The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[cmom]

I am planning on showing some of my pullets in November. This will be a first time showing for me and I just want to see how they will place and what the judges think.

 

[Matt1616]

What show are you going to in November? I'm not aware of any in Florida in November. The Panhandle Poultry Club is having a show Dec. 8th in Pensacola and of course the Lake City Show is the first week of January.

 

[cmom]

The next show will be the Annual Fall Show held at the Citrus County Fairgrounds Auditorium in Inverness, Florida on November 10th 2012. It will be a Double show, with 2 sets of judges looking over the birds. The catalog and entry form will be available the first week of October.

 

[Medo]

seems like only yesterday they was only puffballs..

 

[Chillychick]

Very confused. I ordered Rhode Island Reds from Ideal Poultry. I read that hatcheries sell production reds as Rhode Island Reds. So I go back on their web site and they sell production reds too. They also sell red sex links and New Hampshire reds. So if is isn't a Rhode Island Red why don't they sell it as a production red? Right now they are just little brown fuzz balls. Post office called me this morning at 6:30 to tell me they were here.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Hatcheries sell chicks virtually year around. They ship fast, and sell mass produced chicks cheap. They are normally healthy and are bred to be top layers, cranking out a good supply of eggs. But, faithfully bred to breed standards? Not so much. Hatcheries don't match up this cock with that hen, seeking to maintain breed standards. They mass breed and mass hatch. The birds are said to "represent" the breed. They rarely have the right body shape, the right feathering, feathering color, mostly have broodiness bred out of them.

To maintain birds at the SOP or breed standards takes work, careful breeding, selection and an unpolluted blood line. Hatcheries just aren't very interested in such things, as that isn't their business model. You'll get healthy, inexpensive, quickly shipped, good laying birds. That's what you ordered, and that's what you've got. Don't be surprised if they grow up and don't look very much like those wonderful, glossy, sexy pictures that hatcheries sometimes use to sell their birds on their websites.

 

[cmom]

Hatcheries sell chicks virtually year around. They ship fast, and sell mass produced chicks cheap. They are normally healthy and are bred to be top layers, cranking out a good supply of eggs. But, faithfully bred to breed standards? Not so much. Hatcheries don't match up this cock with that hen, seeking to maintain breed standards. They mass breed and mass hatch. The birds are said to "represent" the breed. They rarely have the right body shape, the right feathering, feathering color, mostly have broodiness bred out of them.

To maintain birds at the SOP or breed standards takes work, careful breeding, selection and an unpolluted blood line. Hatcheries just aren't very interested in such things, as that isn't their business model. You'll get healthy, inexpensive, quickly shipped, good laying birds. That's what you ordered, and that's what you've got. Don't be surprised if they grow up and don't look very much like those wonderful, glossy, sexy pictures that hatcheries sometimes use to sell their birds on their websites.

I agree. You probably have RIR's just not pure bred Heritage RIR's. As Fred's Hens said, they are bred to be good layers.

 

[henpeckedmuch]

Here is a question to those of you that regulary show your birds.

I have made arrangements with a top breeder to buy the birds he is showing at lucasville.
I would think as a breeder he would use his best birds in this show.
I would also have thought he would refuse to sell these birds, and instead use them for his breeders for his next years hatch.
What am I misunderstanding about breeding and showing?

 

[groundpecker]

Here is a question to those of you that regulary show your birds.

I have made arrangements with a top breeder to buy the birds he is showing at lucasville.
I would think as a breeder he would use his best birds in this show.
I would also have thought he would refuse to sell these birds, and instead use them for his breeders for his next years hatch.
What am I misunderstanding about breeding and showing?

The breeder may or may not bring his best birds. There is a difference between breeding and show birds.
Breeder birds give the desired traits a breeder wants to see in his flock and my never be shown. Show birds are the birds that are currently the best selection for the show.
I doubt any breeder that would sell his best show/breeding birds, unless they are getting out of the poultry fancy, or that breed.

Usually when someone says they will sell birds, they usually do. That is just the chance you take when buying birds at a show, that have been shown.

 

[Fred's Hens]

If I understand what I've heard Bob Blosi talk about here, many top breeders don't keep hundreds of birds through the fall and winter. The cost of feed it rough on everyone. Just those very select birds, for next year's breeding. If I had to get rid of a dozen really top birds, taking them to a show and selling them, might just be the very best way to do it. No?