Landrace project F1 chicks!!!

[Gigachad poultry]

The chicks from my landrace project have finally started fully feathering out and I thought I'd show you some of the prettiest so far! If you've looked at my other threads you may have seen some photos them right after they hatched, however I wanted to make them (and the project they're involved in) their own thread! If you have any questions about my Landrace project I'd love to talk about it more! But I'll just post photos of these adorable goofballs!

And here are the parents!

 

[LaurenRitz]

Yes, please tell us more about your project.

 

[Gigachad poultry]

Yes, please tell us more about your project.

Okay! So in basic summary the Vadakorian Landrace is hopefully going to be a highly adaptable landrace with the original full bloods with an almost completely uncontrolled pool of genetics and 4-7 split off strains of the landrace that will be bred for specific traits such as egg colors, patterns, combs ect ect. I'm hoping to be able to give people birds from the original full bloods along with birds of a specific strain to better suit their environment (cold climates with lots of snow for example) and then the full bloods and that strain from the full bloods could mix giving those desired traits whole retaining their broodiness!

I currently have about 7 different breeds I've used to create the current F0 and F1 Vadakorian birds! Most of the hens from Vadakor's flock are actually 3rd generation of another lineage of birds that includes the blue egg gene! About half of the F0 hens lay blue/green eggs and in hoping to retain this trait throughout the future generations of the Vadakorian Landrace!

 

[Gigachad poultry]

I'm also hoping to increase broodiness with each future generation and make sure the Vadakorian Landrace can properly forage and has the survival skills and adaptability to survive with minimal care!

 

[Gigachad poultry]

I've also been allowing the birds to all develop their wings muscles from a young age so that they have the ability to use their wings if they need to

 

[LaurenRitz]

There's a Landrace/adaptive breeding conversation ongoing that might give you some help from people who have been doing this for decades. I just started my project a few years ago, but my goals are similar to yours.

Large, broody, capable of foraging their food even in winter and reproducing enough to outbreed the predators.

So far predator losses are low (one rooster caught in a tailchase by something large enough to carry off the body, two hens vanished). Hawks fly over, eyeball the situation, and go elsewhere.

 

[LaurenRitz]

How are you helping the chicks exercise their wings?

 

[fluffycrow]

Best of luck with the project.

I'm also hoping to increase broodiness with each future generation and make sure the Vadakorian Landrace can properly forage and has the survival skills and adaptability to survive with minimal care!

I believe that you had posted another thread about one of your hens going broody a week or so ago, how is she doing. Using her and her offspring in your breeding programme would surely help with broodiness

 

[Gigachad poultry]

Best of luck with the project.

Thanks!

I believe that you had posted another thread about one of your hens going broody a week or so ago, how is she doing. Using her and her offspring in your breeding programme would surely help with broodiness

Yup! She's actually part of his flock and is broody her own eggs that he's the father of!

 

[Gigachad poultry]

How are you helping the chicks exercise their wings?

I have them in a grow out pen with a roost bar and they've been getting better and better at flying up to it! It's over half a meter talk and they're only 4-5 weeks old and able to perfectly fly over a meter high by week 4 since I moved them into their grow out coop at 3 weeks!