Creating my own chicken breed - Steinahons

[Steinagarden]

I have decided to take out black skin from the project for now. It is just too much to work with having both the buff columbian deep colour, barring for sexing and the dark brown eggs. I can consider the dark skin into the breed if my AC/Bielefelder lay dark enough eggs but this would really surprise me as the AC lay very pale eggs. I think I will loose til much egg colour having black skin into the project and it will take me several extra years and combinations. But I have not decided 100% yet!

I really want the colour of the eggs to be good, I dont want tan. I know I probably never will get them copper Maran dark, but I want them at least as dark as my Bielefelder and Lohman Brown.

Lohmann Brown egg colour:

Bielefelder:

I have another olive egger project going on as well. I have both Ayam Cemani/Bielefelder and Ayam Cemani/Creme Legbar chickens now, the first one was originally for Steinahons and the second for a project I have called Melan Moss. This is a breed that will produce moss green eggs and also have barring, in the colour isabella with black skin and a pea comb.

Maybe I should post a presentation for this breed project as well if people find my updates interesting?

 

[AZHomesteadPoultry]

I'm Jealous of your strain of Bielefelder's. So far what I've been able to find here in the states are pretty poor quality. My Biel hens lay maybe every third day, and their eggs are medium sized and pointed. decent shell strength and color, but not what i would call up to breed standard. they are also small for the breed, most of my hens weighing between 5-6 lbs and my rooster is maybe 8lbs.

 

[Katgee]

So

I am not sure I have put this thread in the right forum, admin please move it if it's the wrong place!

I wanted to share my journey as I try to create my own chicken breed. This is not something I take as a light or easy task... I know it's a lot of work and there is much patience in making it a success. I hope to be able to get input as my project develops, and that is excites other people who is eager to learn some genetics along the way. But first, some background; why make a new chicken breed when there is so much to choose from?

All of 2023 and parts of 2024 I hatched and I kept many different breeds to find out what I really like. To mention some of them; black copper marans, silkies, brahmas, sultans, paduans, amrocks... Today I have a selection of Ayam Cemani, Icelandic Chickens, Silverudds Blue, Cream Legbar and Bielefelder. I have not found a breed that gives me all the factors/qualities I want in a chickenbreed... There just is no such breed. And the worst part is that many of the pure bred chickens today is not bred to be fit and healthy. Some of them barely lay any eggs, or take long breaks in-between laying. Many of them also have really poor health.

This is my starting point; I love several of the breeds I have today, but none of them have all the qualities I am looking for. This is my main reason for starting a chicken breed project.

My future breed is called "Steinahøns". "Høns" is the norwegian word for "chickens". "Steina" is the history/original name of our farm from the 1600's. So the name is very norwegian much like the norwegian Jaerhons (Jærhøns in norwegian). And Eksjøhøns (Eksjohons) like the swedish breed.

When making a new chicken breed you need mainly three things;
- A good plan/a goal - you need to know where you're going to get there
- A understanding of what time, effort and knowledge it takes to be able to make it through
- Enough space and enough chickens to be able to breed a strong and big enough genpool for the long term aspect

That said my main goal is not to get in approved in the standard. Maybe in time if it really is a breed that people like, I will consider this, even though that's an even longer road to take. But first of all I do this for myself.

So! Now that I have that sorted out, I want to give you the breed standard as I have so far written it.

- A medium, elegant bird. Hen: 1, 5 - 2, 3 kgs. Rooster: 2-3 kgs.
- Dark brown eggs preferable with speckles
- Barred (auto-sexed)
- Buff/cream colored
- Dark melanistic skin and legs
- Single combed, fairly small/not too much comb
- Crest, not too big or enabling the chicken to see
- Overall good health, good hatching ratio, very rarely loosing chickens in early ages
- Egg laying capability of about 200-250 eggs per year
- Egg size of about 55-65 grams (preferably 60 grams)
- They could be broody, but not all the time
- I want curious outgoing chickens with enough spunk to not be very skittish, but at the same time not too much aggression in the roosters. There is a good balance in this, I have had both in different parts of the scale...I want an easy going chicken that is not too tough with other breeds as well. The mentality of animals is very much inherited, so I will definitely choose good chicken attitudes in my breeding program.

I would show you a photo of what I am thinking, if it existed. But it doesnt, so here is what inspires me, please just look at the feather color and not the type, none of them are what my end results are supposed to look like in type, but they give a good idea of the main base of my color ideas. The two last photos shows a good idea of the type and skin, and the colour is beautful, even though I might want it a little bit more gold. I also really want an even base colour without any much leakage of black.

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I will keep posting about my hatchings and pairings of parents... I have a list of breeds that are planned for this. Very open for ideas and critics, I am no expert at all!! Just very very excited to try this by myself! I use kippenjungle calculator alot, I thought it would be fun to see if the calculator is pretty accurate in my breeding, or how much diversity I will get combining the different breeds I have planned to use in making this breed.

how do you get the new breed recognised??
I've bred a new line/colour for the past 2 years - what I call Coronation Columbian Wynadotte

 

[AZHomesteadPoultry]

So

how do you get the new breed recognised??
I've bred a new line/colour for the past 2 years - what I call Coronation Columbian Wynadotte

from what i've read here and there you need a required amount of different breeders breeding the bird so it can be determined they breed true, there needs to be 3 distinct traits that make the bird different from other breeds, and you need to petition the APA (or what ever facilitates breeds and breed standards for your country i guess)

 

[Steinagarden]

So

how do you get the new breed recognised??
I've bred a new line/colour for the past 2 years - what I call Coronation Columbian Wynadotte

I dont know the rules in american chicken breeding clubs (sorry, probably not the correct name for this but you get it).

In Norway/Scandinavia you need to breed for several years and also having other people breed them (it needs to be enough interest for the breed). It also needs to breed true to the standard written by the breed creator. It has to be entered in a show also to be accepted in the standard.

We have several breeds that are "approved" as a pure breed in Norway, but that is not put in the standard yet. Silverudds Blue is one of them for example. I guess the only ting remaining for this breed is that someone needs to breed them up to standard and put them in a poultry show for it to be officially accepted as a breed.

It's quite logical. There are also alot of breeding projects that just never breed true or where the breed creator has bothered writing a standard.

I also know some breeders that find it "smart" to keep their breeding projects for themselves just to bring in profit. They are not interested in someone "stealing" their material... They talk about getting it approved but are not interested in sharing their work with the world. You get nowhere with this attitude in my opinion. You need other people to get further, and having more people involved in your projects can even make it better. But not everyone realise this and therefore will not get as far as they could have done!

 

[AZHomesteadPoultry]

how's your project coming along?

 

[Steinagarden]

how's your project coming along?

Well, we have been waiting for the roosters to mate and for the hens to lay eggs... They are now doing both!

A couple of weeks ago we tried putting some of the eggs in the incubator, it was too early, as all of the eggs were empty.

I'll give it a new try today!! These eggs are from the last 2-3 days, and might be better - with chicks in them this time!

The rooster I am using:

The hens:

Lohmann Brown:

Icelandic chicken:

The Lohmann Brown are wheaten based with some mixed e-alleles (eb or e+), and they also carry dominant white. You can also see this hen is columbian in the white stripes on her neck. The chicken calculator says this about this combination between the rooster Jaerhone and the Lohmann Brown:

These are what I want, so I am very excited to see if I get this exact outcome or a big variety...

I am also using the Icelandic hens that are buff columbian with a beautiful color.

This is what the calculator gives me out of the second combination. The icelandic chicken can carry A LOT of genes not showing, so I think I might get a bigger variety in this mating. I just have to select for the ones I want to keep in type and colour. I am doing this combination because they have the correct type, size and personality I want. But they to not have dark brown eggs, like the Lohmann Brown.

My plan is to cross breed the two lines for F3. F2 I am doing line breeding for both the combinations I think, so see what genes I have in the pot... And to hopefully make the egg colour a bit darker than in the F1. I probably also have to cross back to Lohmann to darken it even more, later down the road.

I am using the same male for both breeds of hens.

In both combinations I will have barred females and single barred males. For the F2 I will have barred females and also double barred males, which is the goal for auto sexing.

If the Jaerhone in fact is carrying ig (cream), I might also get a lighter version of buff (lemon). This is not really what I want, but I want to see the colour in life before I exclude it. I need the dominant white to take out the black, I think this will give much better looking feather colour with just the buff colour and white from the barring! I dont want the black, it looks messy!

 

[AZHomesteadPoultry]

Thanks for your response! I wish I had your grasp of color genetics. I'm working on it slowly but surely. I understand what you're saying about black looking messy. My Bielefelder x Delaware hens are really growing on me with their lighter colored barring. The pure Bielefelder hens are so dark in comparison. Even though the Kippen Calculator says redbarred for the sex-linked female, they are almost a gold color, and I'm really enjoying it. I think your birds with a flashy white tail and gold barring would look pretty magnificent. As always, I'm following intently!

Best of luck!

 

[Allthebirds]

I'm in the planning stages of something similar, so I'd love to follow along.

My goals - a tall bodied, majestic, multi-purpose bird that is light colored, either white, black+white, or buff/gold/red with a possible pattern to aid in camouflage, heat tolerant, and very predator savvy/excellent free ranger, single comb, clean slate/white/willow legs, lays light cream/yellow-cream to white eggs with smooth sheen and occasional speckling. Also love a little melanistic look to the comb and face, Prolific layer, flighty okay but non aggressive.

 

[Allthebirds]

Inspired by Egyptian Fayoumis, Appenzeller Spitzhauben, Dominique, Leghorn, Bresse, Croad Langshan, Orpington, and Jersey Giant