The Rhodebar thread!

[jeremy]

Rhodebars, anybody interested in these birds? Does anybody have them?

Pictures via poultrykeeper.com

Via Melrose Poultry- Rhodebars are an autosexing breed that were first created in the 1930's. In an effort to produce a fowl that was capable of laying well, and with the added advantage of being sexable at hatching, a number of breeds had the barring gene "added" to them. Thus, there came about breeds such as Rhodebars (barred Rhode Island Reds), Wybars (barred Silver Laced Wyandottes), Welbars (barred Welsumers), Legbars (barred Leghorns) and the list goes on. They are considered to be a purebreed of poultry as they breed true - each generation looks like the former. Standards exist in the UK for many of the Autosexing breeds, where they are still reasonably popular. The autosexing breeds almost died out with the introduction of the commercial hybrids which became the industry standard for egg production.

Greenfire has imported them... they're selling them for dirt cheap on their website right now, too. $29 per male chick. http://greenfirefarms.com/store/category/chickens/rhodebar/

I really love my Heritage Reds, it seems easy enough to create your own Rhodebar line too by using them. What do y'all think?

Here's one of my Heritage Rhode Island Red pullets that may be the foundation of my Rhodebar breeding project.

 

[catdaddyfro]

Quote:
Hey there Jeremy yeah I just love these guys and I'm going to go for Buff-barreds(Hambars) one of these days using NH's from Mrs. Kathys group and gonna get me a good half BR/half NH male for the breeder cock (like I said one of these days) I gotta get my Del project off to a good start and think I'll concentrate on rearing up some more NH's first before I get into the buff barred project. Oh so much to do, so little time though.

You can see the Rhodebars Tim (tadkerson) was working on, on his website at Adkerson farms he has had a change in venue but he still has pics posted on there of his beautiful red-barred birds.

Jeff

Well scratch that on the Adkerson farms pics all he has on there is the Missouri topnots he's currently breeding. I have a pic somewhere of one of his red-barreds ill see if I can dig it up and post it. I wish he'd kept on with this project and I read on some older post that he was writing a book on these red-barred birds but I have not done a search for it in depth yet. Maybe hell see this and play along too.

Jeff

 

[jeremy]

Quote:
Jeff, I remember seeing pictures of a Barred Red bird on Tim's website but I can't seem to find anything now?

I'm very interested in these birds, the idea that the sexes are visually so distinguishable at birth is really cool.

 

[jeremy]

Via http://harislau.co.uk/autosexing-rhodebar.htm

The Poultry Club of Great Britain Breed Standard for the Rhodebar

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS : MALE

Carriage: Upright and graceful.

Type: Body large, fairly deep, broad and long. Back broad, long and somewhat horizontal in outline. Breast broad, full and well rounded. Wings carried well up, the bows and tips covered by breast feathers and saddle hackle. Tail rather small, rising slightly from the saddle, the sickle of medium length, well spread and nicely curved, the coverts being sufficiently abundant to cover the stiff feathers.

Head: Strong, but not thick. Beak moderately curved, short and stout. Eyes large and bright. Comb single, medium size, straight, upright, well set on, with well-defined serrations, and free from side sprigs. Face smooth. Ear-lobes of fine texture, well developed and pendant. Wattles to correspond with size of comb and moderately rounded.

Neck: Of medium length and profusely covered with feathers flowing over the shoulders, but not too loosely carried.

Legs and feet: Legs wide apart and of medium length, stout and strong and free from feathers. Thighs large with well rounded shanks of medium length. Toes four, strong, straight and well spread.

Plumage: Of silky texture, free from coarse or excessive feather.

Handling : Firm with abundance of muscle.

FEMALE
The general characteristics are similar to those of the male, allowing for the natural sexual differences.

COLOUR
Plumage, Male: Hackle deep red-gold barred, with centres black and grey-white barred, the black centre portions rather longer than the grey-white; the front of the cape showing less black, the feathers towards the tips of the cape lying on the back showing wider black and grey-white barring. Wing primaries, lower web red-gold, faintly barred, upper grey and white barred, slightly gold tinted; secondaries, the whole alternately black, white and gold barred, lower web showing more gold; flight coverts very bright red-gold and white barred, tips red-gold. Wing bows very brilliant chestnut red and gold barred. Tail, including sickles, uniform black and white barring from tip to base, including the shaft. Tips black. Saddle hackle deed red-gold and grey-white and narrower black barring towards the tips. Back and saddle deep red-gold barred, with occasional black bars towards the end of the feathers. Undercolour light creamy buff. Breast uniformly barred, deep red-gold and creamy white and black.

Plumage, Female : Hackle deep buff red with bright chestnut edges, each feather with deep buff, gold, black and white narrow barring, the barring becoming narrower as it approaches the lower cape feathers. Tail feathers black with reddish tinge. Wing primaries, upper web red-buff, lower black; secondaries buff-red. Remainder, general surface dark buff-red barred with buff and buff-red, the tips of the feathers of the lighter colour. Undercolour creamy buff-red, as deep as possible. Quills yellow.

In both sexes: Beak red-horn or yellow. Eyes orange or red, pupils clearly defined. Comb, face, ear lobes and wattles bright red. Legs and feet bright yellow.

Standard Weights :
Cock: 8½lb (minimum); Cockerel 8lb .
Hen: 6½lb (minimum); Pullet 5½lb

Serious Defects : Male's comb twisted or falling over. Ear-lobes other than red. Legs other than yellow, orange or light willow. Squirrel or wry tail. Side sprigs on the comb. Eye pupils other than round and clearly defined. Crooked breast or any bodily deformity.​

 

[kathyinmo]

YAY ! ! ! Jeremy has a project! I would love to follow along and watch your progress! What fun!

 

[jeremy]

Quote:
Just playing with the idea really, I haven't decided yet whether or not I'm going to jump on this bandwagon.

I thought it would be interesting though to see what others thought of these birds though and if any of the genetic gurus could weigh in on how easy it would be to recreate the Rhodebars using some of the great old strains of Rhode Island Reds here in the US.

The thing that I don't like about the Rhodebars is their plumage is a very rusty red color, I much prefer the deep mahogany red color, I'm wondering if with enough outcrossing to quality Heritage RIR lines if a deeper mahogany colored Rhodebar could be created... or if because of the barring they will always be rusty colored?

 

[jeremy]

Something like this would be the color I would be shooting for if I were to start breeding these birds.

These are bantam Rhodebars, pictures via http://www.britannicrarebreeds.co.uk/breedinfo/chicken_rhodebar.php

 

[Chris09]

The Rusty color of the Rhodebar could come from,

1 - The U.K. standard for Large Fowl Rhode Island Red color is not as dark as ours.
2 - The Rhodebar that we see today is a Redbar or the recreated Rhodebar either way it is a *Brussbar* crossed with a Rhode Island Red.
3 - Over time of breeding Rhodebar to Rhodebar the color could fades much like breeding a *Crele* pattern bird to a Crele pattern bird.


* Brusbar - Brussbars were initially created by Mr R.C Punnett and Michael Peace of the Cambridge Agricultural research department around about 1941. It was an obvious move to create an auto sexing breed of one of the most successful commercial breeds at the time. They were created using Barred Plymouth Rock and Brown Sussex. They did not use the Light Sussex as they could not see a way to create an auto sexing breed using the Columbian pattern. However, the Brown Sussex was better suited but was purely a show bird with lower utility value than other Sussex colours. To improve their utility value and make them more commercially attractive, the resultant Brussbars hens were crossed with Light Sussex cockerels, the resultant unbarred Columbian pullets were crossed with Brussbar cockerels and pure Gold and Silver Brussbars with correct type were selected from then on. The Brussbar was standardised by the Poultry Club of Great Britain in 1952 but never became popular commercially or domestically. The Brussbar is probably the rarest of all native auto sexing breeds with only the Gold variety currently surviving. The breed could certainly have the highest utility value of all the auto sexing breeds.

* Crele - The Crele pattern is Black Breasted Red with Barring added and to keep the nice dark coloring you have to breed back to the Black Breasted Red.


Chris

 

[Chris09]

Jeremy,

Here is a breeding chart I found for a Legbar. Replace the Brown Leghorn Male with Rhode Island Red Male and see what happens.

Chris

 

[jeremy]

Quote:
So if I'm understanding your comments, outcrossing and breeding back to dark mahogany Rhode Island Reds will eventually deepen the color of my Rhodebar line.

Correct?