The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[Robert Blosl]

Egg color on my large fowl where light in color yet the quill color was blood red I could not get them any darker. It would take at least ten years to select from eggs that where darker to get them the color of production Reds or my white Rock large fowl. They had more darker egg color than my Reds did. I have one Rhode Island Red bantam that lays the darkest egg I ever saw. So may I can work on them with her help. So much more to worry about. If most people give up Reds in three years its not from egg shell color its screwing up the gene pool they started with.

I got a call last night from a old friend and he told me he has a friend he knows who gets chicks from two different sources. He even screws up them and then crosses them all up its a mess. He does show once in a while but never wins anything. You would think if you got twenty chicks from breeder one and twenty chicks from breeder two and then raised them the best you could put the males in four by four conditioning pens when they are five months old you would be able to have one or two good birds to show and win with.

Goes to show you how some folks do things. Just dont make sense sometimes.

Take some more pictures of your Reds for us to see. bob

 

[Chris09]

Egg color on my large fowl where light in color yet the quill color was blood red I could not get them any darker. It would take at least ten years to select from eggs that where darker to get them the color of production Reds or my white Rock large fowl. They had more darker egg color than my Reds did. I have one Rhode Island Red bantam that lays the darkest egg I ever saw. So may I can work on them with her help. So much more to worry about. If most people give up Reds in three years its not from egg shell color its screwing up the gene pool they started with.

I got a call last night from a old friend and he told me he has a friend he knows who gets chicks from two different sources. He even screws up them and then crosses them all up its a mess. He does show once in a while but never wins anything. You would think if you got twenty chicks from breeder one and twenty chicks from breeder two and then raised them the best you could put the males in four by four conditioning pens when they are five months old you would be able to have one or two good birds to show and win with.

Goes to show you how some folks do things. Just dont make sense sometimes.

Take some more pictures of your Reds for us to see. bob

Well Bob you know that is a good way to tell just who is a good breeder of show birds and one that just troughs birds together and hopes for the best and thinking there a breeder and showman.

Chris

 

[griffinkid02]

My understanding has always been that you DO want to cross strains every once in awhile, for reasons on genetic diversity, but that it should only be occasionally, an the new blood should account for a limited amount of that genetation's offspring. Such as adding one great hen to an established laying flock, that way only some of your offspring will be affected. Is this a reasonable understanding? What is the current leading thought on this regarding HRIR?

 

[NYREDS]

There can be a role for an occasional outcross in a breeding program on a limited & controlled basis. Adding a hen to a laying flock would not be advisable as there would be no way to identify & evaluate the offspring. If you did want to wotk that hen in the way to go would be to pair mate her with a good male & toe pinch the chicks for identification.

 

[cutipatooti]

I got 2 old type RIR's. They look to be the same color as my FIRST from the hatchery. Do they get darker as they age

 

[Robert Blosl]

My understanding has always been that you DO want to cross strains every once in awhile, for reasons on genetic diversity, but that it should only be occasionally, an the new blood should account for a limited amount of that genetation's offspring. Such as adding one great hen to an established laying flock, that way only some of your offspring will be affected. Is this a reasonable understanding? What is the current leading thought on this regarding HRIR?

I have studied every strain of large fowl Reds going back to 1920s and many of these great strains their breeders made it to the Rhode Island Red Club hall of Fame. What they did is spent at least ten years to get the strain to be stable and then around the twenty year they reached the level and where big winners at the shows. They line breed their birds and that is something the beginner who is getting started in Standard Breed Fowl does not know much about. Most people want to cross strains. Unless the line is say My old line from Illinois 13 years out from my yards or a strain in Florida 17 years out from my yards it will work. This was done by Matt 16 16 who lives near me. I am sure there will be things that will show up that I may not like to see but it is the cross I have wanted to see in the past five years. If we took a bird from Minnesota or Rhode Island Red and made the cross it would destroy this strain in my view. These birds are 100 years old and still pure so why add some other line what will you gain? Fresh new blood from two sub strains is what we need more than anything not new genetics. The selection of high egg production females will bring out the old 1929 male Mohawk V which gave the name or I did the Mohawk line. There are about four good strains of large fowl Single Comb Large fowl left. We must keep them pure but there is nothing wrong with you in Ohio who has Don Nelson birds to cross a New York Reds bird onto the strain. The reason is they are from the same blood line that Don has improved over the last 20 years. However, you can do what you want and then in three to five years we will see if you still have large fowl Reds. I was told last night that a guy out west got some Red Bantams from a good breeder and all ready in two years he wants to sell them. Wonder what the heck he did to them who wants out so soon. But as Lee Roy Jones use to say 25 years ago. Here today gone tomorrow breeders. They dont last long. I hope you will listen to what I am telling you. If you have super vigor in your chicks and high egg production in your females you dont need new blood. Just improve what you have. bob
http://bloslspoutlryfarm.tripod.com/id60.html

this shows my method of line breeding very simple

 

[griffinkid02]

That's what I'm talking about Robert. Not going and throwing Production reds into a heritage flock, or even mixing say your strain with some one else's. But if, say, I had some of your birds and bred them 3 or 4 generations and was working on a specific feature, lets say the horizontal wing line, and having no luck getting it to show up right, but another person who had been working with your strain also and had the wings but wasn't thrilled with the evenness of their color, whereas my color was spot on. That's the kind of mix I was thinking. Am I even anywhere CLOSE to hitting the mark, lol?

 

[griffinkid02]

And I will also say that am quite the novice at chicken genetics. I will probably be looking for another breeder's strain to breed with my Nankins, simply because the Nankin population is so low atm that there are only about 3 good strains and we need the gene pool. Too many BB birds because they were the only one's entered at a show... But I also understand that that is not the case with most breeds

 

[Robert Blosl]

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-genetic-diversity.htm

http://geneticdiversity.net/

Genetic Diversity is a interesting term and I don’t understand it. It might be in the ball park where I asked Dr. Miller many months ago what is the term when you take a Rhode Island Red from Colorado that has been there for say ten years and the same strain of Rhode Island Red that has been living in Georgia for 90 years and then cross the two lines together you will get a shot of vigor because of different environment, water, feed ect from the distance of say 1000 miles. This would be the same as crossing a strain from Rhode Island Don Nelson and the Strain from Illinois Greg Chamness. You get new vigor but introduced two complete different families or strains of Rhode Island Reds. It has been done and normally after five years the cross was so devastating the owner who did this gives them up. This is a established good line of Rhode Island Red Large fowl which both strains would average very good marks if scored under the APA point system. Say 93 points average for ten birds at a show.

Now take your strain of Nankins very rare very much like Silver Gray Dorkings. They may only score 89 points out of ten birds and one may score if lucky 91. You could cross different strains I don’t know if you will improve anything but that is excepted as you are trying to improve them. It is very hard to find people who have blood lines and then get some eggs or chicks from them to cross onto your birds. Most people have already crossed some other bird into their line and this has disqualified these birds to be pure Mr. Reese or Mr. Underwood for example.
When people ask me to help them find a bird such as a Black Java or White Face Black Spanish most of the time I find out Dwayne Urch has the only line left in the USA. Some will get birds from a Hatchery who swears up and down he has the last of the so called breed but after you get them and look at them they are sub standard birds that cant even score 90 points out of ten birds.

My point is on Rhode Island Red Large Fowl what few good strains we still have keep the strains pure and make darn sure if you get new blood that it came from this line. There are people out there who say they have my old line of Mohawk Large Fowl but after I look into it they where crossed onto some other Red ten years or so ago and don’t resemble the old E W Reese- Mrs. Donaldson line.

I wish you the best on your Nankins. I have never seen one and would not know what they even look like. I think you are dead on your goal for Nankins. In regards to Rhode Island Reds color is not the big issue in getting them to score good enough to win at shows it’s the loss of the brick shape and tail spread that I see or lack of width of body. Some are just too short in body and when they are two to three years old they don’t even resemble a good standard Rhode Island Red. In regards to wing carriage most Standard Breed large fowl have good wing carriage it’s the bantams that have the droopy wings which is a trait of the Old English game that was used to make the bantam in the 1930s.

By the way you have any pictures of your Nankins? I would love to see them. Bob

 

[Robert Blosl]

I got 2 old type RIR's. They look to be the same color as my FIRST from the hatchery. Do they get darker as they age

If they are Standard Breed Large Fowl Reds they will have two thirds of their beaks dark horn color. Their baby chick feathers will be very dark where a production red chicks will have a golden hue to his feathers. You have seen chicks on this tread that are dark do they have that kind of color? They normally dont get darker with age. Hope this helps also, what strain did you get them from? bob