Breeding

I like to breed from July to November, the chicks seem to grow quicker & be stronger healthier birds when bred as early as possible in the season.

Always breed Self colours to Self's, try not to breed them with the White-crested's, this will only cause problems with the colouring in the crests of your White-crested, it will also give them beards (which they should not have) and destroy your Self colours. The White-crested is dominant.

If you breed Black to Blue (in either White-crested or the Selfs) you will get 50% Blues, 50% Blacks. You will also find that the blue colouring in the offspring will be a stronger, deeper blue. If you breed Blues to Blues, then you will produce 50% Blue, 25% Black & 25% Splash. It should be noted that the Blues will become lighter with continual breeding over time. Eventually you will need to put a Black male in to re-gain the strong blue colouring.

If you breed Black to Splash you will get 100% blues.

You will get better/stronger, more defined Cuckoo colouring if you breed Cuckoo to Black & vice versa.

Ideally you can have one cock bird with 6-8 hens and try to only breed with 2nd year layers, pullets tend to lay eggs that are not large enough to get good strong chicks.

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Housing Conditions

Keep clean bedding for your birds, I use wood shavings as they are great for keeping everything including floor dry & they also seem to absorb some of the odour.

Depending on how many birds are in the run depends on the amount of time you need to clean it out & refresh the savings. I find that a good deep litter of at least 10cm will mean that you do not need to clean your pens out quite as often as using other materials such as straw or sawdust.

After you clean the pens out, make sure you lime or disinfect the inside of the chicken house, this also helps ensure that you are creating a cleaner environment for them to live in.

Never have young chicks running with adult birds. Always have a growers pen away from the adults & try to separate the cockerels from the pullets as early as possible to give the pullets plenty of time to grow out well.

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Feed

There are 4 different stages of feeding (this is an approximate guide for the stages as each stage may be slower or faster than the hatch before, you will have to start to get an intuition for what is right to give them at what age).

As chicks 0 - 2 months, I give them a combination of Chicken Starter Crumble & also some Budgerigar seed for the first few weeks, then straight Chick starter. A few mealey worms also helps.

When they start to grow up 2 - 6 months, they are given a mixture of the starter crumble & growers crumble for a couple of weeks, then weaned off the starters & left on the growers crumble, you can also start to introduce them to new foods like fruit & vegetables.

After 6 months they can go onto a layers pellets &/or crushed seed combination. I prefer to wait until they start laying before swapping over to the layers pellets. I usually swap over to a high protein ration in the breeding season.

When it is not breeding season, they can be given a combination of grains or a lower protein ration.

Always give them a variety of interesting foods along with their crumble or pellets, this gives them their natural instinct to forage. I have found you should not put the grains in with the layers as the chickens will tend to pick out their favourite grains & flick the layers out to be wasted.

Try to avoid giving too much corn or sunflower to hens coming into late spring early summer, as this will lay down too much fat in the bird, which will make coping with a hot summer even more difficult.

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Water

Always have a clean, cool water system for the Polish.

This may be a waterer that you manually fill, example to the right, or may be a drip system that automatically waters the birds.

I find it better to avoid containers where they can dunk their whole heads in. Some Polish have a fascination for open containers & just love to dunk their crests in, particularly on a hot day (not good if you are preparing for a show).

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Lice

Problem: Lice can be found by checking regularly, also some may appear on eggs. Severe infections can cause chooks to appear lethargic or unwell.

Solution: No matter where you are, or how clean you keep your pens, at some stage your birds may get lice (sometimes bought in by wild birds).

Make sure your pens are cleaned regularly, checking nest boxes and checking birds you can ensure you don't get infestations.

Any lice that are found need to be treated immediately, example is the bottom three pictures to the right - pick up your bird by the feet & hold upside down, and dust with Derris dust or a recommended poultry dust, make sure you get in & around the infestation and the rest of the bird, take special care to dust around the crest of the Polish as they cannot get rid of the lice themselves in this area. Once you have given the bird a thorough dusting, place the bird gently back onto the ground.

Ensure the birds have a good, dry spot to dust bath, this will help keep lice away.

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Sexing

Oh boy this is a tough one, there are so many different theories on how to sex a Polish. I haven't discovered a foolproof way yet, hence why I have a rooster named Mary :-). Here are some of them.

One way I read about was, when born you can tell by the shape of their head/skull if it is going to be a male or female, the females have a forehead that is rounded (hence the globular crest in the end) & the males have a forehead that is on a backwards angle (hence their slick-back crest). This one makes a lot of sense, but apparently it does take a while to perfect.

Still as chicks, there is the theory of thicker legs are going to be a male, the more delicate slender leg will be a female.

Clapping your hands, the males are supposed to stand up to defend & the females will cower down.

As they start to get older, they start to get easier to sex, but they can still trick you. After approximately 3 months, on some of the colours you get their wattles coming in (example is the picture to the right on top) . I find the males tend to develop these much quicker & they turn red faster than the females, so they are starting to stand apart from the pullets.

After 4 months, the feathering is different, the saddle feathers on the female will be rounded (example is picture number 2 to the right) & the saddle feathers on the male will be pointed (example is picture number 3 to the right).

The spurs may be starting to develop on the males as well.

If their crests have developed nicely (some don't get their full crest in until after 6 months) the females will have a lovely globular crest, see example to the right, while the males will have a crest that slick backwards, see bottom example to the right.

After the 6 month mark you should be right & have no problems identifying what sex they are.

I find sometimes the Frizzled can be a problem as they all seem to have a globular crest when they start out.

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Worms

Check your birds regularly, if you see faeces stuck to the feathers around bottom, or as they say "they have dirty pants" then they may have worms.

Worm your birds twice a year or as needed.

A bit of dried garlic in their water, helps to naturally worm the Polish.

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