Happy New Year!

Eight eggs went into lock down for New Year's (2 were clear from the original 10), and 8 eggs hatched! I think I might have a splash and a couple of blues from Sir Lancelot and Misty in this hatch as well! I have one more hatch to go, and they'll go into lock down later this week. Aside from Junior, all of the current breeders are new for this season, “new” meaning bred and hatched by me. So, I am really curious to see what they produce! Here are a couple of the “new” players currently in my breeding pens…

Sir Lancelot & Misty, both Blue

As you can see, both birds are frizzled, and normally should not be mated together because of the risk of creating “Curlies”, which are frizzleds that carry two copies of the frizzled gene instead of one. The “pros” are that each curly subsequently crossed to a smooth will give you ALL frizzled offspring, a good thing if you are breeding for frizzleds. The “cons” are that a curly generally has very brittle feathers that tend to break easily, can have fewer feathers, and will be less tolerant of high and low temperatures, and will probably not be a very pretty bird to look at. So, why would I do this, you ask? Well, because I didn't have a smooth blue or black girl to cross with Sir Lancelot, and I was too impatient to wait a few months for one of my blacks to become available! Remember, I have at least four roosters that need black girls for breeding in my color projects!!! So, only time will tell if I made a foolish decision or not… I'm pretty sure I'll wind up with a couple of blue curlies, so they will definitely need special accommodations next winter… I may even have to knit them some sweaters!