Developing My Own Breed Of Large Gamefowl For Free Range Survival (Junglefowl x Liege)

[TexasBlues]

Half-Liege, half-Wahl aseel.

That breeding is what you are calling terrorfowl?

The look great, better IMO than the pure aseels.
Do you have any of these terrorfowl crossed with your cracker line?

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

That breeding is what you are calling terrorfowl?

The look great, better IMO than the pure aseels.
Do you have any of these terrorfowl with your cracker line?

Yes and yes. The original intent was that the half-breeds would be the foundational stock and I would line breed them back to Liege to make a bird that was Liege-like in size, full feathered, large winged, but aseel looking in legs and face.

The third generation terrorfowl were highly susceptible to Marek’s and were wiped out save 1 stag.

I have put Indo over pure Crackers and produced several hens that have made it to 2 years old with no sign of Marek’s. These are the three way crosses I refer to that will probably be the future of the flock.

Separate from that first line of terrorfowl, I am planning on making a second line by putting Sherman over Liege hens then crossing those either to Indo, the three way crosses, or the line-bred results of Indo over the three way crosses.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

And that’s one of the maddening things. The outcrossing for vigor thwarts my attempts to tighten up the traits through line-breeding.

I currently have Indo out on free range to breed to his 3-way-cross daughters. Will the chicks be as vigorous as their mothers? Or will I have to outcross for another generation before I bring them back to Indo to tighten up?

The thing is…disease really comes from agriculture/domestication/humans living in societies. Sure…there are natural wild diseases but generally those are either mild or they burn out quickly. Generally the diseases that we have in humans and livestock comes from people and domestic animals living in high concentrations for thousands of years. These diseases either spread around these human or animal populations or they mutate and jump species in agriculture.
So that’s why Europeans brought their diseases to Native Americans and almost wiped them out. The Europeans had been dying and surviving diseases for eons and Native Americans (while more suited to living wild) did not have the disease resistance. Even Native American dog breeds got wiped out my European dog diseases. So wild Jungle Fowl are superior in their ability to survive on the wild they don’t have the immune system that domesticated chickens have after dying or surviving these diseases for eons. Your Cracker fowl probably are more disease resistant than pure Red Jungle Fowl but not as resistant as say, these game fowl that have been exposed to EVERYTHING! When problem say that Asian Games are more disease resistant it’s probably because chickens were domesticated there first. When they say Egyptian Fayoumi are extremely disease resistant it’s probably because of eons of carrying diseases. The problem is, domestication has taken the wildness out of chickens. They are less alert and have less instinct. The other thing is stress is what often brings out diseases that are carried and Euler birds…the birds prone to being alert/stress prone are the same birds that get stressed easily and then their immune systems go down and then they get sick. The dopey domestic birds don’t stress easily so that helps them prevent disease and live in captivity but maybe they aren’t as alert to predators.

 

[Chicken Heel]

This thread continues to be my favorite one on BYC. Love all the photos and there is a lot of knowledge being shared.

 

[Nero70002]

View attachment 3733199
View attachment 3733207

This is Black Eyed Pea. So named by my wife because of his dark eyes. I’ve probably got a pic of him younger some pages back. He is the only one of about 100 gen 3 terrowfowl to not show signs of contracting Marek’s and is the only one to survive 2023. He has grown up free range. He crows but does not top hens. His wings are large and he freely tree roosts, unlike Indo who can but won’t. I have prepared a coop for him and will attempt to pen him this weekend with one of the three way cross hens.

View attachment 3733208

Indo and Sherman.

View attachment 3733211

Sherman and some of the Liege hens.

I decided to keep the Crackers and half-Crackers cooped. I’ll update the threads on those projects.

Wow he’s super pretty, and the turkey’s tail looks like a tin can lol

 

[Az OEGB]

I want to revisit this. I have tried this method recently in Azog’s coop, which again is made up of 3 Liege x aseel pullets and 2 fayoumi x Hatch American gamefowl pullets. Since giving the birds a heavy dose of unrefined coconut oil mixed in a day’s worth of feed in their feed trough, the 5 hens have produced 4-5 eggs a day, every day of the week, except maybe once a week I’ll get 3. I dosed the coconut oil sometime in late February or early March. Since then, I’ve filled my incubators twice (44 egg capacity between the two) and sent over 6 dozen hatching eggs of the same to friends. I have 2 dozen more on the shelf laid last few days.

Coincidence? Maybe. I am tending to think not. The pullets represent unrelated sets of genetics, none known to be good layers. So now I’ve dosed all my birds around the farm. Everyone definitely looks better. Even Lanky, who always has a pale face to varying degrees, is now rosy red. So red almost all the white is gone off his ear.

I am also dosing apple cider vinegar into their plastic waterers and rotating the waterers so that on some days the birds are getting straight water out of metal waterers and ACV water out of plastic waterers on other days.

I would invite others to try the unrefined coconut oil in a closed flock of mediocre layers to see if it appears to boost egg production.

How long do you give them the coconut oil.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

How long do you give them the coconut oil.

Just for a day or two. But I dose it heavily.

 

[sunturtle]

Reds are by far the easiest followed by Greys, then Ceylons and by far the hardest are Greens. That’s also pretty much the order of how much cold they can take. The Greens need a special diet but not the others.
Here’s a 50% Grey:

Hi I’m looking for a pair of greys

 

[sunturtle]

I haven't read the whole thread, so this may now be irrelevant. But my experience is a big hen often produces big offspring out of a small rooster. The hen sets the size more than the male.

I’m looking for a grey pair

 

[genesis1verse1]

I saw your YouTube bullfrog, and I am really looking forward to getting your book. You gave me some good gardening ideas in that video.