I mentioned this white chicken once before... this girl is 5 years old and has free-ranged all her life. She is as white as snow despite this and the fact that she eats a lot of grains including corn, which some people believe contributes to brassiness. This picture can't really represent how strikingly white she is.



This next picture is of the 'lace' pullet I posted before ... she is birchen and we believe the 'lace' pattern is due to Pg.



The next picture is one of our gypsy-face birds. Please notice that she is heavily eumelanized (see her shanks). Her comb and wattles were completely black until she became sexually mature when some red began to show. Somehow this image is emphasizing the red in her comb because it doesn't look that red in person.

The black pullet in this picture is an F1 pullet in our blue egg project. Please see that she has very BLUE earlobes and a single comb. She has beardmuff. She lays a tan-colored egg. These Araucana / Leghorn crosses are really active, alert and enthusiastic birds. (I apologize for the size of the first picture of Whitie. I thought I had sized it before I uploaded it here. The big image files take longer to load in your browser.)

Hi Info, really nice looking birds you have there. The white one really is snow white, isn't she? Very pretty bird.

Could you please describe the difference between gypsy face and regular again? Does it mean dark skin on the face? Is that a turken to the left of the gypsy faced bird?

Thank you for your post, Hannah. I have never seen a bird as white as Whitie, but then again, we don't go to poultry shows. Whitie is strikingly white...we recognize her immediately in her flock of 120 or so hens.... she stands out because she is so white. She was supposed to be "Rhode Island White" but some breeders on a different board kinda raked me over for saying that... they said that she looks like a "hatchery grade White Rock"... We don't care. We simply aren't interested in that type of discussion. And, how would they know? Even the APA Standard (2001) doesn't have a picture of RIWs. She's very tame but you have to sneak up on her to pet her.

The gypsy-face is all the black skin on the face of the pullet. The skin around her eyes and her earlobes are black with just a red tint. Her comb and wattles were also completely black until she matured sexually. But, in person, her comb and wattles are obviously a mixture of black and bright red.

Somehow we got a very slow-molt gene in our layer line. These birds lose a lot of feathers all at once and sometimes take as long as 6 months to grow them back. You can see a couple of these slow-molt birds in these pictures.... the "naked neck" to the left of Gypsy is one such bird. Last year we kept severl of these in isolation because we thought that it was due to mites or picking. But it isn't. There is also an amino acid deficiency that can cause feather loss like this and we treated with amino acid supplements with no effect. Somewhere I posted a picture of Buffy, a Sil-Go-Link hen. She also has slow-molt and just recently got her feathers back.

Hello, some pictures for fun, first the young male 11 months, named Picote

Me again, the last picture is not so clear, well, I do my best but it is not so easy in the coop, second, Blondine 2 same age, she is sweet

Now the little Delkab, I dont know if I spell it right. It is a laying breed for commercial purpose, she is around 11 months to.

Last one, the gang in the coop, I think it is nice to share all thoses pictures during thoses hard winter days, Bye, Johanne

Thank you for your pics, Johanne. I agree... our winters are so darn long. We're in the dead of it now... and it's easy to get depressed ... and the 'post holiday slump' is here to boot.

You have really nice-looking birds! That Dekalb pullet looks like she has quite a bit of Leghorn in her! Does she lay a white egg?

JOHANNE, those are great looking Brahmas!
INFO, refering to "Whitey", RIW's should have rose comb, though I would bet single comb birds are produced occasionally. I used to have some, but only bred them for a couple of years, and never got a single combed bird from them. A RIW should have a longer, deeper body than a White Rock. I tend to agree with the others who id'd her as a commercial grade White Rock. As you say, it doesn't really matter, I am sure she is a perfectly wonderful bird.

Hello, Infomaniac, I dont know nothing about the Delkab origin, she may have Leghorn, she lay a dark big brown egg every day, she is black but it is not a pure black as the Australop or the Jersey giant, I have another Delkab who have the - lace - on the front neck as your pullet on the above picture. I'll try a pic of her.

Mark, thank you, we love our Brahmas, nice birds to look and so gentle. Bye, Johanne