The American Cemani Breeders Club...open forum

[Pyxis]

It pretty much is saying that all GFF stock are mutts, yes. Pus, that's not how genetics work. If a bird is heterozygous for something and you breed it to another heterozygous bird, 25% of the offspring will be homozygous for whatever that trait is. So them being 'heterozygous' and the raven line being 'homozygous' makes no sense as an argument.

Plus they never say what they are supposed homozygous for, and as was discussed earlier, the fibro genes are not just one gene.

Also, there's this review about their stock that supposedly never throws culls:

"Great customer service. Very knowledgeable and understanding. Ordered 16 raven eggs, 7 were fertile, 4 hatched. Contacted about the low fertility and she said she would ship eggs if I paid shipping. Every time I brought up I got little response. I gave up, even after mailing a card with money. Birds have finally matured and not 1 has a black mouth. 1 rooster has quite a bit of mulberry. Plus side though I do love the inside of the eggs after babies hatched. I give a 4 star because the quality is better than anything else I have yet to get, but not quality I was hoping for. When I messaged regarding the mulberry, I got the response that that hasn't happened before. If I'm going to pay $150 for eggs I want the quality advertised. I will post pictures of the mulberry."

The inside of the egg thing she means is that 'pure' cemanis supposedly hatch with black dots on the inside of the shell, or at least that was going around a year or so ago. Mine do. And my friend's silkies do also, lol. So that is not in any way a determination of a 'pure' AC.

 

[Blue Eager]

Well there you go; even self proclaimed “Perfect” Cemami breeders like Rare Poultry Outpost has its flaws. Serves them right for making such bold claims.

 

[Blue Eager]

Everyone will probably be pleased to know these are the last set of photos for the original purpose of trying to determine sex of day's old cemani chicks. I guess I didn't fair too bad. Both "green" & "purple" were determined males at very early stages of development. "Pink", "blue" & "white" were determined as female very early on as well. However, "yellow" (#2) caused some confussion. There is no question in my mind (now) this one is a male. In fact, he is certainly a pleasant surprise. Green has always been my favorite but now it's a toss up between him & "yellow".

Please let me know if I got this right. 1,2,3 males & 4,5,6 females.

 

[Pyxis]

Everyone will probably be pleased to know these are the last set of photos for the original purpose of trying to determine sex of day's old cemani chicks. I guess I didn't fair too bad. Both "green" & "purple" were determined males at very early stages of development. "Pink", "blue" & "white" were determined as female very early on as well. However, "yellow" (#2) caused some confussion. There is no question in my mind (now) this one is a male. In fact, he is certainly a pleasant surprise. Green has always been my favorite but now it's a toss up between him & "yellow".

Please let me know if I got this right. 1,2,3 males & 4,5,6 females.

I'm gonna call possible male on 4 as well. 1,2,3 are definitely males and 5 and 6 look like pullets so far.

 

[Blue Eager]

I was on the fence with 4. I guess I was just hoping for 3 females. Maybe I'll trim his comb...

Thank you Pyxis!

 

[Blue Eager]

You are probably correct on #4. I am still skepticle though. It's tail feathers just don't add up. I'll keep you posted.

 

[Tiegrsi]

Well, my Cemanis are now about 10 weeks old and doing well. I have only one showing color leakage; a beautiful silver in the hackle and a little on the back that is actually strikingly beautiful. I am thinking, however, that I was very wrong about the number of males to females. The combs have grown out on all but 2, which I assume are female. One girl has a comb that barely sticks up at all.

I don't have pictures at this moment but I am going to be cleaning out their area tonight, so I will post some this evening or tomorrow.

 

[Ms Biddy]

Rare Poultry Outpost posted this on facebook on August 11, 2016. I was under the impression Indonesian lines could not be imported to the U.S. Wasn't there is a ban in place by the USDA? Any thoughts?

Raven(Indonesian) line, Ayam Cemani. After breeding GFF, ACs for the past 3 years we have determined that they were just crosses( heterozygous). The gff line of ACs will not breed true to any standard of AC. They wont even breed true to themselves. What ever breed that is. They're more closely related to the Svart hona, is our conclusion and will sell them as such.
The Raven(Indonesian) line we have now, breeds true(homozygous). We have had no culls from the chicks we raised from this line(over 100 chicks so far). Some have a little blacker mouth than others, but they all have a black mouth and meet the actual Indonesian AC Standard of Perfection.
This is Not to be deemed as a post to demonize gff. We buy stock from them all the time. I honestly believe they thought they were selling real Ayam Cemani. I could see this happening if someone didn't do their homework or just trusted the wrong breeder. Those were the first actual imports to the US and no one had owned any here yet. So there was no precedent to look at here and see the difference.
The problem now is that these Black chickens are everywhere and are mistakenly being called Ayam Cemani. Maybe we could start a new APA breed called Black chicken(being sarcastic, ugh). If anyone

has questions. Let em fly.

I remember this place and I remember that post. They dropped off the map for quite a while, are they back? Ayam Cemani originated as a color morph from a multicolor landrace breed. I almost want to repeat that because if you really understand it then you also understand why they don't necessarily "breed true." Now, you can take the blackest ones and concentrate the fibromelanistic genetics, just realize that without the original genetic diversity of the parent breed you may work yourself into a corner and end up with infertile, silkie feathered or otherwise overly inbred birds. In that case it doesn't really matter how black they are. Ayam Cemani as its own breed still has kinks to work out. I'm suspicious of anyone who says they have a stable line of the "real thing" with no culls. Look what their reviewer said about fertility and color flaws. I've heard similar complaints from people who bought the FLF new line. My conclusion is we're all in the same boat. Those of us with color flawed birds don't have fakes. We have someone else's culls, which at an earlier point probably would have been their keepers.

 

[Tiegrsi]

Mine have feather issues...brittle feathers that break off and look scraggly on close inspection. Do you think that it's from inbreeding? Should I cull all of my boys and source a cockerel from another line?

 

[Ms Biddy]

Mine have feather issues...brittle feathers that break off and look scraggly on close inspection. Do you think that it's from inbreeding? Should I cull all of my boys and source a cockerel from another line?

Have you tried addressing the feather issue through nutrition? I did a quick search and saw several different nutrition and environmental based recommendations. "Silkie feathers" on an Ayam Cemani would look something like this.