Barred Rocks Good Shepard Poulty Ranch

[donrae]

Quote:
*passing the nitro*

I just reread this thread, and have to ask a question about this .... you said NO, that the old Heritage or Vintage Rocks are not bred to the SOP. Can you elaborate on that? What is different about them, different than the SOP? You said there are articles to teach us how to breed them. Can you tell us a little about that.

Kathy, I think you clipped off a critical sentance. He was saying you can order these birds from a hatchery by the handsful............but they (hatchery birds) aren't heritage strains bred to the SOP.

Breathe, honey, breathe...........

 

[kathyinmo]

donrae .... Thank you. I see now. I read it again, and I see that he was referring to the hatchery stock, as far as the not being bred to the SOP. Thanks.

 

[halo]

Quote:
Thanks for this post. Very interesting and educational actually seeing the faults you are culling for and the traits you are keeping. Great post.

 

[Robert Blosl]

These are pictures I took Wed. at Anthonys house of his Partridge Plymouth Rock large fowl that he got last year from eggs from Dick H. of Penn. He kept two cockerels and three pullets and one hen as breeders for next spring. Good size bird and are all ready laying. bob

 

[Robert Blosl]

Fattening Up Heritage Barred Plymouth Rocks

by Frank Reese Good Shepard Ranch Kansas

I was asked recently how I get my Barred Rocks to fatten up. How do you get them to put weight on faster and get a better market bird? To answer this question is not simple and I have been thinking for a while on how to answer it. My first response was to tell the person to choose Barred Rocks that come from parent stock that meet the Standard of Perfection.

So let’s look at what the Standard has to stay about weight of Barred Rocks. It states that the cock bird should weight 9 ½ lbs, Cockerel 8 lbs, Hen 7 ½ lbs and Pullet 6 lbs. These weights are very important but you need to know how to implement them in to your breeding program to make it work in improving your market birds. The old guys who wrote the Standard knew what they were talking about and how this Standard would work to improve poultry production in the early twentieth century. So when we read the Standard we must read the whole definition of the breed and variety we are choosing to raise and work with. This means reading and understanding the weight, conformation, general shape and feather pattern of the breed you are working with. If you’re going to say you are raising Barred Rocks then make sure you understand what a Barred Rock is in all its glory.

In the standard there is a section called “General Scale of Points” and this is important to understand. This section applies to all large fowl except for the exceptions that are listed. It is based on a 100-point system of grading and judging poultry. Please note that 22 points are given just to breast and back and there are reasons for that. 10 more points are given to condition and vigor. That is 32 points given just to these three things. The breast is where the meat is grown and the back supports the bird you are raising for market. Without a good width of back and good wide breast you will not have a good meat bird or egg layer. Condition and vigor are signs of health and strength of the birds you are growing and without these two things you will not have a bird that can grow normal as expected and produce a good market meat bird or have eggs to sell or hatch.

Now having said all this, I would like to give you tips you can use in your flock to help you improve your birds. These are practical things you can do to help see and understand what you are doing or not doing to improve your birds for market. The first thing I always tell people is to buy good birds from a breeder who knows Barred Rocks and not only has won shows but understands market meat birds. At least market meat bird’s 1940 style and why I say that is we are NOT raising birds that will in any way look like the birds you buy at your local grocery today. Get a good understanding of what a grade-A Barred Rock dressed bird should look like. I know of no other way to do this than to work with the dressed bird and this might be really difficult if you have not seen many dressed and package Barred Rocks. You are going to have to reeducate you consumer what a normal dressed chicken should look like and not those obese fat baby chickens they are buying now.

There was a time when you went to your store to buy a chicken and you could choose from fryers, broilers, spring chicken, roasters, old hens and old roosters for your meal. Those days are gone for most people and most do not even remember how to cook with those options. The reason I am bring this up is because I am going to focus on fryer or broiler chickens here today because that is what most people raising standard bred chickens are trying to sell.

When we begin to compare modern meat birds with our standard birds we first start with, growth rate (or rate of gain). The modern meat birds are able to get to market weight in 42 days or less. We compare this to our standard meat birds which will take 16 to 18 weeks to get to a market weight. Now what is market weight in our world today; it is 3 to 3 ½ lbs dressed weight or 5 to 5 ½ lbs live weight. 50 years ago for a fryer chicken it was one pound less then it is today. So with this information you begin to look and weigh your birds you are considering to keep for breeders, for next year’s breeding season.

You can start some culling of your birds as early as 6 weeks. With these young birds look for vigor, fast feathering, width of feathers, good strong legs, long legs, and overall health of the birds. As soon as you can separate males from females to give each sex the ability to grow without competing with each other for food, space and water. The next step in choosing breeder meat birds is at 12 weeks of age. I am going to give you weight comparisons between Wyandotte’s, Barred Rocks and New Hampshire’s. At 12 weeks in live weight:

Barred Rock males 3.3 to 3.6 lbs, females 2.2 to 2.6 lbs

Silver Laced Wyandotte male’s 3.0 to 3.5 lbs, females 2.5 to 2.8 lbs

New Hampshire male’s 3.5 to 4.0 lbs, females 2.8 to 3.2 lbs

If you cross the New Hampshire male on a Barred Rock female and get an F1 cross the weight will change for the better.

New Hampshire x Barred Rock males 3.7 to 4.2 and females 2.9 to 3.1

Here is a good place to start: see if your birds are getting to their standard weights at 12 weeks. This will help you decide if you are going to keep these birds for breeders. It is the most important to choose a really good large male because he brings the most important genetic factor, size in your flock. But remember to choose size in your females also.

Genetically, in standard birds the growth rate (or rate of gain) and body type can be greatly improved by paying attention to shank length and keel length. It has been shown that the longest-shanked birds had longer keels and deeper bodies than the shortest-shanked birds. In Poultry Breeding (1932, 1940, 1952) by Morley A. Jull, Mr. Jull states “progenies of long-shanked Barred Plymouth Rocks and New Hampshire’s parents grew faster and utilized feed more efficiently than the progenies of short-shanked parents.” So how do I put this into practice in my small home flock? I will give you a formula that you can use based on Body weight, Shank length and Keel length. This is weight and measure of a 12 week old bird.

Male weight is 4.14 lbs, the Shank length is 4 ¾ inch long, and Keel is 4 ¼ inch long. Female weight is 3.64 lbs, it’s Shank length is 4 ¼ inch long, and Keel is 4 inch long.

Male weight is 3.82 lbs, the Shank length is 4 ½ inch long, and Keel is 4 inch long. And the females weight 3.14 lbs, it’s Shank length is 4 inch, and Keel is 3 ¾ inch long.

Male weight is 3.01 lbs, the Shank length is 4 inch long, and Keel is 3 ¼ inch long. And the females weight 1.83 lbs, the Shank length is 3 ¾ inch, and the Keel is 3 inch long.

What this shows you is that in both sexes the birds with the longest shanks and longest keels at 12 weeks of age graded the best. The data also showed that the fastest growing chickens with relatively the longest shanks and keels also had the widest breasts, for the most part. Improvement in breast width is attained more rapidly when body weight, shank and keel length, and breast width are considered than when breast width alone is considered in selecting future breeding stock.

The hormone effects on growth rate and grade of standard meat chickens is important as well. Today’s modern feed is by far nutritionally superior to the feed of the past. Advances in the understanding of amino acid balance and the effects of vitamins have made formulation of feeds very different. Although, I am not too sure how much of the information from the past on nutrition and its effect on standard bred birds is taken into consideration now days. I have read about some nutritional needs that they knew about 50 years ago that were different for Barred Rocks and New Hampshire when being raised for meat birds. The biggest being the thyroid gland, which secretes thyroxin and has an effect on energy metabolism. It has been shown that chickens with an increase in thyroxin grow faster than those with a lower thyroxin level in their blood. We know that the modern broiler chicken of today, which grows three times faster than the standard bred bird, has higher levels of thyroxin in its blood. It was shown even years ago that the New Hampshire chicken, which goes faster than the Barred Rock, has a high level of thyroxin in its blood. This being said it not without problems when we choose to breed for a more active thyroid gland in our birds. The thyroid is under the control of the thyrotrophic hormone secreted by the anterior pituitary. The feeding of thyroxin induces hyperthyroidism, which accelerates all the metabolic processes. This is why we see so many autoimmune problems in the modern chicken of today. It is a balance game that still goes on today when we choose to breed and grow chickens at a faster rate. Our objective is to increase the overall size of our genetic line to get a bigger, wider and deeper bird, not just feed to get a fatter bird.

I hope this helps and I know this is just a start. There is so much more to learn and teach. I hope in the future to write more about grading of dressed birds. Frank Reese

 

[kathyinmo]

I LOVE this information, Bob! Thank you soooo much!

 

[Robert Blosl]

This thread needs a jump start so I am going to show you a Sewell picture used by E B Thompson in some of his ads in the 1920s in Plymouth Rock Monthly and the Poultry Triubune. The current Heritage Barred Plymouth Rocks that are coming out of Kansas are direct desendents of this line. It is the oldest line of true Barred Rocks in the country. There are now two others who have this line and hopefully next year there will be about five more. The are breed for high egg production, tasty meet and great Heritage Looks or type.

Would you like to have some of these dual purpose Barred Plymouth Rocks????? Ask me how you can get some.

 

[bburn]

Barred Plymoth Rocks are my favorite. Growing up when I thought about chickens and what I would hope to have someday this was what I wanted.

Mine are not from any great line of birds. This is my first year with them and I am looking forward to many years with them.

I really enjoy reading all you have posted and hopefuly I will learn from it.

Thanks!

 

[kathyinmo]

I got a couple new pictures yesterday .....

The youngest pullet:

 

[Robert Blosl]

These pictures are the 2010 Ringletts. They are still very young but what a blood line. For you who say I wish I could have some that look like these. Would'nt be nice if such a lady who knew what she was doing shipping hatching eggs could send you a dozen this spirng. All you have to do is just ask. Ringletts the super strain of large fowl Rocks. bob