curious about these chickens

[Kaneke]

here is "mama banty and the chix" ...

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh120/Kaneke_photo/PICT4797.jpg

couldn't get any closer to get a better pic, mama is protective and chicks are active nonstop

as you can see, mama is a banty, I suspect you'd dub her "silver"; head white shading through lacing to black

possibly EE in her ancestry; earlobes white, legs kind of dirty yellow, halfway between yellow and gray (willow?)

papa is my avatar, though pic doesn't show well, his legs are YELLOW not brown nor gray

four chicks are pale yellow, yellow legs, wings are barred cream and brown; five chicks are dark auburn with wings gray barred with darker brownish gray, legs are brownish gray also

my question, do the colors indicate the sexes .. in other words, is this another sort of sex-link (since mama is silver, papa is gold ) ?

 

[pips&peeps]

I wouldn't even attempt to sex those chicks by color. The papa looks like he is wheaten colored. Most wheaten chicks are light in color like the light babies you have in the picture.

If the hen has ee background, the chicks could turn out to be any number of colors. I wouldn't necessarily label her as silver as you don't really know if she is. I think what you are seeing is some chicks taking after mom and some after dad.

 

[Kaneke]

papa is essentially a "Hawaiian" roo -- probably part jungle fowl (but legs are yellow, so he's not pure); looks very much like wild chickens found all over the Hawaiian islands ... possibly bred for an unmentionable activity, or a descendant of one such

tenant could not tell me background on the hen; she's definitely banty, may be from a batch of chickens out of my friend's EE (one who is no longer around here) .. since there are three banty hens here, almost identical ... and I just got another hen from my friend, standard size, but the same color-pattern ...

an almost identical banty raised two cockerels who were initially all black, but now have begun developing golden "capes" and their black feathers have a metallic sheen in the sun --- there was a third sibling, mostly buff, but caught by the feral cat(s) in the neighborhood before I could determine sex ... wings had some brown barring

the two cockerels are definitely exhibiting aggressive behavior towards one another but are wary of the rooster, who lets them know they'd better not mess with him

will check the site for pix of wheaten roos, hard to get a good closeup picture of him because he IS wild ... not mean just wary

Candy

 

[Kaneke]

oh, and for what it's worth, the presumed EE from my friend lays brown eggs, not green, blue, or khaki; don't know what color eggs the banty ?sisters? lay, since I never found their nests before they appeared with baby chicks ... but did find some discarded smaller eggs (too lightweight, they floated, to eat or try to hatch) which were WHITE !

C

 

[Frozen Feathers]

They look like red jungle fowl crosses to me. You see that Silver pattern of the hen in a lot of breeds...so as many breeds that come in that pattern, there will be that many guesses.

Since they are crosses, the chicks could be most any color, whether they follow the color of their grandparents or parents or even a an earlier ancestor it's a roll of dice, really and not an indicator of sex.

 

[Kaneke]

okay, that's what I wanted to know

was vaguely thinking about removing any potential roosters before they got too big to catch, since we have too many roos already ...

thought of taking them to farmers-market as there are quite a few people here who will happily raise fowl for the freezer ... chicken feed is about the same here as on the mainland, chicken parts at the market are about double ...

but if color on these is no indicator, will just have to wait until I can tell via the feather patterns ... or behavior

thanks !

Candy