Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[juststruttin]

a link to the original.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Blosl

I interviewed about a year ago a very good breeder and he has a friend who is a super good bantam breeder. He told me if his friend has a female that is a killer that won Grand Champion of the show with type just out of this world he will mate the best two sons back to this hen and then pick which son produced the best total off spring in pullets as well as cockerels. He then will pick two of the best sons from that matting and mate it back to the hen again and raise say 20 to 25 chicks from this old hen. He does this for say four years. This is kind of what the Fletch chart does it mates the best son to the dam and the best pullet to her sire or the first pair birds. Then on the fourth or fifth year if you are lucky and no buddy dies you cross one bird from the right and one to the left and repeat this again. In the first chart it shows how you do this so just think of having a pen of White Plymouth Rock Large fowl you do this each year then you go up to the house where you have another pen and bring saw a top notch female down to the back pen and mate it to the very best cockerel. Then repeat this same process for four more years. I would have a total of two to three breeders depending how I figure out what to do. When you have just one parent and they get a year older each year you have to plan on a death. So if it happens you may have to redo the plan with a new bird. I also have Mr. Weaver in Tenn who has my line and a fellow in Canada who has my White Rock Line. I could always get a new bird from them and cross in and start over. That is my safety valve BUDDY plan. Can not do this alone you should have a partner like I have in Arkansas who raises my Rhode Island Red Bantams.

Now as I write this I ask my self how will I line breed these three Mottled Javas when I get them. I take the only male and mate him to each female and have each female in a five by five pen and rotate the male each day to the new pen. Each egg is hatched in a separate wooden hatch er and then toe punched and later wing banded. Then I take the best son of the hen one and mate to hen two and the best son from hen two and mate to hen one. I will take the best two other pullets and mate them to their sire and start another breeding pen. This will give me three new lines or three family's. Next thing I got to do is find me someone who lives in Texas or East Georgia and get them a start of say two pair and let them line breed them at a distance of about five hundred miles or more from me. Then say in four years we swap ten started chicks and then raise them up and start all over again with new fresh birds mated from their stock and my stock.

Hopefully, if I cull for vigor first type second and then color third I will be able to restart this old line of Mot led Javas.

Now as I painted this picture to you on how I have a plan with my 30 year old line of White Plymouth Rock large fowl and the Dr. McGraws old Mottled Javas what could you do with what you got.

Can you take a pen and a piece of paper and make a box for pen one and a box for pen two and figure out how you would go. The secret to being a good breeder that I learned is you have to have VISION. You got to ask your self every day WHAT IF I DID THIS. Some may say this Rhode Island Red pullet has very little black markings on her wing she is a cull. But old time breeders I interviewed say you are wrong. She is a $500. pullet. You keep these females around when you get a good male who is overloaded in the wing with black markings. You mate him to her then there best pullet with less black markings back to the male and then she kind of cleans the wings on the future generations. On the female side you take a male very much like Bobby in North Carolina or Matt 1616 her in my back yard in Alabama and mate these super star males with say over loaded wings back to her for two to three years. Mrs. Donaldson use to say these birds help to ABSORB the over abundance of black in the other mate.

Remember I told you That Mr. Kansas told me to Go Slow, Go Small and GO DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. Well I think this is bringing you back to the middle by breeding such a female.

In regards to the person who asked what do I do to try not to screw up a old line of Heritage Birds such as this old LINE of Mottled Javas. I just painted a picture for you. I could do this with any breed of Fowl. Just Go Slow, Go Small and Think into the Future with Vision. Many people do not or can not be breeders of Live Stock because they were not born with the Vision trait. My wife goes into a store and touches everything she walks buy. I look at it with Vision and wonder what it would look like on a person. Some are what we call Auditory minded. They say when you talk to them Could you run that by me one more time and kind of TILT there head to the side to listen. I remember one time in school my teacher asked one of my friends what was the capital of Alabama and he looked up at the ceiling and after about 20 seconds said Montgomery. Then She said what is the capt ital of Oregon he did it again and he said Salem. Latter after class and we where out side playing I asked him why he looked up at the ceiling he said I could visualize the map of the United States I then could see the state and then the Capital of it. I latter asked the teacher if she saw what my friend did she said yes isn't it something. I said why does he do this and Martha looks down and touches her dress when you ask a question. She said she is a feeler or .Kinesthetic.

http://personalityjunkie.com/01/learning-styles-personality-type-visual-auditory-kinesthetic/

My friend is a Visual and other kids are Auditory. I latter studied this in sales and found if you know what the person is or his wife when you are making your presentation you can get them to say yes at the end. So in breeding chickens it helps if you have this God given gift. Matt 1616 is always dreaming up new mat tings in his head and has a eye for type like I have not seen in years. He would make a great judge some day. I am sure Walt and New York Reds have the same gift. That's why they are both master breeders.

So that's the secret of the day. One thing you can tell people when I am gone to the big chicken show in the sky is he did not take his secrets with him.

So all you people out there lets Visualize how we can save as many strains or lines of large fowl from going extinct in the next five years. Lets have a plan and get you a partner you can trust and lets do it. bob

I was reading through this thread again as a way to honor Bob and found this tidbit that I thought was timely. Wow, the more I read his posts the more I realized what a truly great man he was.​

 

[Yellow House Farm]

While I don't always agree with Joel Salatin - I keep an open mind and usually like listen to the lectures he presents just so I can have a wide mindset - After all I come from a family where my mother works with commerical farmers of all types, but I have a small farm while in school.

"All form fallows function" - I could not agree more with this and Form does fallow function - it is not the other way around

I tried to use the embed feature however it won't let me embed at a certain time. So here is the link and it will take you to the ~16 min mark for whomever is interested

Interesting, it's fun when we ride the wave of being "right". Lord knows I've done it more than once. However, the problem with his sarcasm is that it comes from someone who's not part of this community. So, half knowledge or half experience is only so valuable. Listening to him, he doesn't say anything new or interesting. If he doesn't appreciate the Standard or the idea of standard-zed breeding, it doesn't change its outstanding importance in the development and preservation of breeds.

It also doesn't change the fact that I've never met a single "farmer" with the knowledge base concerning chickens that is found in the general crowd of an APA/ABA show hall. APA folks are about chickens; farmers are about products.

When I was a market farmer, I was constantly selecting for productivity above all else. I ran the bulk of our egg production on our flock of Anconas, and sold a lot of eggs. However, over time I became interested in returning to teaching. This happened to coincide with a growing frustration in me that my chickens were ugly and asymmetrical birds. I was often jealous of the beautiful standard-bred stock I'd see at the poultry shows I frequented. I wanted chickens that were worthy of art. Now, of course I had been using my Standard before, but I was favoring function over form when it came down to it.

Still, things change. I'm not a market farmer any longer. I don't have to ring every little last egg out of my birds to make the mortgage. I don't actually care if they're the single most productive flock in the region or not. To some that might sound blasphemous, but I've put more time into actually breeding productive chickens than most anyone I've met, and as a farmer in the region I know a lot of people. With only one exception, those who are doing any volume in sales buy in hatchery stock. They're egg focused, not chicken focused. They know jack about their chickens. Sure they can keep them alive and healthy. They collect a good egg, and many of them can slaughter. However, none of them know about their chickens qua chickens in the way that I do. I give talks in New England at which I teach people how to breed for productivity, but one of the things I also invite people to do is actually start to appreciate their chickens qua chickens.

Now, I breed to the Standard first and foremost. Hold the phone, you say. That must mean that I ignore production. Absolutely not. However, I consider it as part of the whole and not as the firt and foremost concern. If one breeds properly to the Standard, one will raise birds that are productive. Chances are, though, they're not going to be the highest producers. To get there, function must be selected above all else, and really trap-nesting needs to be adopted. However, my birds are much more beautiful and balanced. Now, of course here, we're talking eggs. My meat qualities do nothing but improve. Moreover, because I assess birds a specific ages, I end up retaining those that mature more quickly and put size on more efficiently then their confreres. It's not an all or nothing choice.

Often beginners ask, "what's the best layer?" Frankly, who cares, most people don't actually need the best layer. Most people end up inundated with eggs for which they're running out of uses. Most homesteading needs are well-met by a properly standard-bred fowl, and if selection is maintained at certain ages, basically good, homestead-appropriate productivity can be maintained in those strains.

Then, however, there is the value of beauty. Our culture doesn't often know how to address that. We're a culture that praises function and often scorns beauty as frivolous. Fortunately, we have our older, ancestral cultures to remind us of the great social, psychological, and spiritual benefit of beauty. There is great personal benefit that comes from beauty and the enjoyment of beauty. Now that I'm not pushing for every last egg, I am free to enjoy that, and I wouldn't give it up for a few extra dozen eggs, because that's the difference we're talking about. We're not talking about 20 eggs versus 300 eggs. Unless one is working with industrial layers, at which point the conversation is over anyways because that's a completely different game, the farmer insistent on function over form with the typical infrastructural capacities of a small-scale operation, who also wants to do it with pure-bred fowl, is going to, perhaps, with skill and attention, glean a few extra dozens per bird per annum. His birds will, however, look like hatchery rats. No thank you.

Some might not be sensitive to that. Some might not see the value. That's cool. I certainly went through a personal evolution and arrived here. Who knows where others will arrive. What isn't useful, though, is prevarication and fanciful non-realities. People who imagine themselves to be great breeders of productive fowl tend also to be rather young in chickens. There are breeder fowl, hatchery fowl, and corporate fowl. Corporate fowl are corporate fowl, they are backed by amazing science to be what they are, and the attainment of those levels of production is closed to the layman. What most people who boast about breeding for production are really doing is the reinvention of hatchery fowl. Cool, if that makes them happy, but that's not what this thread is about.

This thread has, since its inception been about the promotion of standard-bred heritage fowl, finding good stock, learning how to breed it to the Standard, learning to show, learning the ins and outs of various breeds and their genetics. That Joel Salatin might not find that valuable is not actually all that important or relevant. That someone might not appreciate what this thread is about is certainly alright: "different strokes for different folks". That "form follows function" in poultry be thought of as a rule is a fantasy. Since 1874 the Standard of perfection has been the driving force in breed development and certainly of maintenance. People fantasize about old-fashioned farming. The culture around old-fashioned farming was part of old-fashioned culture, and that culture led to the APA and the Standard of Perfection as well as other breed organizations. It also led to a whole lot of unproductive mongrels and poverty-drenched subsistence living about which we like to create romanticized stories. Farming advancements and specialization led to the development of highly productive strains in a few breeds, and everything else ceased being considered a "serious" farming venture. Of course, farmers ended up being culled just as ruthlessly leading to the development of highly productive "farmers", and everyone else ceased being considered "serious" farmers. Good-bye American small-scale farms.

Barring the few "breeds" that are maintained by the industry. All the breeds we have have been preserved, maintained, and promoted by two forces: hatcheries and APA/ABA culture. "Practical", "form follows function" farmers have done jack for chickens. Poultry-wise they have preserved practically nothing for posterity and will not be the force that carries these breeds into the future.


When I watched Food, Inc, Salatin was slaughtering Cornish X's...just like Perdue.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Prepotency is and excellent conversation and very appropriate to this thread!

Very broadly speaking, with all the dangers of generalization, a chick gets a gene from the dam and a gene from the sire for just about every part of the body. If the genes are sex-lined, they come from the sire or from the dam's sire.

Each parent has two genes for each part of the body, i.e. beak color, shank color, skin color, length of shank, length of wing, length of tail, skeletal set, tail angle, what have you--two genes, but the parent can only pass on one of the two to any given chick, because the chick gets one from each parent, which then form the chick's own pair of two genes. Now, when the chick gets its two genes for comb,one from sire and one from dam, one of two things happens, either the chick gets two of the same gene or the chick gets two differing genes--one for one thing, one for another thing. In other words, if the sire and the dam are both rose-combed, the chick has two genes for rose comb. It's a pair of same elements: (ROSE-ROSE). "homo" is Greek for same, and "zyg" is Greek for "pair"; so this chick is homozygous for Rosecomb, which means that when it's time for this chick to breed it only has rose combed comb genes to offer to any future pairing. No matter what happens, its progeny will get at least one gene for Rose comb; thus rose comb is in every single one of its chicks. It is prepotent for Rosecomb, because it offers nothing but rose comb to the equation.

In another scenario, if one parent bird is rosecombed (ROSE-ROSE) and another singlecombed (single-single), and we're assuming that the rosecombed parent is homozygous for rose comb, then the chicks from this pairing will get one gene for ROSE comb and one gene for single comb, getting one gene for comb from each parent. The resultant chick's comb equation will then be (ROSE-single). When you look at the bird (phenotype), you'll see a rose comb because rose comb is dominant to single comb, which means in the arm wrestling contest between the two genes as to which one will be the visible one, the rose comb wins (that's why it's written in capital letters), but underneath, in the bird's genetic code, there is a single comb presence. What this means, moving these chicks into the breeding pen, is that every chick to which a (ROSE-single) dam or sire contributes genetic material, remembering that only one element for comb can come from each parent, each chick has a 50/50 chance of getting a rose comb gene or a single comb gene from this parent because the parent has both to offer, and it's a toss up as to which of the two genes will be present in any given sperm or egg. Thus, from this parent, you're going to get, on average, only a 50% pass on rate for rose comb. In comparison to the first scenario of a (ROSE-ROSE) breeder, which was at 100% rose comb transference, this would be weak, i.e. not prepotent.

Now, genes are either dominant, which means you can see them with only one dosage from one parent, or they're recessive, which means that a chick needs the same gene from both parents for it to be visible, i.e. part of its phenotype. If a recessive gene is paired with a dominant gene, it's still present, it's just invisible.

So "prepotency" means having two genes of the same thing for each element, i.e. being homozygous: (ROSE-ROSE). Therefore, any bird that manifests visibly a recessive quality, e.g. a single combed bird (single-single) must have two genes for that quality to be visible, otherwise you couldn't see it in the first place, e.g. (ROSE-single) because the dominant gene would be the visible one.

So, a bird can be prepotent for dominant genes (ROSE-ROSE) or for recessive genes (single-single), which means that these birds have only one element for any one characteristic to offer in any given pairing--they are always giving the same gene for each characteristic. In the first scenario, it's prepotent and you can see the qualities for which it is prepotent in the offspring. In the second pairing, it's prepotent, meaning it's the only gene that the parent has to offer; so every one of its chicks gets it, but you can only see the prepotent quality if the other contributing parent offers the same recessive gene, i.e. if both parents offer up a single combed gene. No matter what, it will have at least one single-combed gene because the one parent was (single-single) and so gave "single" to the equation, but a single comb is only visible if a bird is (single-single).

Now, if we take the conversation away from combs, we can imagine a cock bird made up of multiple dominant qualities in a homozygous state:

Consider the potential recipe of a well-bred Cuckoo Dorking cock (not that any exist):

(ROSE-ROSE)
(BLACK-BLACK)
(SILVER-SILVER)
(BARRING-BARRING)
(WHITE-SKIN--WHITE-SKIN)
(5TH-TOE--5TH-TOE)
(BROAD FEATHER-BROAD-FEATHER)

This bird is practically unstoppable. In just about any out-cross, it will mask the vast majority of what it's paired with.

Now this is considering dominants vs. recessives and the possibility of outcross, but within a given strain, one has modifiers working on a pattern or on a body structure. Many, many qualities are had by modifiers which are called quantitative, meaning they are the product of a breeding program. The ROSE comb is a given but the length, shape and angle of the leader is the result of accumulating modifiers that point in this or that direction. Over time, with consistent selection for the same goal, always culling in the same direction, the gene pool starts to become uniform for one particular manifestation of the rosecomb: a specific balance, a specific texture, a leader that points a specific way. The quality of black, the quality of green sheen, the whiteness of lobes, the intensity of yellow in the shanks, the brightness of white in plumage, etc.., these things are had by accumulating modifiers over multiple generations.

Eventually one risks getting a cockerel that is homozygous for all of the necessary parts and that has a very high level of quantitative modifiers to pass around. His offspring are like BAM, because he is a genetic powerhouse. He can make up for the failings of his mates because of his homozygous prepotency and high volume of quantitative modifiers. Now, in theory, a hen can also be prepotent, but she will always be at the disadvantage when it comes to any sex-linked quality because a hen can only pass on a sex-linked quality to male offspring whereas a male can pass on a sex-linked quality to both male and female chicks. Also, the prepotent male is particularly valuable because it can be so easily spread about in the breeding pen(s).

The importance of modifier accumulation cannot be overstated, thus Dragonlady is always mentioning "Having a picture in your mind of what you're going for." One must continue to select in a specific direction in order to accumulate the various modifiers that are going to give that certain je ne sais quoi to your strain. If you keep changing your imagined ideal, your modifier accumulaton will be like a roller coaster ride, and your stock will lack consistency. Whenever you see a strain that's not simply, as Bob would say, a 92 point bird, what we refer to as being "representative of the breed", meaning, yeah, all the brids are rose combed, all white, all white skinned, etc..., but when you see a strain where each bird is consistent with the others and each quality just seems to stand out at you like a neon sign of "excellence", this happens because the modifiers have been uniformly accumulated throughout all the birds, and they are genetically very similar for the desired traits.

Now take this idea, and really chew on it. It takes a long time to pass these modifying alleles about. It takes strong numbers hatched, numerous enough to manage to get enough birds that manifest these genes from which to select. When you're carefully pairing, you're swapping modifiers; you're passing traits around the flock. This takes time. This is also why outcrossing to another strain can cause such a drop or variance in quality, because even though they're both Anconas, they possess vastly different sums of the quantitative genes that lead to excellence, and although all of the progeny will be Anconas, they'll look washed out, and it will take years to reaccumulate those intensifying modifiers throughout the flock in a uniform fashion. For this reason, it is desirable to maintain a number of birds sufficient to avoid having to bring in unrelated stock because of in-breeding depression. However it also illustrates why it is necessary to in-breed within a clan in order to accumulate a uniform intensity of equilibrated modifiers within a flock such that the progeny inherit each element in a balanced and predictable fashion.

A mating nicks when the exchange of modifiers is such that the resultant chicks are uniform and, hopefully, a bit superior to the parents. The breeding does not nick if the contributing alleles clash and create birds that, although "pure-bred", are out of balance and/or extreme. When bringing in unrelated stock, one is definitely crossing one's fingers because one is hoping that the accumulated modifiers from the unrelated birds are complementary and create offspring that maintain a balanced distribution of modifiers. For this reason, it is often recommended that one first cross the new bird to one member of the flock, and then take these 1/2 new-1/2 old bloodline birds (if the breeding nicked) and cross them into the established line because in this way one can be more certain that complementary modifiers exist on either side of the pairing, and one risks more assuredly hatching out at least some chicks that maintain the good qualities of the established line while importing the vigor or hoped-for qualities for which the new line was sought. If one doesn't take this precaution, one risks losing years of accumulated modifiers that can only then be rebuilt over multiple seasons and/or very large hatches with very tight culling.

Considering all of this, it, I hope, starts to become clear as to why mastery of breeding lies on the other side of breeding one variety of one breed over several years so that one can see the long-term effects of accumulating modifiers in a line such that the line comes to adopt an identifiable regularity, or uniformity, by which it is called a strain. This is why simply hatching higgledy-piggeldy doesn't make one a breeder, and why when would-be breeders say that they're going to do this, that, and the other thing, and create this, that, and the other variety, many experienced breeders just smile. They might lack the technical jargon to say all of this, but they're aware that it takes years and years to do certain things, and "'tis many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip" and unless a breeding project is replete with discipline, progress simply cannot be had. Only through the channeling of selection pressure along consistent, unchanging criteria (SOP), can one develop homozygous individuals with a high frequency of accumulated modifiers that create elite, prepotent breeders that distribute the hard-won genetics evenly throughout the strain.

Science, art, patience, persistence.

 

[BGMatt]

So......

with any breed we should
1. trap nest to record age to first egg, try to keep the best 10%
2. weigh every cockerel at the same age (4 months) and try to keep the best 10%
3. best type and vigor from those?

please list other criteria.

now I need to learn how to wing band, the leg bands I have been using come off.

with a flock of 25 pullets that means that I am selecting 3 to keep from the first egg method. Now I am beginning to see why breeders hatch such large numbers. I might not get any "good type" pullets in the 3. I need to hatch 100 pullets to have ten to pick from for type and vigor.

I was just listing examples. You need to decide your own criteria. So don't take it as gospel. But yes many breeders will hatch 100+ and keep less than 10 for breeders. You don't need to trap nest to know who's laying, especially for first eggs with pullets, you can tell sexually maturity by appearance, checking the vent and pubic bones will let you know if a bird is currently laying.

Cockerels I weigh every 4 weeks or more to track their rate of gain, absolutely.

Breeding is hard work, and a lot of record keeping to do well and actually make improvements. I keep my matings small so I know who is passing on what, mainly trios or pairs.

My personal criteria are as follows from most important to least important (keep in mind that I am working with breeds that are in a decent place quality wise, so I can be slightly less harsh on certain selection criteria):

Vigor/growth rate/overall health - I don't medicate or vaccinate for anything, I want the biggest, healthiest, strongest birds to pass on those genes. These birds need to be thriving. This is mainly monitored as birds are growing. For growth rate my standard practice is to keep 50% or less of chicks hatched to 6 months of age EXCLUSIVELY on growth rate. If it is a problem in my breed, I would keep less, yes even all the way down to 10%. I do this for each gender, so if I start with 50 pullets and 50 cockerels (I wish it worked that way) by 6 months I will have culled down to 25 of each on nothing more than growth rate. I do this monthly starting at 8 weeks (the bottom 1/4 or 1/3 will be culled on the spot, before even looking at other qualities at weeks 8, 12, 16, 20 and 24). The top 10% at each stage will be marked so that they're not only keepers, but potential breeders as well.

Type - According to the Standard of Perfection. The standards were written to enable function, a bird that produces but does not have the frame to continue to do so is an outlier. I take my top 10% using the scale of points and mark them for breeder consideration. But since this is second to vigor/growth rate if I have a bird that is top 10% here, but not in vigor/growth rate I will not use it for breeding unless forced to. Obviously anything with serious dq's or faults according to the standard will be culled, regardless of other qualities.

Production qualities - I want good meat qualities on my dual purpose fowl and good egg production from my egg laying breeds. I don't trap nest but consider an average good enough, for example my cut off for dual purpose fowl is 150 eggs per year, if I have 2 hens in a pen that means I should be getting at a minimum a half dozen eggs out of that pen a week, preferably more but if there's less that means I might want to take more drastic measures (trap nesting, dying vents, individual pens) to find out who isn't pulling their weight. As long as they get passing grades on these they will be eligible for breeder selection. Meat qualities should be taken care of by combination of top 2, and egg production personal standards being placed here keep me from breeding from a superior show specimen just because of looks, failing to meet my egg laying guidelines automatically removes a bird from my breeding program (the bird might be placed in my show flock if good enough, but not bred from and will not be sold.)

Finish - Mainly color, but anything else that is purely cosmetic. This is where I cull down to however many birds I'm going to keep over winter. Standard comes back out, fine points of color are scored, birds are scored again both type and color according to SoP scale of points, I decide how many I'm keeping of each and the rest go away. I'll also make my final breeder selections on each breed based on both genetic line (I prefer rotational breeding system) and compensation breeding (not doubling up on weaknesses etc)

That's pretty much my exact process for picking my breeders. I try to only breed from Cocks and Hens, so I will have had a chance to monitor them for all the traits. I keep records of where they fall and then select the top elite few to be bred from. I may keep birds that don't make the cut for breeders for other purposes as you can see, but those 4 categories are what I use to go through birds. And I have it all written out (not in quite as many words) and read it every time I go into my coops to cull birds.

I AM NOT SAYING THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO DO IT!

What I am saying is if you have to have clear goals and clear priorities and adhere strictly to them. Raise as many as you can and cull hard, then select breeders even harder. By the time i'm done culling out of every 100 chicks hatched I've probably only kept 10, and I'm only selecting from 1-5 of those at most as breeders going forward.

EDIT: Just did math on growth rate, if you start with 50 chicks and started at 8 weeks of age, and then continued every 4 weeks until week 24 and culled the bottom 1/4 you would be at 18 chicks, so slightly less than the stated 50% on growth rate alone. This is no other factors, and as I posted, there's a lot more to take into account on my personal farm.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Caponizing is a no go. Tried that once and was not impressed with the results. Then again they were hatchery RIR. Plus our death rate was a bit higher than I would of liked. I'd have to do some convincing to get my dad to help me again. My big issue with caponizing them is what if I caponize the best bird of the season? Then he would be utterly worthless except obviously as a meat bird. Maybe once I get my birds I could hatch a batch out and half the cockerels could get caponized and the other half not. That I could butcher all of them and compare the results.

Here is my thinking --

None of these breed will have a good FCR. The typical FCR of a heritage breed is 6-10. Even with my production line of light Sussex (that is bred solely for production) only reach 5.5 pounds at 16 weeks but they don't have a lot of meat on them. More than 99% of other heritage breeds at the same age though.

The White Chantecler was developed more as an egg layer the partridge more of a meat bird.
Plymouth rocks - You might be able to find a decent production strain. I know of a fine production strain of barred rocks in BC - they make lovely birds and grow faster than most do to the breeding program.
My experience with Faverolles was dismal - Faverolles that are in NA seem highly inbred and as such are not as productive as they should be
Javas - Never raised those no comments
Sussex - See if you can locate a strain of True North Hatchery's light Sussex - they may be the most productive Light Sussex in North America
Rhode Island Reds - I would be careful never had much luck with RIR in living up to why they became so popular
Dorkings - There is a breeder that has some good white Dorkings on here (Yellow House farm IMSM)


Your best bet maybe to take the fore-mentioned white dorkings and cross them another really productive breed - this will really increase your level of heteros and give you some really nice growing offspring - after all this what farmers did for hundreds of years (except there were no breeds so chickens were just chickens)

Well, here are some of our birds at 6 months:





Here's are a couple of comparison photos between our Dorking and our Ancona:






The idea of keeping two breeds, hatching out your quota for each breed and then hatching out some crosses for larger meat production, is a good one. I bet putting one of your Light Brahma cocks over our Dorking hens would be an interesting project. It would be a terminal cross but an interesting one to watch develop.


I'd say with meat, though, it is important to some keep in mind certain reality checks:

1. Old-fashioned meat expectations were different from today's ideas. It is imperative to remember that these birds were to food source of a time period. To understand them, go to that time period. Read cookbooks that were written with heritage chicks in mind, and you'll discover facts. First of all, the designations: broiler, fryer, roaster, and fowl, actually meant something. Many chicken recipes where written for 2.5/lb. birds, i.e. fryers. Most roasting recipes aim at 3.5/lb roasters, what I would estimate to be males killed under 22-weeks old. A heritage chicken cookery has nothing to do with a broiler industry cookery, if you cannot separate the two in your mind, you will not be satisfied with heritage birds. May they never look like modern broilers!

2. We slaughter at 24-26 weeks old. We do an old-fashioned slow roast in a Dutch-oven, and it's delicious--absolutely elegant. We served them for two Christmas parties this year, and they're exquisite fare. Our birds probably average 4-ish/lbs. dressed, maybe a little more. I imagine over time they'll get a bit larger, but larger meat isn't necessarily better meat. There is the threat with larger that it will become too stringing. Our birds right now are right on the mark. My experience is that most people establish some sort of weight demand before they are proficient in cooking heritage meat, before they understand the various traditional preparations and how the meat is allotted out in appropriate portions. Whatever their criteria are, they are not the demands of the kitchen. If one considers my #1, one can imagine why "egg-breeds" actually can offer quite a bit to the table. We eat Anconas all the time. They make great little spatchcocks for the summer grill.

3. If one wants ready made meat, go commercial stock. Your stock will only be as good as you're ready or willing to make it. It's all about individual breeder responsibility. If you want good birds, breed good birds. However, to do this you must submit to the strictures that lead to good birds. One idea in your particular case might be to stick with what you have. Ditch the Buffs, and stick with the Lights. Use all of the floor space you would have dedicated to a second breed to your Light Brahmas, and then raise out a doubly strong number. Weigh them out at 24 weeks keep the best weight and type, and with you're increased numbers you should also be able to consider color; then put all of the rest on fat-n-finish and slaughter at 26 weeks. If you do this for four or five years, you ill have outstandingly different birds at that point than you do now.

4. "Feed conversion" simply isn't a breeding concern that can be effectively addressed by the vast majority of small-scale breeders. Given, your breed of choice is an eater, but actual selection for feed conversion is a whole system. If feed conversion is a true concern, then use corporate chicken stock.

 

[gjensen]

I agree with both of you in theory, but we are not all the same.

I have one person in mind that has a dozen projects and I am continually impressed with her progress. She has the eye, the mind, the desire, and the time. I am not impressed easily, and what she does is impressive.

I am also impressed with her creativity concerning management.

Like a lot of us, what she has was not perfected before she received them. Still, every generation is an improvement, and that is all any of us can do. Be better off than we were last year. Start with the best you can, first do no harm, and get better every generation.

 

[Beekissed]

We are assuming that the bird that started the conversation was in fact killed by cocci. I agree that may be most likely, but you can't positively tell without cutting the intestines open. Often a bird that is burdened by cocci can be killed by a co infection. Other gut diseases can cause similar symptoms. There is somewhere around a dozen species of cocci that can infect chickens. A few are the most significant.

Chickens can develop resistance if they are exposed at low levels. High levels exist where many birds have been concentrated over a period of time. Warm damp conditions can create conditions for a population explosion, overwhelming even adult birds that have been exposed prior. These same conditions can cause other pathogens to thrive, so often the birds are burdened by more than one thing.
Adult birds that have never been exposed to it, and are suddenly exposed to higher numbers can succumb to cocci.

Chicks are especially vulnerable because there is no acquired immunity, they are concentrated in a warm space, and possibly a humid environment. The conditions could be ripe for a population explosion.

Management is the best tool against cocci. Generally speaking adults that have been exposed to it before are fine if the bedding and grounds is kept in good shape.

Chicks that are provided clean bedding, in clean brooders, the bedding is well maintained, the humidity kept low, and are not overcrowded, are not as likely to suffer an outbreak. The best possible management does not eliminate the possibility so many use medicated starter.

Cocci can become drug resistant, so management is the best first option. I will use medicated starter when I need to. I assume at some point that I will.

You are most likely to have a problem when introducing new birds that have never been exposed to what you have on your yard, the birds have weak immune systems, or management is poor.

I'll add to that...the walls of intestines are complex and are not just a blank slate where you will either get coccidia or will not according to the numbers present in the animal's environment. There are other microorganisms at work that can help inhibit an overgrowth of coccidia merely be having a stronger colonization in the walls of the intestine and their metabolism actually secretes chemicals that inhibit the reproduction of coccidia, therefor preventing an overgrowth of the protozoa internally. Keeping a balance in those bowel bacteria is key to it all, for if you have balance internally your birds can withstand some levels of external imbalance. A healthy colonized bowel is a big part of a bird's immune system that many overlook and can protect them from so many things. What few realize is that this healthy culture also produces proteins and B complex vitamins, increases absorption of key nutrients and even discourages overgrowth of parasites by making the bowel an inhospitable pH for their existence.

To have complete protection, one must have balance inside and outside with good cultures in both areas. Overstocked soils that are overloaded with nitrogen and are impacted and cannot be cleansed by the rains are hard to establish with a healthy culture and insect life that could inhibit the overgrowth of coccidia. It's not just damp and steamy environments that produce this overgrowth~though they are more prone~ but an imbalance in the soil life itself by poor drainage, over stocking, compact soils and never any attempts to correct the condition of these soils. They are just a petri dish for the wrong kinds of organisms to take hold and thrive, but are not ideal for the healthy ones that can keep the bad ones in check.

This is why some have taken a more proactive approach to livestock feeding by introducing some prebiotic and probiotic cultures into their intestines...and the commercial feed companies are also adding these things now as well.

Among the huge list of type of bacillus found in lactobacillus cultures, one in particular grabs my interest and is applicable here~Pediococcus acidilactici

Pediococcus acidilactici can function as immune modulators. Animals fed with P. acidilactici have shown enhanced immune responses against infectious coccidioidal diseases.

Pediococcus acidilactici is also known to prevent colonization of the small intestine by pathogens like Shigella, Salmonella, Clostridium difficile and Escherichia coli among small animals.

Pediococcus acidilactici has not been stated in any literature to have toxic effects. Another potential benefit of using them as Probiotics is their use as alternative medicines against infectious parasitic pathogens like Eimeria* in broiler-chicken [6].

in livestock and wild animals, infects mainly the cells of the digestive tract, although it also attacks cells of the liver and the bile duct. Symptoms of infection are diarrhea, weight loss, and general weakness. Eimeria is characterized by spore cases that contain four spores, each with two infective sporozoites. Among the common pathogenic species are E. necatrix and E. tenella (in poultry); E. stiedae (in rabbits); and E. bovis, E. ellipsoidalis, and E. zuernii (in cattle).

A healthy intestine is good for animal and human alike and is the very basic and most urgent place to start if one is going to improve overall flock health and protect them from disease transmission. Using meds is like putting a band aid on a wound that may occur again the next time one is near the dangerous object. It's best to build a guard against a dangerous object so that one never gets that wound in the first place.

 

[hellbender]

I am posting this for dad. All went well with his surgery.
Thanks to everyone for supporting him. He is resting
and taking it easy.

Jason L.

 

[Pathfinders]

I made this today. Enjoy.



Sometimes, some people need to just take a breath...

 

[gjensen]

Farther into the past there was a few that thought there could be a relationship between size and level of productivity to include size. You can find some references to this in old literature. We were in our infancy concerning the genetics behind these things.
Since then we have found that these assumptions were based on the genetics they had to work with. Laying genetics, is not linked to size. It is a separate subject all together. Tendency (which is more about history and past selection) and positive inseparable links are two different things.

What has enhanced this misconception is that it has been discovered that breeding a large bird, and lets say with a bantam, that though the offspring would be intermediate of the two . . .the egg size would trend more on the larger size. The results could be like the birds being half the size of the large birds and the eggs being 3/4 the size. It is not so much proof of egg size, vs bird size as it is how the genes are inherited.
It is true that proportionally bantams can tend to lay larger eggs. What this represents is a natural resistance against a reproductive ideal. Kind of like the bantams tendency to get larger, and a larger breed tends to get smaller. There is a natural genetic drift back toward jungle fowl size. Some breeders call that drifting back towards mediocrity. We have to apply genetic pressure to maintain size etc on ether side of the spectrum.

The largest eggs I know of are from large breeds. Egg sizes that would handicap a smaller bird.

Consider the historic reputation of the Minorca. The largest of all of the Mediterranean breeds. They also had the reputation of laying the largest eggs. They also laid them in high numbers, and were used in commercial operations.This logic just does not make sense.
They were replaced by commercial leghorns, but the reason is that the smaller body sizes required less feed for body maintenance. They also come into lay sooner, but these birds were expendable. Living no more than two years. And they certainly never laid the egg sizes that the Minorca did.

If someone wanted to, they had the resources, and some beyond me motivation to do it, they could breed a Leghorn the size of a Jersey Giant and get ultra high production. It just does not make any sense to do it. That would be a huge amount of wasted feed from a commercial standpoint.

A small light framed Sussex is no Sussex at all. They could be called production Sussex etc, but in reality the only thing they would have in common with real Sussex is a color pattern. What makes a breed a breed is it's type. Then what it does. It should look and perform like a Sussex.

There is nothing morally wrong with taking Sussex and breeding them lighter and smaller etc. However, there is a point where they could and should no longer be called Sussex. The breeder has changed them into something else. If I take German Shepherds and bred them to half size, and with lighter frames, then they are no longer German Shepherds. They are something new.

That would be like calling New Hampshires, Rhode Island Reds. The NH was developed from RIRs alone, but they changed them enough that they turned them into another breed all together. If this logic was not the case, then every breed of dog we have is still a wolf. Even the little Mexican Hairless dogs.

Every breed has defining characteristics, and the reason we have a standard. We can do as we please, but we should be sensible enough to understand that the changes we make is changing something into something else. If I am looking to purchase good Sussex, then that is what I am looking for. If I want a light framed layer of no particular importance, then I am going to purchase some hybrid layers that I can expect an industries resources in developing the most efficient birds possible. I can get mediocrity at a livestock auction.

I will concede that I have a yard full of mediocrity. My goal is not to continue down that road however.