As his 2024 breeding season unfolds, TONY EDWARDS sees a pleasing pattern of fertility with his hens that try again – and that brings some of his showing objective back into focus
A FEW weeks before I wrote this, I drafted an article about the continuing struggles I have encountered trying to get chicks from a self chocolate split ino and his self chocolate partner. Then I thought that maybe I should focus instead on the positives that are now occurring in my birdroom.
Incidentally, the problem pair now have three independent self chocolate chicks, two raised by themselves. I have recently fostered their latest five chicks (three self chestnuts and two self chocolates) and moved the pair to my aviary.
After the very slow start to my main breeding season, things have picked up. The jump in the number of eggs per clutch has been dramatic. I have recorded an average clutch size since mid-January of about 6.5 eggs, a figure that matches my highest recorded in the last dozen years.
Fertility levels have also increased significantly, with most pairs at 50 per cent or more. As I write, it is now my expectation that I will ring nearly a hundred chicks by the end of March, which would be on a par with 2023.
Good second-round news
Looking at some of the promising results, top of the list so far has been chicks from my best self chestnut cock and a very nice self fawn hen. The self chestnut had been paired with another self fawn in the summer, but both rounds of eggs were clear. Of the six eggs this time, three were fertile, and all three hatched. As the chicks started to develop it was clear by their dark beak colour that two were self chestnuts and the other a self fawn. Disappointingly, all the eggs in the second round were clear, possibly because the hen started to lay before the chicks were independent. However, in their next clutch all the five eggs are fertile.
Back in late October, I was given a quality pair of dilute fawn & whites by my good friend Paul Cook. Although I had a relatively good 2023 breeding season with dilutes, I was still not back to the numbers I wanted for my show team. I decided to use the outcross dilute cock with my best dilute adult hen, as one of my mid-November pairings. The pair performed better than all my other pairs set at the same time, raising to independence five promising chicks.
The hen was slow to lay her second round, but now has four more chicks. My favourite dilute cock, after only a single chick in the first round, has been given the outcross hen. A breeding pair of dilutes that I featured in my December article (C&AB December 7, 2023) have been re-paired, and I am hoping for a repeat of their 2023 performance.
I have mentioned previously a pair of young self fawns, which have been breeding since late summer, giving me two rounds of three chicks then a single chick. When the chick was only three weeks old, the hen decided to lay again. I was obliged to leave the chick with its parents until it was five weeks old, which was only a few days before the latest eggs were due to hatch. As I mentioned in my article in the January 24 issue, I had discovered eggs in a nest-box that was attached to a chick-maturing cage. Soon afterwards, five of them appeared to be fertile, so I moved one to the self fawn pair and shared the other four between two other pairs with close expected hatching dates.
Subsequently, I had two chicks from the fostered eggs, one being hatched by the self fawns together with two of their own chicks. Once again, I had limited fostering options for the self fawns. I could have divided the chicks between the two other pairs, but this would have created clutches of six and seven. I am reluctant for the number of chicks being raised by a pair to be more than five, so the self fawns were required to raise another round of chicks.
Fertility deferred
It appears to be common theme at the moment for pairs to have a clear round, but then to produce multiple fertile eggs at the next attempt, with most of them hatching. A pair of young self fawns falls into this category. Their second attempt has resulted in three fertile eggs, with two hatching.
The same is true for a dark self chestnut and his young self fawn partner. They have achieved an even better second-round outcome, hatching four self chestnut chicks from five fertile eggs. It is one of my ambitions in 2024 to bench a pair of self chestnuts for the first time in more than 20 years, and with nine chicks already, and hopefully more to come, I may at last be lucky in finding a decent matched pair.
Further second-round success also applied to my 2021-bred cremino hen. After seven clear eggs, subsequently she laid seven again, four of which were fertile. Her partner is a self chocolate with a 50 per cent possibility of being split cremino. If he were split, then on average I would expect 50 per cent of that pair’s chicks to be creminos, both hens and cocks. Four chicks duly hatched, yet none were cremino.
At the same time, I had a pink-eyed white (albino) paired to a silver & white, which were potential foster parents for any cremino chicks. No surprise: a clear first round was followed by a clutch of six eggs. All hatched, and two were albinos. Another pair of the same colours have given me three albino chicks (one crested) and two more in the next round (again one crested). A further similar pair have produced three chicks with two being albino. So, this breeding season, I have already closed-ringed more albino chicks than were produced in all of 2023.
Hopefully the improving results from my breeding team will continue and in my next article I can relate more promising results.
Regular contributor Tony Edwards is the vice chairman of the NBFA.
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