Brahma Breeders thread

[Dispatch273]

Kind of hard to tell from the photos, but what I think I'm seeing, is not full blown hard feathered vulture hocks, but a kind of soft feathered form of semi vulture hocks. Both I think, are probably an inheritance from some Cochin ancestry, at least it was in my birds case.

Not sure if the soft form is a DQ like the hard feathered form is, but I would not consider either a good thing to have in my breeding program.

Here is a short video of him.

 

[BeachBumBiddies]

Hi! Sorry to pop in, but do you cull the ones with VH or do you try to breed it out? Just bought 2 blue Brahma from rare breed auction & they look like they might have VH. :/ Thanks in advance.

 

[brahmabreeder]

I think I saw some bantam Brahmas get DQ'D for that in the junior show. The soft VH.

 

[brahmabreeder]

I would since its a disqualification for their type.

 

[Tim63]

Technically, BOTH Standards use the word "STIFF" in their definitions of Vulture Hocks. So if in fact a judge DQ'd a bird with soft ones he or she was ill-informed. That being said......I would not tolerate either in my birds. Gary can speak to the genetic issues of using a bird like that(soft VHs) in a breeding program.

 

[Dispatch273]

Technically, BOTH Standards use the word "STIFF" in their definitions of Vulture Hocks. So if in fact a judge DQ'd a bird with soft ones he or she was ill-informed. That being said......I would not tolerate either in my birds. Gary can speak to the genetic issues of using a bird like that(soft VHs) in a breeding program.

So in your opinion do you think my cockerel has soft VH? I intend to get much better pictures today.

 

[Tim63]

Can't tell that from a photo. Feel them. Are they soft or STIFF?

 

[big medicine]

Hi! Sorry to pop in, but do you cull the ones with VH or do you try to breed it out? Just bought 2 blue Brahma from rare breed auction & they look like they might have VH. :/ Thanks in advance.

Vulture hocks is a recessive trait. Meaning it requires two copies, one from each parent, to show its presence in a bird.

A bird carrying only one copy will look normal, but will still pass a copy on to half it's chicks.

A two copy visibly vulture hocked bird will pass a copy to every chick.

The shortest and surest route to clean the normal looking one copy birds out of your flock would be to keep a pair of full two copy birds to use as test breeders. That is you would single mate the two copy bird with the suspected one copy birds. Any mating that produced any full blown VH chicks (should be in the range of 50%) would confirm the normal looking parent as being a copy carrier. Any confirmed one copy adults and all chicks resulting from these test matings, would then go into pens destined for freezer, or sold as back yard layers, with the explanation of what and why they are to all potential buyers.

So in short, if all your breeders show VH, you can not breed it out. If any of your breeders show VH you are still pretty much screwed. If any of your breeders are normal looking one copy birds, with out test mating, it will take you longer to figure out, but likely just as screwed.

 

[Dispatch273]

Can't tell that from a photo. Feel them. Are they soft or STIFF?

They are stiff towards the base but then soften as they get further from the leg, if that makes any sense at all....My two other cockerels just have soft fluffy feathers on their legs so the obvious choice for me is to cull the big guy. Too bad because he's such a sweetie! I have some other pictures I took today but I can't upload them at the moment. I'll get them up tonight.

 

[Dispatch273]

Ok. Some more pictures of Henry as well as some of my other brahmas.







Blue partridge Pullet



The younger birds who in my uneducated opinion are nicer in body type than the two above brahmas.