The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[Chris Herzog]

Chris, That is my idea of a great bird! What line is he from?

Thanks you but Matt1616 gets all the credit on this bird. He is from the Reese line ( a Mohawk as Bob calls them). He is much older now and I used him as well as 2 other males I had for the chicks that I'm growing out this year. He and one other bird are the only two males that I held on to from last year!

Chris

 

[immyjay54]

Jim,
I can't tell you all that! Man that's some top secret stuff your asking me about and I have shows coming up! I was just trying to give Jeff something to talk about! LOL!!

Ok, ok.... It's a production Red I got from Murry McMurry for my egg layer flock! lol!!!



Paul or Matt and 7 or 8 months in this pic.


CH

Hey, just one more like this and you are off the Posse. Now you better straighten up. lol Geez. I was just wanting to have something to compare my young ones to. You sure did burst my bubble. ha,ha,ha Thanks anyway. How old are you and how many birds do you have? I thought I was bad trying to remember things. lol I wanted to put that on my private stuff page. ha,ha,ha.

 

[Chickens Naturally]

This is the breeding practice I am familiar with in bringing in new blood: first generation will be half. Second generation, three fourths. Thired generation seven eights. Fourth generation fifteen sixteenths. If you take a fifteen sixteenths cockerel and raise it up and cross it on hens from your line you would be introducing only one thirty second new blood. Are you all saying that one thirty second of new blood will throw your breeding progress back five generations of heavy culling to correct?

 

[NestingHillsSC]

Bob, these pictures were taken the 29th of last month. These girls are just pretty nice. for 5 months ( I think.) I think what I am most amazed with is the color of the feet/legs on these girls. I was just talking to Matt a few evenings ago and was telling him that the feet/.legs on most of these birds are not yellow, thy are almost an orange color with the really dark horn all the way down to the toe nails. I know it will lighten as they mature but my goodness, right now they sure look pretty. The first picture was taken the 31st of last month. Look at the leg/feet color, really dark. That is true color also. The lighter looking pictures were taken with me facing the sun. Sorry, I don't claim to be a photographer. Just an old chicken farmer. lol

This is just a question. The pics I posted back a few, the one main theme everybody told me was the lacing on the hens tails are bad. But every hen pic I see has the red lacing. So how bad really is it????

 

[Matt1616]

...

This is just a question. The pics I posted back a few, the one main theme everybody told me was the lacing on the hens tails are bad. But every hen pic I see has the red lacing. So how bad really is it????
[/


I don't see lacing on the birds Jimmy posted? I see some dark red in the coverts but not in the main tail which is what matters. The Standard says nothing about coverts but it does state that the main tail should be black and it is acceptable for the top 2 main tale feathers to be laced with dark red. In males you should have no red in the tail except right where it joins the saddle.
I went back and looked at your pictures again and the problem I see, if you could say there is a problem is that the lacing on the females is getting very wide and I could see a bit in some of the males. From a breeding stand point I think you would not want to let that lacing get real wide on your females as it would start to carry over to your males.
I don't see this as a huge issue in your birds but I would pay attention moving forward with your breeding to breed the females with the narrow lacing on the coverts so that it doesn't become a problem in your males. Remember, there is no such thing as a perfect bird. Every breeding season you need to recognize your strengths and weaknesses with an open mind and breed your birds accordingly to offset the weaknesses. You also need to recognize when things are not necessarily a problem right now but they may become a problem I the near future.

Matt

 

[Matt1616]

...

This is just a question. The pics I posted back a few, the one main theme everybody told me was the lacing on the hens tails are bad. But every hen pic I see has the red lacing. So how bad really is it????
[/ /]


I don't see lacing on the birds Jimmy posted? I see some dark red in the coverts but not in the main tail which is what matters. The Standard says nothing about coverts but it does state that the main tail should be black and it is acceptable for the top 2 main tale feathers to be laced with dark red. In males you should have no red in the tail except right where it joins the saddle.
I went back and looked at your pictures again and the problem I see, if you could say there is a problem is that the lacing on the females is getting very wide and I could see a bit in some of the males. From a breeding stand point I think you would not want to let that lacing get real wide on your females as it would start to carry over to your males.
I don't see this as a huge issue in your birds but I would pay attention moving forward with your breeding to breed the females with the narrow lacing on the coverts so that it doesn't become a problem in your males. Remember, there is no such thing as a perfect bird. Every breeding season you need to recognize your strengths and weaknesses with an open mind and breed your birds accordingly to offset the weaknesses. You also need to recognize when things are not necessarily a problem right now but they may become a problem in the near future.

Matt

 

[immyjay54]

I went back and took two of my pictures to try and show what Matt is talking about. I have questioned this many times to myself. I watch my breeder girls very close for this because it was explained to me by one of the breeders that I've gotten birds from.
The first picture is one of the pullets from Matt which I don't see the lacing in the main tail feathers, the second picture is of one that is another line that I will not use as a breeder. Let me know Matt if this is what you are meaning. lol

 

[Matt1616]

I went back and took two of my pictures to try and show what Matt is talking about. I have questioned this many times to myself. I watch my breeder girls very close for this because it was explained to me by one of the breeders that I've gotten birds from. The first picture is one of the pullets from Matt which I don't see the lacing in the main tail feathers, the second picture is of one that is another line that I will not use as a breeder. Let me know Matt if this is what you are meaning. lol [COLOR=B42000] [/COLOR]

Precisely. The width of and darkness of the lacing is your indicator. I would not breed that female either.

 

[AletaG]

Precisely. The width of and darkness of the lacing is your indicator. I would not breed that female either.

Copied that last conversation plus pics to my HRIR 'profiling' folder Fabulous!

 

[immyjay54]

Copied that last conversation plus pics to my HRIR 'profiling' folder Fabulous!

Isn't this internet just fabulous? Here you have a question by someone NW US then Southern US and Eastern US getting together to try and answer the question. It is just great for folks to try and help each other out like this. I think anyway. lol . I want to openly say THANKS MATT. You have helped me more then you think. Sometimes through our conversations you may say some little thing that means nothing to you but to me it means an awful lot. AND some things are down right hilarious. ( smile on face )