The Buckeye Thread

[Happy Chooks]

 

[Sydney Acres]

You know, I appreciate a spirited discussion and a passionate defense of breed standards as much as anyone, but this nit picking & sniping is getting exhausting. I subscribe to a number of threads on BYC, but this is the only one that has a dominant tone of self promotion and a holier-than-thou attitude among the main contributors. A gentler tone and a generosity of spirit will go a long way toward welcoming interest in the breed that you all love. There are ways to educate without denigrating. That poor person that made the "mistake" of wanting a "heritage" bird got his butt kicked just for asking the "wrong" question. Maybe that wasn't any one person's intent, but that was the cumulative effect. And then when the belittling "re-education" started to die down and someone actually provided the information that was requested, that person got jumped on. It's like a bad soap opera on here. All you accomplished breeders and wanna bes on here need to decide what your goal is and move towards it. If your goals are to jump on every little misstep by a newbie and argue about every little misinterpreted nuance, then you've accomplished those ugly goals already. But if your goals are to promote your breed to newcomers, and to share information among the more advanced breeders to promote overall improvement within the breed, then you've really been falling short.

OK everyone, go ahead and jump all over me for speaking out. It is the tone of this thread, after all.

 

[Pathfinders]

And I want to put in the thread these great links from the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, which were created during their Buckeye project, and which will be very helpful to anyone wishing to assess their birds for productivity:

Selecting for Meat Qualities and Rate of Growth - a wonderful guide with pictures showing step by step how to assess birds for good meat qualities and growth:
http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/ALBCchicken_assessment-1.pdf

Selecting for Egg Production - a similar guide to the one above, which covers qualities that distinguish a good layer from a poor one:
http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/ALBCchicken_assessment-2.pdf

Ongoing Selection of Breeding Stock - an essay that gives tips to allow you to continue to assess your birds for continued productivity for up to five years:
http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/ALBCchicken_assessment-3.pdf

Chick Assessment Form - a chart you can use to fill out with information about each chick to help you make decisions about which to keep and which to cull:
http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/Buckeye Chick Assessment form.pdf

Breeder Re-qualification Form - a form to use when re-assessing breeding birds for continued use:
http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/Breeder Qualification Form.pdf

And last but not least, a great article on selection from the 1929 National Barred Rock Journal:
http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/Breederselection1929.pdf

Using these tips and tricks will ensure you don't lose sight of the basic traits that make your Buckeyes what they were designed by Nettie Metcalf to be, a good homestead bird, made to provide meat and eggs for their owners. Thanks so much to Don Schrider, Jeannette Beranger, and everyone else at the ALBC (past and present) who contributed to this remarkable collection of documents!

 

[007medic]

Redbug, when you're evaluating your cockerels I encourage you to make observations of them separately as well as in the group. When in the group you can see who is more dominant, who has the larger shanks, wider head, broadest back etc. but, when you observe and evaluate individuals you get to see them unaffected by the flock dynamic. The two cockerels that have the lower tail angle may be keeping it lower because they are lower on the pecking order. Once you get them off on their own, you may find that they hold their tail at a completely different angle. While your doing your individual assessments, be sure to check for a decent slate bar in the back, too much fluff (being where you are wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy down at the bottom of SC you want to select for less fluff), a good heart girth and wings with uniform primaries with correct color. An old breeder once told me "you get your color and size from the boys and type and productivity from the girls" so bear that in mind.

 

[campbellorchard]

Ok. As a newer member of the back yard chicken community. With two and a half acres. only a handful of buckeyes and Cornish along with my silkies.
I guess I did not realize I was purchasing the chicken worlds version of the national enquirer. I guess I also did not realize that such an attitude was held towards the bigger "farm lite" stores. Or us "newbies". Not cool.
I buy grain from a local mill. I shop at my local hobby farm store because I find what I need at the right price. In my area we don't have those hard core farm stores. And I'm not sure if I would shop at them anyway if a newbie isn't knowledgable enough to know the difference.
What I find truly awakening is that this attitude is held toward us neophytes who are ecstatic to see a buckeye in glossy print, and in small farms you can have sustainable living. Kinda the new "fad". I also find it interesting that a link was put up to another article and that was great and fine and noteworthy. I don't care if its silkies,Cornish ,or the bucks I want to read about them. And I don't want to pay ten bucks a pop for a magazine.
As a newbie there are tells in these threads of who to listen to. Who to scroll past and who I should follow if I want to grow my "back yard" flock. I know who I will be scrolling past in the future and for all the newbies out there pay close attention. By the way hobby farms with daughters and horses are the coolest in my book! Just sayin!

Edited by Staff

 

[BuckeyeAmy69]

Buckeyes are my favorite breed. I am in the beginning stage of a breeding program. My goal is to help preserve the breed. I will be ordering chicks from Hidden Creek Farm to add to my existing flock in March.

I have a small group of 18 week old pullets. I find them so entertaining! They are such a nice breed: friendly, active and sociable.

Here's Butternut trying to figure out how to get to my ice cubes!

She's also a pig!

Willow is very curious!

 

[cgmccary]

I guess I should have been more specific. I have a secure coop for the chicks to be in at night and a 8' x 25' secure hoop run for during the day. I have 10 Buckeyes and 11 Buff Orpingtons that are 8 weeks old. About 1/3 readily come when called, thinking I may have treats for them. Only about 1/2 go in the coop by themselves at dusk, But they have only been in run and coop for 1 week, so they are learning.

I would like to let them out to "free-range" for a few hours in the evenings and guess I want to be sure they know to come home. Electronic fencing really is not an option. Thanks.

The best option if it is available to you is to have hens hatch and raise chicks. The best hens to hatch and raise chicks are game hens. I can let the game hens hatch, and they will keep the chicks in the coop for the first week or so (or until they are strong enough to travel) and then venture out with them staying close at first but keeping them out of harms way. As they grow, they take them farther and farther out. If the game hens hatches them out in the blackberry patch (or under some bush, under the front porch, in the tractor pit, etc.), then they wait til they can walk & keep them close to the coops and will take them somewhere safe at night. They pretty much take care of themselves. My game hens have not lost a chick outside to date. Some birds of mine have roamed free from day one with the mother game hen (freezing temps in the morning and all) --- this is the best way to raise birds if your set-up permits it.

Buckeye hens are good at hatching too, but they are different at raising the chicks than game hens. I do not trust them to free range with their chicks. Other hens may pick on the Buckeye mother, and she is not as aggressive as the game hen. Buckeye hens can sit and hatch a greater number of eggs in a clutch due to their size. I just keep the Buckeye hen and chicks penned. When they are about 6 weeks old, I remove the hen and move the chicks to a transition (temporary pen) in whatever coop I want to train them to. I keep them in there about a week or two. I then let the young birds out in the coop with the grown birds. The coops are opened so all birds can free range. The young birds are hesitant at first to go outside the coop. My coops are large & can each hold 30-40 birds easily. They start venturing out & then going father and farther. When the cockerels get unbearable, I pen them. When 16-20 weeks old, then I butcher all but the best (the keepers). Buckeye hen in a pen with chicks:



When I incubator hatch & brood chicks indoors, depending upon the temperatures outside, I will move them to a pen in one of the barns when they are from 3-6 weeks old. If it is still cold outside, I can put a couple of lights in the pen (using 75-100 W bulbs). I let them grow and then move them to the coop like I would the Buckeye hen raised birds. The process is the same thereafter. People will do it differently & it will depend on each person's individual set-up as to what will work for them. You have to find what works for you. One thing I have discovered over the years is that chicks 4 weeks and older, in my neck of the woods, are not as fragile as I once thought. They are quite precocious & can do for themselves quite well. Here is one of the pens in the barns with incubator-hatched chicks. I think they would be just fine without the lights but I like the extra light as the barn is shaded & can be kind of dark.:



I once had a couple of Buckeye chicks who were late (incubator) hatchers after I had hatched some & shipped. I was left with two chicks. I only kept them indoors for a couple of weeks as I did not want to raise just two chicks. The temps were warm outside that particular year so I put them out in a little plastic (dog gate) pen. They took care of themselves and became adults outside completely free (never penned except for the first three weeks). I could not do it this way if I did not have my dogs and donkey (with the pastures surrounding my barns). Predators do not venture on my place even though behind me is a National Forest with plenty of animals that eat chicken.

This is one of my 4 dogs who stay outside most of the time (I let them rotate to indoors). This dog is half hound (probably beagle), and I believe half yellow pit. He was a stray I took in. He is good at keeping predators and strange dogs away:

 

[Metella]

Your post did have a distinctive anti-5 acre farm bent - perhaps you did not intend it to.

I was going to post - but d****d if campbellorchard didn't almost echo exactly what I would have written.

My place is 7 acres and is basically a little sustainable workhouse AND I still manage to have 2 full sized horses to tickle my fancy. If the economy collapsed, my little place will keep us going and all I'll have to do extra is use the neighbor's field to feed my horses. I go to BOTH a local grain store and TSC - depending on where I am, what I want and how much is in my budget ...

When you talked about buying a half a ton - that area really did come off to imply to those that bought 50 pound bags only were just dabbling in things and really were not "farmers" So it felt distinctly to have a slam to anyone with small acreage. So maybe see if any of that is deep in you, it came out - it can be - I'm not telling you what to think, you can even think that if you like.

I think that anyone who plants a garden or keeps a chicken or more - is learning valuable skills, and is an asset ..... here is my bias - the bigger farms are not husbanding the land, they are using it up -- as a general operating rule (with exceptions) and they usually plant just one or a few crops - and really can't withstand true natural forces (pests, weather etc) and so may look like a juggernaut - but they are actually the weak link in our food chain. Buying a ton of feed instead of only needing small supplements to their feed is not really farming - they are raping the land.

ha ha ha not really - only some of them .... but you see my point, eh ? I'm out on my land every day, petting my orchard and I have excellent weed control with no chemicals, and I'm all smug about that. I'm not even a tree hugger ! (well, maybe a little, but I'm not too crunchy) I just don't want to eat that crap.


As for the mag - I plan to snatch it up as soon as it hits the shelves in my TSC - because my local grain/farm store doesn't carry any mags. Each region has a different flavor of what the locals want and I like that difference. I'd hate this whole country to just look the same except for the landscape backdrop. Can't wait to see Buckeye's in the spotlight.

 

[Blueface]

Hey everyone, exciting news for Buckeye Nation and myself. The Buckeye breed officially has its first Grand Master. I confirmed it with secretary of the APA. I successfully earned enough APA exhibition points to be recognized as a Master Exhibitor last year and will be recognized in the APA yearbook. I had 91 points towards the Grand Master honor going into 2014. After winning in Marietta, OH and in Frankfort, KY this year, I have enough points to recognized as the first ever Buckeye Grand Master! Frankfort was a very important show and the Ohio Buckeye did GREAT!

 

[bunnibird55]

I am so pumped! After picking and breeding the best hatches from the eggs I had gotten 18 months ago from Chris and some eggs from a line from Laura, my granddaughter won Best Standard Cockeral and Best Standard Pullet at her first show yesterday at our fair! For a 9 year old girl, she is on cloud nine and I have to say, Nana is soooooo excited! The judge had no hesitation in placing them first - I will post pix as soon as I can! Yeah - we are already making plans for where we are going with this line! Thanks to Chris and Laura for having some nice looking chickens to breed from!!!!!!