Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[Yellow House Farm]

Was it on here that someone mentioned putting their cocks in boxes to avoid frostbite?

 

[thedragonlady]

Ain't it the truth!!!

UV stabilized bird netting will practically NEVER rot under ground. Wire will. I use the netting folded double, then buried, under the runs.

 

[NanaKat]

When are we going to talk about the H chickens again. Seems you all have got off subject. I guess you have got all your rare breeds lined up and dont need to find anything rare anymore.

I have a question. What happens if you get say a old line of large fowl lets say one in a million chances of a rare blood line owned by a old time breeder somewhere in the sticks of USA. Then one day a guy calls you and says I have two males and two three year old hens from this old old old line of large fowl. I have chosen you as the care taker of this old line that Mr. So and So breed for 40 years and I got some of his birds from his son after he died. There are no other birds from this old man but these two.

Question to you who have been reading and soaking up this information for the past two and a half years. What do you do with these four chickens? How do you breed them?

If you are lucky with getting 20 chicks from them  How many do you keep? How do you breed them and how do you breed the young birds back to the parents or do you.

How are you going to share these birds in two or three years with others to help spread this rare breed and color pattern onward so the breed and strain does not die?

This just happened. Two males and two three year old hens. People had no idea that these birds where still alive anymore. So lets see if we can put together a brain storming session on this tread on how to get this old line up and running. Look forward with your comments. bob

Very hard to answer a hypothetical like this. How perfect are the birds we are starting with? No bird is perfect even in the best, most established line.

So assuming I am starting with basically equal birds, all basically good type, successful, established line, hatch from both hens with one male and then the other, starting with the male that I think most compliments the strongest female in the bunch in case I run out of time with the hens. Keep the off-spring that fits my expectation of the line. Cull the rest unless somebody has a trait that I feel might improve the line. Assuming this is a successfully established line correctly representative of the breed, I shouldn't have much to cull because all the work has been done for me. Breed the best cockerel (son) back to the hens and perhaps even try a brother sister breeding in that generation to see if anything flushes out. I might also breed the daughters back to the best of the fathers depending on individual details. It would be nice to figure out if one of those original males was throwing better offspring (males? females?) than the other. Or, possibly pass one of the original males off to someone else with a daughter or two or three and have that person focus on continuing a line there. My goal would be to take whatever is weakest and cross that with whatever is strongest in the opposite sex - keeping in mind that my original two hens are not young so I have a limited amount of time to work with them.

The key in my mind would be to hatch every egg that was laid by those original hens and cull only as needed so that no time was wasted. And keep VERY careful records.

Agree with your strategies including the brother/sister pairing. Rather than culling everything, I would cull the least representative and allow the others to grow out some. With two senior males, each could be bred to the best daughters of the other male.
Male one to 2 three year old hens
Male two to 2 three year old hens
Best cockerel from male one and its mother
Best cockerel from male two and its mother
Male one to best of male two's daughters
Male two to best of male one's daughters
Best cockerel from male one over two select sisters
Best cockerel from male two over two select sisters
Male one to his daughters
Male two to his daughters

By culling and then allowing contenders to mature, you have mature birds to breed to second crop offspring extending the pool available by the best from one of the other pens.

 

[sgribble]

Was it on here that someone mentioned putting their cocks in boxes to avoid frostbite?

I don't remember which thread,but it was Bob who did this.

 

[NotAFarm]

YH.......here it is....from this thread.

For all of you who wanted Standard Breed (H) Large Fowl maybe this was what Frank was waiting for. He asked me to get this off the ground about three years ago. This thread hit the 1,000 page mark and now he is ready to share his birds with you. Maybe this was his plan all along.

I hope many of you get his rare breeds of Fowl and then a year from now we can see what they look like. Some of the oldest gene pools in the country are here and ready for you to have.

In regards to the lighted pen Chris it looks neat. You need to have the front open and the back and the two sides covered good with plastic. Thats all I do down here. A chicken can do well as long as he has no drafts. Many think they are like dogs or people and need heat and electric blankets and such. Thats the silly people who dont come to this thread. They are chickens and can sit on a limb in a tree with two inches of snow on them and do great.

Got to protect the single combs, Vaseline on the males combs and I put my males in a card board box on freezing nites then put them on the floor with the females be for I go to work.

 

[galanie]

I had a local tobacco farmer bring me a bag of ground up tobacco leaves insisting that I should sprinkle them on all my chickens' preferred dust bathing areas. He insisted my birds would have no bugs if they bathed in dirt laced with tobacco. (So far, I haven't had an issue with "bugs" of any sort but I am an ex-smoker so I am reluctant to spread tobacco!)

Careful with that tobacco, nicotine is a very potent nerve toxin that insects cannot develop a tolerance to. I don't know if the birds would eat any of the tobacco pieces, but if they did it could potentially be fatal (and nicotine can also be absorbed through the skin). I am positive that the nicotine would eliminate any bugs on your chickens, though. I would do some more checking before I used the tobacco... it may be something that's been used for years as a chicken dust with no ill effect on the birds, and if that's the case I would certainly use it. But if it's just something this one guy has come up with as a theory, I'd be very careful.

Well, like most of the "old time remedies" and poisons, as well as some of the "new" remedies, it's not something some guy came up with on his own. Nor is the notion that having them dust bathe in ashes (ANY ashes) something someone dreamed up. This is because it works. Both do. Yes, tobacco is rife with nicotine and nicotine repels people. But how long does it take to kill a person? Just to keep a long story short, a much longer time than even the longest lived chicken will even be around.

Ashes are harmful too. Inhale them, and you'll be damaging your lungs awfully.

Natural substances do not allow pests to develop immunities like synthetics do.

Take these facts and run with them. And quit letting your own notions about something based ib feelings alone color your reaction to it when applied to a completely different thing. Please.

 

[Arielle]

OK Bob, what are the birds and who has them?

 

[Zanna]

OK Bob, what are the birds and who has them?

X 2

 

[3riverschick]

Lot of great suggestions on breeding these birds.
I would add I think it's important to create 2 lines before one starts bro to sis matings to any great extent.
One line descending from each male. If it was me, I would: Just use the plan Judge Card describes in the chart here.
http://archive.org/stream/cu31924003158312#page/n17/mode/2up
If one wanted they could pair each male up with each of all the females, creating 6 lines to use with Judge Card's chart.
If several of the "lines" were moved 500 miles apart, even better for genetic diversity.
In other news, found the local 4H poultry leader and he is very excited about helping me find dedicated 4H kids with
which to place breeding trios this year per Walt's wishes. I think it's a great idea too
Best,
Karen

 

[Lacy Blues]

Got to protect the single combs, Vaseline on the males combs and I put my males in a card board box on freezing nites then put them on the floor with the females be for I go to work.

Bob, you put your single comb males in cardboard boxes at night? Every night (below freezing)?

Was it on here that someone mentioned putting their cocks in boxes to avoid frostbite?

I don't remember which thread,but it was Bob who did this.

Bob, I really would like to hear more about this. I'm having a terrible time this year even though the wind has not been blowing drafts through my barn and it has really good ventilation.

HELP