Free range chickens

[Tundra Grey]

You really have to vet hatchery RJF. Many that hatcheries offer are just gamefowl. Cackle has two lines. One line is just wild colored gamefowl, the other is red junglefowl x brown leghorn hybrids. Some members here have had them.

Beware the fickleness of legitimate RJF. They’re very disease prone, especially if they’re either high percentage RJF or if they’re hybrids being line bred to bring out the RJF traits. I do not know the percentages of my hybrids, but I’ve found the more I tease out and exaggerate RJF traits to make them more in line with wild RJF the more prone they are to disease when free ranging. There was a point where I had several that superficially looked and moved like pure RJF and they couldn’t survive on free range worth a flip whenever they got rained on and cooled off.

 

[Tundra Grey]

OK, maybe I will wait on them. I wrote down a list of Icelandic breeder numbers that I am going to start calling in the next few days. I like the idea of mixing them with gamefowl. It sounds like there may be some up here. How do the (Cackle) Old English Standards compare with the American Games?
I was thinking on ordering a few just to add more game hens to the flock. I would probably keep a couple roo just so I could make more. It will be a lot harder to cull the more spendy AGF roos. Thanks for the info.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

OK, maybe I will wait on them. I wrote down a list of Icelandic breeder numbers that I am going to start calling in the next few days. I like the idea of mixing them with gamefowl. It sounds like there may be some up here. How do the (Cackle) Old English Standards compare with the American Games?
I was thinking on ordering a few just to add more game hens to the flock. I would probably keep a couple roo just so I could make more. It will be a lot harder to cull the more spendy AGF roos. Thanks for the info.

For the most part, the hatchery standard Old English are American games. They’re sold as Old English because American gamefowl are not a recognized breed by the major poultry associations and calling them “Old English” removes some of the stigma of cockfighting from them.

There are two overall kinds of Old English games, the Carlisle and the Oxford. Oxfords are very much like American games and are the original form of the Old English. I think Greenfire Farms has legitimate Oxford Old English games. The American show standards for Old English games is more like the Oxford birds. Carlisle are more like Modern games. Show birds only.