Author: Cindy Johnson

Australian Game

Posted on by Cindy Johnson

Australian Game

 Australian Game

Australian Game chickens were developed from the cockfighting breeds in Australia brought there by British soldiers in the 1900’s.  Like the English Modern Game they were developed using Malay and Old English Game fowl.  They are large muscular birds with hard brittle feathers.

The breed is very lightly regulated as there is no set set of colors or characteristics other than an athletic bird that would be suitable for a cockfight.  Alertness, health, strength, and speed is more important along with a trim muscular appearance.   There are many different colors and there are bantam varieties.

Rooster will weight around five pounds and hens around four pounds.   The eggs will white and slightly tinted colors.

 

 

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Modern Game

Posted on by Cindy Johnson

Modern Game

 Modern Game

 

 

Modern Game birds are ornamental birds not known for good egg production or meat.  They require better shelter in cold weather and room to exercise to avoid losing their usually fit appearance.   These aren’t the type of chickens once used in cockfighting but more of a poultry fancier version.  The breed appeared in England after cockfighting was outlawed, developed from Malay and Old English game fowl.

 

  The birds are easily tamed and friendly to humans so them make good pets.  They have long legs and a slender build with the earlobes, comb, and wattles usually dubbed or cut off if they are intended for show purposes. 

Rooster  will weigh eight to nine pounds, hens about five to six pounds.  The eggs are white or slightly tinted.

 

 

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Japanese

Posted on by Cindy Johnson
Japanese

 

 Japanese

 

 

These are bantams that originated in Vietnam but the Japanese adopted the birds for their gardens.  The are also  popular in Malaysia and Indonesia. 

They have short legs, a large comb, and a tall upright set of tail feathers.  They are good foragers and have no problem feeding themselves if given enough acreage. 

They  are very tame birds and will live as long as thirteen years if taken care of.

They are a true bantam with colors ranging from black, black-red mottled, white, and grey. 

Roosters will weigh just over a pound and hens a little less.  The hens lay white eggs.

 

 

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Indian Game

Posted on by Cindy Johnson

Indian Game

Indian Game

 

  Originating from Cornwall England the Indian Game is  also known as Cornish Game.  They are stocky birds bred for meat production rather than eggs.   They will lay between 160 and 180 eggs per year.     As their feathers are fairly light they need winter protection.  They can be fairly aggressive birds but are fairly easy to handle.  They are also susceptible to parasites and require frequent worming and delousing.  

 

Varieties are Dark Indian (black with green, bay, or chestnut), Jubilee Indian (chestnut brown with white splotches), and Doubled Laced (blue and brown shades).
Roosters will weight almost five pounds, hens between three and four pounds.  The hens lay brown eggs.

There are bantam varieties as well.   The birds were bred from Asian game fowl  and English game fowl in an effort to produce a superior fighting chicken but instead the got a superior meat bird.

 

 

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Houdan

Posted on by Cindy Johnson

Houdan

 

 

Houdan

Originating from the village of Houdan France, the Houdan has five toes, a beard, muffs, and a weird butterfly shaped comb with crests and feather bearding hiding the small earlobes and butterfly comb.   They are glossy green black with white mottled patches.    They appeared in the 1860’s and 70’s in the U.S., in Briton in the 1850’s.   The birds came from the Crevecceur, the Polish, and the Dorking.  The Houdans have five toes instead of the usual four toes, evidence of the Dorking bloodline.  

There are two main varieties, white and black with white spotting.    While they were bred for dual purpose laying and as meat birds they are mostly an ornamental breed these days.    They retain their good genetics, mature quickly, and lay a good number of eggs per year, so they are still used in backyard flocks.  

Roosters will weight over six pounds, hens around five pounds.  There are bantam varieties as well.  The hens lay white eggs.

 

 

 

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Hamburg/Hamburgh

Posted on by Cindy Johnson

Hamburg/Hamburgh

 

Hamburg/Hamburgh

Originating in the Netherlands around the 14th century,  the Hamburg chicken  is small but very good layers, up to 220 small eggs per year.  They mature quickly and have excellent feed to egg conversion ratio.  There are around ten varietes of Hamburgs including the silver spangled and gold spangled types.  They tend to be nervous birds and while ornamental in nature they are good foragers.   the silver and golden spangled variety. The Hamburg display a high tendency to be nervous around people. Though ornamental in nature, the Hamburg is an efficient forager.

Colors can be black with a greenish sheen, penciled colors with white ear lobes,  silver spangled, golden penciled, silver penciled, golden spangled, black,  and white.   They mature

Rooster will weight around five pounds, hens around four pounds.  There are also bantam varieties.  The hens lay white eggs.

 

 

 

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Frizzle

Posted on by Cindy Johnson

Frizzle

 

 

Frizzle
The Frizzle is of Asian descent and is a purely exhibition breed, actually more of a variation of a breed than a breed on its own. It is docile, and can be hardy and suitable for free range or poorly mobile and require confinement.   Some varieties are not  good layers, others are excellent layers. The plumage of the Frizzle gives the breed its name as it curls tightly backwards towards the head.

There is actually  a gene responsible for the frizzled feathers and it shows up in several breeds.

Their are bantam and larger varieties.  Blue, black, buff, or white are the normal colors. 

Bantam type roosters weigh about a pound and a half, hens about one and a quarter pounds.   Standard frizzle roosters will weight as much as seven pounds and hens five pounds.  The hens lay light brown eggs.

As the gene is responsible for the frizzled feathers you really can’t lay out exact characteristics as the frizzled feathers is the only real determining factor.  Generally the actual breed of the bird will have more to do with the characteristics of the individual bird.

 

 

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Faverolles

Posted on by Cindy Johnson

Faverolles

 

Faverolles

 Faverolles were developed in North Central France in the 1860’s as ornamental birds.

Faverolles are friendly birds and very god layers.  There are two varieties, Ermine and Salmon colored.  They are a heavy breed of bird, have feathered feet, beards, muffs, leg feathering, and five toes per foot.   They do well in coops or free range, they even do well in battery cages as they are excellent layers and tolerate confinement.  Mostly kept as ornamental birds they were bred for dual purpose use and have good laying abilities and good meat carcasses.  The hens lay well in winter and put out medium sized pinkish or light brown eggs. 

The roosters are fairly quiet and the birds are known for being very docile to the point where they will get bullied in mixed flocks.   They make good pets for this very reason.      As a dual purpose breed they lay well and produce meat birds efficiently.  .

There are several varieties, black, laced, blue, buff, cuckoo (bluish white barred, or irregular light and dark barred), salmon, and ermine.

Roosters will weight eight pounds, hens seven pounds.  The hens lay light brown eggs, around 240 eggs per year.

 

 

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Dorking

Posted on by Cindy Johnson

Dorking

Dorking

Originating in Britain the Dorking is a very unusual chicken.  Some say the bird dates back to the time of the Roman invasion of Britain.  The bird is a good meat bird and layer and it is one of the few breeds that have five toes instead of the normal four toes.    They have stocky bodies, short legs, are good mothers, but due to large combs they require winter shelter. 

A dual purpose breed that produces plenty of eggs and a good meat carcass, dorkings are one of the few breeds with red earlobes that also produce a white shelled egg.  There are five varieties;  white, silver-grey, red, dark,, and cuckoo.  The roosters weight around two and a half pounds, the hens around two pounds.

 

 

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Guineas

Posted on by Cindy Johnson

Guineas

 

 

Guineas

Guineas originated from West Africa where htey were domesticated from wild fowl.  The most common varieties are Pearl and White but both birds will interbreed with the other.   Most birds are under four pounds, small boned, so they have a high carcass weight that produces a lot of meat for the size of the bird. 

The meat has a game flavor to it so there is a market for the meat from large hotels and top restaurants.   The eggs are small as one would expect from a small bid and the hens are known for hiding their nests.  The male birds, called cocks, tend to fight amongst themselves but generally won’t bother chickens.

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Guineas are wonderful watchdogs especially at night where they will scream if they are disturbed and they retain enough wild instinct that they are good lookouts against hawks. 

Along with the small egg comes small chicks and the Guinea hens are poor mothers.  The hens will start laying in April and May but won’t become broody till much later in the summer.   A hen will lay between 36 and 60 eggs per season

Male Guineas have slightly larger heads and the females aren’t as vocal as the males.  Once mated the pair will remain a pair.

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Guineas

They are very hardy creatures and will forage most of their own food and are excellent at finding ticks.  As long as the weather is warm they will feed themselves if they have plenty of area to free range.   In colder weather and at the beginning of summer where there might not be as many bugs and other forage you can supplement their foraging with any sort of chicken feed.

Most hatcheries will have  a few varieties of Guinea fowl or you can purchase keets and grown birds from locals

 
 

In rural areas Guineas can simply be set loose to roam as they have enough wild instinct to roost and survive on their own.    You can coop them at night but unlike chickens which quickly learn where home is a Guinea might take 8 to 10 weeks to become accustomed to sleeping in a coop.  Providing feed each night is a good method of ensuring they continue to return to the coop.  Releasing half of the birds in the first few weeks is helpful as they have a very strong flocking instinct.     Guineas are known for harrasing chickens, especially roosters.   They seem to enjoy startling hens and knock hens off the roost at night.  

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Guineas are excellent flyers that can roost in trees at night and if you don’t coop them and feed them at night they will become wild.  The hens are vulnerable while nesting and they are such bad mothers that a lot of the keets will be left behind as the mother forages.  You are better off catching the keets and penning them up till they are big enough to keep up with their mother.

During cold weather Guineas will use a barn or other shelter if one is available.   Males will have larger wattles and heads than the hens but the surest method is to listen to their squawks.  Females will have a two syllable call and a one syllable chatter type sound but the male can only make the single chatter type sound, like chaa chaa chaa.  The female call is more like a raspy  ree onsch, ree onsch, ree onsch

 

 

 
 

Keets will begin to breed in the spring after they are hatched.   The eggs are brown and quite small, about half the size of a normal chicken egg.  The hens are good at setting but poor mothers once the keets have hatched.  The eggs can be incubated  but the length of time is a bit different than chicken eggs. Once hatched the keets are fairly delicate and must be kept at a constant 95 degrees F until they are completely feathered out.    They tend to drown in water dishes so add rocks or use shallow pans.    ..

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C
Guinea keets are very active young birds.  They are rather delicate though.  That is why the mother often loses a lot of them if allowed to raise them herself.  I brood mine in a simple chicken brooder box.  I have raised them with chickens from birth.  Some people would probably disagree with that so use your own judgment.  You do need to make sure that the keets will not drown in the water.  They are smaller than chicks and can more easily.  I have heard that you should put rocks or marbles in the bottom of the water container so it is not deep enough for them to drown.  rooster0209 said Another important fact! Keets must stay 95F until they are fully feathered or they die.
Thank you rooster0209 for your information!

Will guineas hatch their own eggs?
Yes.  They are supposed to be fairly good setters but poor mothers

 

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