- Apr 9, 2011
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My awesome broody Australorp hatched six Silver Spangled Hamburgs for me four weeks ago; I was thrilled then, and am now about half thrilled and half bummed. Four of the six are cockerels, which was so very not the point but worse than that: one cockerel and one of the two pullets have straight combs.
(Straight comb cockerel at left, straightcomb pullet to right of hen)
I have three hens, and very carefully chose equal numbers from each hen under the broody: nine eggs, of which eight hatched, one was trampled flat by its nestmates and another disappeared the first night. All of the hens have proper rosecombs as does the rooster. They're all properly marked (well, the rooster has smutty tailfeathers) with proper posture, nice tidy blue legs, and no visible differences. Except that one hen lays a slightly larger, more noticibly cream-ish colored, egg. My inclination is to exclude those eggs from the next hatch, and cross all fingers and toes that she is the odd girl out (a pity, because she's a lovely hen in both looks and personality, but so it goes). The hens were bought from a woman who got hatching eggs from a local breeder; the rooster is from My Pet Chicken via a BYC member.
(Photo from around the winter solstice when none of the hens were laying for about three weeks and their combs were dark and flat)
Does that sound like a proper approach? Does anyone know whether straight combs are a common fault in Hamburgs or it it's a sign that there was outbreeding in recent generations? What's remarkable to me is that the straight combs are very straight and quite Leghorn-ish (or Fayoumi-ish, which I suppose would explain the markings, posture, and leg color) instead of "mixed" in appearance. For some reason I expected comb shape to be a multiple allele situation rather than single gene dominant recessive, I guess because I'm surrounded by EE X RSL and AmeraucanaX (RSL, EE, BSL, Delaware, SLW) where there's a lot of variation and intergradation in comb type.
My awesome broody Australorp hatched six Silver Spangled Hamburgs for me four weeks ago; I was thrilled then, and am now about half thrilled and half bummed. Four of the six are cockerels, which was so very not the point but worse than that: one cockerel and one of the two pullets have straight combs.
(Straight comb cockerel at left, straightcomb pullet to right of hen)
I have three hens, and very carefully chose equal numbers from each hen under the broody: nine eggs, of which eight hatched, one was trampled flat by its nestmates and another disappeared the first night. All of the hens have proper rosecombs as does the rooster. They're all properly marked (well, the rooster has smutty tailfeathers) with proper posture, nice tidy blue legs, and no visible differences. Except that one hen lays a slightly larger, more noticibly cream-ish colored, egg. My inclination is to exclude those eggs from the next hatch, and cross all fingers and toes that she is the odd girl out (a pity, because she's a lovely hen in both looks and personality, but so it goes). The hens were bought from a woman who got hatching eggs from a local breeder; the rooster is from My Pet Chicken via a BYC member.
(Photo from around the winter solstice when none of the hens were laying for about three weeks and their combs were dark and flat)
Does that sound like a proper approach? Does anyone know whether straight combs are a common fault in Hamburgs or it it's a sign that there was outbreeding in recent generations? What's remarkable to me is that the straight combs are very straight and quite Leghorn-ish (or Fayoumi-ish, which I suppose would explain the markings, posture, and leg color) instead of "mixed" in appearance. For some reason I expected comb shape to be a multiple allele situation rather than single gene dominant recessive, I guess because I'm surrounded by EE X RSL and AmeraucanaX (RSL, EE, BSL, Delaware, SLW) where there's a lot of variation and intergradation in comb type.
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