and self-blue/Lavender are really fun to play around with because they are simple to understand and produce predictable results. The pattern genes get far more complicated. (You probably already know this, but different breeds call the visual result of this same gene different things--ohmigosh, the Silkie folks went round 'n round over wether or not to call the color self-blue or lavender when qualifying the variety for acceptance--but I believe the actual gene is termed "Lav" or lavender, while most breed organizations call the variety self-blue.) Have you ever played around with the "Chicken Calculator?" It is a lot of fun, though I really have to be on a mission to mess with it because, honestly, it makes my brain hurt. :D Remudamom, if you get all blue mille fleur chicks, it's a simple thing to breed a few "regular" mahogany/reddish & black milles in the next generation, if you are so inclined. Blue bred to blue results in approximately 50% blue, 25% black (regular mille fleur) and 25% splash (double dilute of blue, affected plumage will look white/very pale blue with darker blue "splashes" of feathers randomly). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaichiki Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Have you ever played around with the "Chicken Calculator?" It is a lot of fun, though I really have to be on a mission to mess with it because, honestly, it makes my brain hurt. :D Ooooh. Thanks! Breeding chickens for color results -- talk about a "hands-on" genetics lesson, huh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.