exhibition/heritage Barred Rocks - History, breeding, and discussion

What methods do you use in breeding exhibition quality barred Plymouth please explain. Single, double, flock?
Thanks Punky

Double mating to maintain the barring in the two sexes. Lamon and Slocum go on for 12 pages (with pictures) on Cockerel and Pullet matings in "The Mating and Breeding of Poultry".

That book is available to read online, too. Barred Rocks begin on page 102. The second link has no pictures, but is printer friendly.

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/65847#page/106/mode/1up


http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-e...n-history-of-their-development-the--hci.shtml

OK Thanks! I was thinking of turning this thread into a Breeding, discussion and history of the barred Plmouth Rock what do you think?
punky

I think that is a great idea! Maybe some of the experts will chime in and give us some tips.

Quote:
Hows that anything I should add?

I think you have it covered well. Now we just wait for all the experts to jump in!

Great thread idea Punky.
Maybe we'll all learn a lot that way when I get those Beautiful Barred Rocks from Kathy someday "hint hint" I'll know better how to go about breeding correctly.

Good, I just got to say I love my BR a lot very big and friendly birds!

Here is some information I typed up, from The American Breeds of Poultry by Frank Platt, 1921

Barred Plymouth Rocks

Dark and Light Matings.

Double mating in this variety consists of two matings as follows:

#1. Mating the Standard colored male to females whose dark bar is broader than their light bar, and whose dark bar is so full of black pigment that it may even carry a greenish, metallic luster. The undercolor of these females is also comparatively dark. This mating produces cockerels several shades lighter than their dams, for the natural tendency is for the male to run lighter in color than the female. This mating is known as the dark or cockerel mating. The pullets from such a mating are dark like their dams, and like their dams are very valuable for breeding exhibition cockerels. Both cockerels and pullets from this mating are what are known as “cockerel-bred.”

#2. Mating Standard colored females to light colored males. This produces Standard or exhibition colored females. As is natural to the variety, the cockerels from this mating come lighter in color than their sisters, the pullets. They are valuable, however, for producing other pullers the color of their dams and sisters. Both cockerels and pullets from this mating are known as, “pullet-bred.”

The cockerels produced from mating #1 and the pullets produced from mating #2 are the standard or exhibition colored birds. The males used to head mating #1 and the females used in mating #2 are Standard or exhibition colored birds.

It is true that on certain rare occasions cockerel blood has been infused with good success into the pullet line to give more snap and color to the barring of the exhibition females. It is probably equally true that pullet blood has been used to clear up the color of the cockerel line. This intermingling has been possible because the color formation of the two families is the same, the difference being that cockerel-bred birds have wider dark bars and more pigment in their plumage.

It is, therefore, absurd to speak of the light and dark matings in Barred Rocks as representing two separate and distinct varieties. There is only one variety, the Barred Plymouth Rock, but because of the tendency for the males to run lighter in color than the females, two matings are made so as to produce Standard cockerels on the one hand, and on the other hand, Standard colored pullets that will match the Standard cockerels when placed in a show pen.

As a general proposition the two lines should be bred separately, and when an experimenter introduces cockerels or dark blood into the pullet line by using a cockerel-bred female to a pullet-bred male, he should then use the progeny of the cross and not continue further crossing, and go along on the double mating system. Without these experimenters we would not have new and better types, but the beginner should leave such an undertaking severely alone, and breed stock strictly to his cockerel and pullet lines as separate units.

Under no circumstances should he mate an exhibition cockerel to an exhibition pullet with the hope of leveling up the color in their progeny. Such an attempt would be to resort back to the old discarded system of single or Standard matings.