They look nice! The male looks to be nicely filled out, and that’s some nice gold Leakage. The hens are a bit short though. I’m assuming that’s from the Japanese bantam. Hopefully you can hatch out plenty of chicks out this year to get your pick from, these seem like a good trio to breed from...
That’s a shame. Hopefully you can get whatever killed them before you loose more.
The two top pullets have lovely eye color though, it really stands out in vibrancy even from far away.
Hopefully next year brings improvement. Anything exactly you’re looking to improve in that generation...
Very true. I’m not too versed in the world of d’uccles, but from what I’ve seen of ameraucanas, the color is hardly bred in that breed either.
I believe black copper marans are genetically the same color as brown red though, just by a different name. Also the most popular maran/marans color.
If it helps, these are brown red ameraucanas. Same color. Brown red usually seems to refer to a mostly black bird with a red head.. or in the case of males, red hackle and saddle feathers. I couldn't find any online photos of actual brown red d'uccles, but I also found a drawn photo.
Sure. I think type-wise, you have a bit to go, but she looks to at least carry mottling, and has the red neck. Were you going for a red neck?
Also, your male looks very nice!
At 8 weeks old i’d say it’s almost a definitive yes that she’s a girl. Most bantams i’ve hatched, which all happened to be d’uccle crosses, were sexable at 4 weeks old. There was one exception: a little fibro chick with the upper 1/3 of its comb clipped off. So.. Bigfoot is more than likely a...
Your birds are looking wonderful! Sorry, haven’t been really getting updates for a few pages. It looks like foot feathering has really improved as well.