Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry

[RareBreedFancier]

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Thanks, I will try again. I may just have not been looking in the right spot.

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I assume your culling for toes straight out of the 'bator? Anything else you look for?
I'm going to test hatch some this fall as soon as they are laying and culls are going on meat grower so I can watch them mature and find out what Dorking tastes like. I'll grow out the others an see what they are like and see what the parents might be hiding.

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Wow! I have Rock envy! I wish my boy looked like that!

 

[kathyinmo]

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Wow! I have Rock envy! I wish my boy looked like that!

You are in Australia. Don't you have the old E. B. Thompson strain of Barred Rocks there?

 

[cybercat]

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I know of many chicken owners up North even in Canada that have coops not heated and own single combs birds. The main trick is venalation in coop. Too many have air tight coops and humidity builds up in them. Many think they have good venalation but do not. Our temps here hit 0 and we had alot of snow for this area this year. I did not have any frostbite at all just like past years. My coop is open under roof all the way around by 4 inches about and has no heat or light in it. I put in 6 to 12 inches of straw to act like deep litter. What that does is when it gets soiled and wet I turn it weekily or ever few days and it starts composting. That helps warm coop some.

I also know of many all over that did have problems with frostbite. Again it was a coop problem. People will not just let chickens be chickens some times and coddle them too much. Draft free does not mean air tight. Wild birds live in the snow and cold all winter with no problems. Wild chickens do too. Mine and many others are out in snow even when it is snowing. Frostbite not an issue with our free rangers, so why do others that have them all sung and cosy have frostbite? makes one think what are they doing wrong.

 

[Mervin]

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I know of many chicken owners up North even in Canada that have coops not heated and own single combs birds. The main trick is venalation in coop. Too many have air tight coops and humidity builds up in them. Many think they have good venalation but do not. Our temps here hit 0 and we had alot of snow for this area this year. I did not have any frostbite at all just like past years. My coop is open under roof all the way around by 4 inches about and has no heat or light in it. I put in 6 to 12 inches of straw to act like deep litter. What that does is when it gets soiled and wet I turn it weekily or ever few days and it starts composting. That helps warm coop some.

I also know of many all over that did have problems with frostbite. Again it was a coop problem. People will not just let chickens be chickens some times and coddle them too much. Draft free does not mean air tight. Wild birds live in the snow and cold all winter with no problems. Wild chickens do too. Mine and many others are out in snow even when it is snowing. Frostbite not an issue with our free rangers, so why do others that have them all sung and cosy have frostbite? makes one think what are they doing wrong.

I agree with Cybercat here. I resisted the urge to make a well-insulated, air-tight coop and I'm glad I did. I have mostly single-combed birds and was worried about frostbite. In the eleventh hour I read some excerpts from some rather old texts and decided to try opening it up a bit. I thought if it went horribly awry I could just tarp it or board it up until spring and then batten it up some more so to speak. I'm not sure of the exact measurements, but I have roughly 1sqft of ventilation per 10sqft of floor space and it seems to have worked out well thus far. In the future I might go even more radical with a Wood's-style or three-sided with a screened front. My neighbor has an Orp roo, a silkie and an Easter Egger in with a goat in a run-in shelter with no problems (other than the goat eating chicken feed). My little girl wants some bantams this spring. I was considering scaling down a Wood's-style, but I might just make a little quanset-hut, screened at both ends, with a huddle for them. I'm really becoming a believer in fresh-air housing.

To answer the question, with proper humidity control, single combs do not seem to be an issue at least as far north as central PA.

 

[Delight in Dominiques]

Just started on reading this thread, hehe, Thought I would throw in a pic of the birds on a spit. Nothing better! I agree about the ventalation. I have only American Dominiques, so cold is not an issue here in Pa. Curtains stay open year round. Just close the big curtains to keep the wind off of them. But keeping the air moving keeps everything clean and healthy. Also I do a deep bedding in the coop, adds some warmth.

 

[RareBreedFancier]

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Wow! I have Rock envy! I wish my boy looked like that!

You are in Australia. Don't you have the old E. B. Thompson strain of Barred Rocks there?

I believe you are right, I'm sure I've seen birds advertised as from that line.

I truly love the look of the barred Rocks. They have a rare color form here too that I am very tempted to get, I've even found a breeder on the net who has them. The light barred Rocks are listed as critical on the Rare Breeds Trust priority list. "Critical - Fewer than 100 purebred breeding birds" so it would seem they really need support, even more than the standard dark barred form.

Seems so sad to see these beautiful historic breeds down to such low numbers. Worries me to think when numbers are so low and they are held by only a few breeders (some breeds as few as 1 or 2!) how easily we could lose them. Many breeders of these rare birds are quite elderly and if there are no younger people wanting to take them on they will simply vanish into history.

EDIT: Delight in Dominiques, those are some yummy looking birds!

How old were they? I might have to make a spit like that for mine I think.

 

[kathyinmo]

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I believe you are right, I'm sure I've seen birds advertised as from that line.

I truly love the look of the barred Rocks. They have a rare color form here too that I am very tempted to get, I've even found a breeder on the net who has them. The light barred Rocks are listed as critical on the Rare Breeds Trust priority list. "Critical - Fewer than 100 purebred breeding birds" so it would seem they really need support, even more than the standard dark barred form.

OH, yes, that's right.... in Australia you have both light and dark catagories. I recall reading about that. Interesting that the USA no longer has that, even though many continue to believe the best results come from double matings.

 

[Chickhick]

I live in Alabama, so we don't have extreme cold. We shouldn't have a problem with frostbite here, but a couple of my roosters did have a little damage. I don't have a tight barn at all. I think I'm going to try Vaseline next year. We only had a few days of bitter cold, but it was enough to give them frostbite on the biggest combs.

 

[RareBreedFancier]

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OH, yes, that's right.... in Australia you have both light and dark catagories. I recall reading about that. Interesting that the USA no longer has that, even though many continue to believe the best results come from double matings.

Yes, odd isn't it. I'd hate for them to just disappear when there is so much history in them. Darks are listed as "Vulnerable - Fewer than 300 purebred breeding birds" and while that's not good it's a whole lot better than less than 100 for the Lights.

This is where I start dreaming about having funds for a preservation farm... so many rare birds I'd love to collect but have to think about the costs of growing out the young to pick future breeders. Need to grow out lots to pick only the best.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

On frostbite, I do think it's wrapped up in the humidity, but I think it can be more than your coop, it can also be your location. I grew up two miles up the road. This is hilly country, and my childhood home is much higher than here. It was just as cool, but it was high and dry. I had beautiful mille fleur d'uccles and black-tailed white japanese, as well as buff rocks, and the worse I ever suffered was what I would refer to as "frosting", just the tips. Here, we're down on lake level in a valley, the air is just heavier, moister. Frostbite here is murderous. Single combs freeze to the skull. It's simply not to be believed. Moreover, on our property there are multiple microclimates caused by bends, stonewalls, and bull-pines. When we had SC birds some birds suffered horribly on the north side of the bull-pines while those to the southern leigh of the pine fared much better. Ventilation is excellent in our coops.

For this reason we do limit ourselves to RC birds, however all other combs types would be fine, save single. It happens that our breeds are RC. Were SC to have worked out here, we probably would have specialized in Speckled Sussex. Fate being what it is.....