I got a surprise in the nestbox. I had bred the new Smith's himi buck to broken Baroquen. I knew it was a risk because she carries himi. I don't recommend broken x himi, but I'm prepared to deal with the broken himis that come out of it. Baroquen herself was out of himi x broken. I do it for type and at that time and this time, a himi buck had needful type parts.
So there are 2 kits, almost 3 weeks old. A nicely broken black and what I thought was a siamese sable. Didn't really expect that, but shaded from any of my lines doesn't surprise me. As the kits grew, the sable wasn't looking right. I realized it's a chocolate! Now that is just plain strange. Not strange from Baroquen, I knew she probably carried it, but how did the himi get the chocolate gene? That's very rare in himis since they are usually herded with shadeds and shaded breeders avoid the chocolate gene (if they're wise). Can't wait to tell the Smiths what lurks in that line.
One of my pet peeves is when clueless breeders label a brownish himi as chocolate when it's obviously a faded black himi. Now I have an opportunity to actually work with chocolate himis. Do I want to? I don't know. I have a few young does in the wings that will not be compatible with this. I could cut the herd even harder to eliminate those other colors and just work the himis straight. And maybe bring back the broken chocolates. My foundation broken herd included chocolate. I'll be thinking about this. BTW, the little choc kit is looking promising. That might have a lot of say.
In the weanlings, I ended up with way too many himi bucks. Some of those are promising so we'll see. There's only 1 himi doe in all those litters and she's looking broody, and maybe a black carrying himi. Haven't sexed that one for sure yet. One of the nicest bucks has me a bit puzzled. One of his front feet is extremely light. I've never seen that before. His color isn't impressive to begin with but he's young and it's hot so I'm not worrying about that right now. But one nearly white foot worries me. I hope it's just a weird heat related molt thing. And no, this one is not out of broken so that's not it.
It's interesting that most of the other himis are displaying pretty good color in this heat. 2 others the same age as that one have strong black points. All the weanlings are still in the barn where it's much hotter. Bruin (out in the Summer House) has suddenly begun to develop dark color. He never had it before, his color was pretty lousy, and I assumed as good as it would ever be. He's over 1 year old and just coming out of a hard molt. It is cooler out there, but not that much cooler. There's more to himi color than temperature.
Observations of chicken behavior: The Group Preen.
Every morning, they gather in the Porch View garden and spend a lot of time preening together. As others join the gather, they immediately begin to preen as well. I've also seen this later in the day and it might be in response to me. If I sit down near them, one might begin to preen, and when one preens, the rest follow suit. I think this is a sign of relaxed and content birds. The morning preen happens to be when I'm sitting on the porch with my coffee. They know I'm there and that pretty soon I'll head out to do the feeding chores. While they wait on me, they might as well preen. It's calming for me to watch it, too.
This is my view from the porch.
Of the 9 hatchlings, I have 4 keepers. Maybe less. 1 blue roo (cool) and 3 hens. The hens are white, black and mottled black. I don't know if I'll keep the black and white, but I've really been wanting a mottled hen so she's not going anywhere.
They are getting pretty good at catching Japanese beetles on the fly. It's hilarious when one catches a bug and then has to run to hang onto its prize. The others are ready to snatch it if it's fumbled. I'm trying to teach them to hunt slugs. Whenever I come across one in a garden, I toss it in front of whatever bird is closest. I wondered if the slime would turn them off (I know ducks eat slugs), but they've learned it's a heckova good snack (slugs get huge down here!) and gobble it right up. Sometimes they have to dice the slug into smaller pieces before they can swallow it which is kinda gross.
tnt
