Self Blue Old English - A Rising Variety

Over the last three years I have seen a dramatic improvement in the amount and the quality of Self Blue Old English shown. I am a devoted breeder of the beautiful lavender color birds. When I started with the Self Blues, the birds I had came from many different sources. My first pair came from a local poultry auction. They were not at all show quality but were all I could find in the area. Out of this mating came some very good pullets. The cockerels were all cursed with the dark splotchy tails with the stringy sickle feathers. This trait is common with the lavender gene. The first year I had a very good pullet that did well in the shows. I disposed of the bad males except one that had good type and better than the rest feather quality, and used these for my second year mating. I also purchased a very nice cockerel, I used him over my original hen. Out of these two matings I raised five of the best cockerels I have seen in type and color. These males did very well in the shows with several BV & RV awards.

The pullets were 50% good and 50% culls. The culls again have the splotchy colors. I found these birds to be in high demand and sold several pairs to different people around the Southeast. The next spring I raised around 200 birds with the intent of boosting the popularity. The toughest qualities to get are good feather quality and brown eyes with an even slate blue color. The best way I have found to breed the Self Blues is through line breeding.

I like to put an even to light blue male over a darker female with good type, to get the show quality males. To get the best females I like to put a show quality female over a male with brilliant hackle, saddle and wide tail feathers.

I was very pleased with the amount of Self Blues that were exhibited at the 2001 Old English Jamboree in Hickory. There were 20 very nice birds and three different exhibitors. At the Anderson All Breed show there were 23 birds and 5 different exhibitors. This is a great improvement over the shows 3 years ago with only 3 or 4 Self Blues with poor color and feather quality.

The birds at the shows recently have been very good with improvements being made by different breeders. Some breeders are trying to improve type and feather quality by breeding with Blacks. I have not used a different color yet but may experiment with a Black cockerel that I raised last year. I would like to someday see a Self Blue Old English place on champion row! Judges at different shows are stopping to take a look at these beautiful lavender birds. Good luck to my fellow breeders of the Self Blue Old English. Kudos to the Self Blue and its revival at the shows!!!

by Mark Cobb