About "hatchery" quality.....

[FireTigeris]

Well I'm 4 years in now and decided that do to the stupid city slickers that feed the raccoon that free ranging is no longer an option, my losses have dropped to acceptable levels (piped but not hatched, hatched but weak, later dying anyway) between that and safer water sources that cannot be 'fouled' or tipped or drowned in.

I have no losses after fully feathering anymore. Almost never after the first 10 days.

 

[JenellYB]

"Hybrid vigor" technically only applies to members of different species... it is commonly used by lay persons to refer to reshuffling the genes by non-liner breeding.

I was just going through my seed packets, planning my veggie garden. All my chosen varieties of tomatoes, corn, watermelons, and quite a few others are labeled as 'hybrids.' What different species did they cross to get them? Interesting thought.

 

[FireTigeris]

"Hybrid vigor" technically only applies to members of different species... it is commonly used by lay persons to refer to reshuffling the genes by non-liner breeding.

I was just going through my seed packets, planning my veggie garden. All my chosen varieties of tomatoes, corn, watermelons, and quite a few others are labeled as 'hybrids.' What different species did they cross to get them? Interesting thought.

yeah, mistermed... or as I didn't take as much botony as I could have maybe it is different in plants but as I recall the y hybrid in plants are not self-seeding.

 

[JenellYB]

Nope, its the same in animals. Hybrids in neither plants nor animals breed true in the 2nd generation.
None of us know everything..For me, perhaps an ufair advantage...in addition to more years experience with animals and breeding than I wish i were old in total, there's a B.S. that included biology for majors, pre-med biology, plus genetics. But never a doubt, I blunder off into muck often enough myself where i don't know the ground. I hate it when I shove myself so far into a cowpie mouth first there's no way to back out clean!
Shalom!

 

[FireTigeris]

...

funny with the more recent version of the same classes, but not breeding animals (besides 4 hatches of chickens one a year), we dropped a letter grade if we 'misued' hybrid - as the argument from this particular set of professionals one 'cannot increasing vigor' when introducing the same genome - the 'correct' use was "non true breeding mating/paring" vs "true breeding mating/pairing" excluding self pollinating or self replicating organism ... and I argued with them then...

...

I hate that kind of caca! It's like when they teach the solar system incorrectly no fewer then three times to children... or lets not even get into the model of an atom- Why teach something based on what you think a child or and adult can understand?
Teach it right...baised on the most current understanding of the system or model not based on whatever bias that teacher may have...


So after all that I was right?!?!

what a pain that set of profs was.

 

[JenellYB]

Yeah, all the sciences are notorious for that....changes have and do come so fast....don't know how recent your courses in those were, mine were (oops, correction! (2003-2007). I got my chance at college as my retirement gift to myself! Sure wish I could have done it earlier, was too busy (and poor!) raising a family! Your courses didn't get into F1, F2, etc, hybrid generation crosses within species? That is a use more applicable in agiculture, but still quite a bit of solid science involved on and about it.

 

[mammat]

I agree with you about hatchery chicks. I love my hatchery birds..they produce, they are characteristic of the breed and they are very hardy. One of my few non hatchery experiences left me with a flock infected with ILT from a backyard breeder! I have NEVER had a sick hatchery chick. I have NEVER had a hatchery chick die!
A little off topic but I have also noticed that people on BYC constantly slam the hatcheries for losses incurred during shipping (ie a box of dead chicks). If you notice most of these people order these chicks when its either 4 or 114 degrees outside. They also ship them 900 miles and wonder why they arrive dead! IT DRIVES ME NUTS!

Pick a hatchery close to you and go pick them up! I am ordering all my spring chicks from a hatchery and lovin it! Cant wait to pick them up

 

[JenellYB]

Mammat, yes, definitely, the risk of disease is FAR higher with smaller, individuals, whether breeders, backyard, or farm flocks. The big hatcheris have so much more control over their facilities, eaqse of sanitation and disinfecting, and very important CLOSED breeding populations! I learned some very hard and painful lessons back in my days in both breeding dogs and rabbits about the importance of a CLOSED breeding population/facility! Even if you don't accidentally bring in a disease with a new animal, you can bring them home from shows and other people can walk them in on their shoes visiting your place and or touching, handling your animals. In both the dogs and rabbits, the rabbits especially, once an animal went onto into the active show strong, they were isolated as best I could from other stock. I actually had a separate rabbitry for active show stock clear across my property, with separate feeding and cleaning stuff, and always tended the breeding stock first, before going to tend the show animals. New animals should be quarantined before being returned, and even then something can slip by you. There was, I assume still is, some terrible terrible stuff that could wipe you out of rabbits and contaminate your facilites badly, even knock you plumb out. Some really serious rabbit breeders actually NEVER returned a rabbit that had been shown back to their breeding facility.If it won decent, they'd usually sell them at the shows. Or give them away as pets, since show rabbits were accustomed to being handled. Even the last rabbits at a show i saw, a livestock/fair just several years ago, there were obviously sick animals with contagous disease all over the place in those pens!
And no, i don't think you observation about time of year, weather, and distance shipping is off topic at all...I think it has a lot to do with a lot of problems....down here in SE Texas, even local feed stores don't usually carry ckicks in summer, and I can't imagine ordering any in our summers. When I was around such as 4-H, FFa, chicks for fall shows that had to be started in summer often involved someone driving maybe hundreds of miles to a hatchery to pick up orders for all the kids, drive them back in AC vehicle, and kids started them indoors, with cooling, rather than outside in the heat. These are just common sense.

 

[FireTigeris]

Yeah, all the sciences are notorious for that....changes have and do come so fast....don't know how recent your courses in those were, mine were (oops, correction! (2003-2007). I got my chance at college as my retirement gift to myself! Sure wish I could have done it earlier, was too busy (and poor!) raising a family! Your courses didn't get into F1, F2, etc, hybrid generation crosses within species? That is a use more applicable in agiculture, but still quite a bit of solid science involved on and about it.

well you have the more recent info, mine are older- 2001-2005, Biology, vertebrate zoology, biochemistry, ornithology (not half as useful as I'd hoped... besides being able to ID in flight or by call what's been killing my freerangers when I did that), 'basic genetics and split pea soup' (the actual name of the course more useful then it sounded Mendelian obviously), organic chemistry (ahhhhhhh!!!!), sports medicine (9 weeks), first aid (9-weeks), non-Mendelian genetics-

We did those [F1, F2, and backcrosses that they changes the notation of (P)->(IBC-'inbred back cross') half way through] but they were simply 'heterogeneous crosses'- not 'hybrid' as long as the cross or pairing was natural and likely (pink flowers from red and white parent bushes in the same growing zone, mutt chickens, 'wild' strands of any critter (flys, mice, pigeons, etc).

We didn't cover incomplete dominance as well as I wanted but we beat to death co-dominance and multiple gene expression.
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I use my feedstore's order from the Hatchery if I want something special.

--I should write up the lessons of a first year chicken raiser.

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I'm in the fancy rat community and we take QT very serious- so serious we have events that animals are not invited to- Myco is bad on rats and "many many" carry it and are contagious when stressed. No rat shows in our area.

Interesting "feeder rats" are looked on the same way in that community as "hatchery stock" is- some of my healthiest rats were feeders, if you know how to pick a healthy animal. I guess its all just justifying the 50-100% more expensive purchase?!
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I agree on the QT thing, also make sure everyone in your household knows the QT procedure- QT starts the day something comes home and restarts any time any one of those critters shows any sign of weakness of outright illness-

 

[JenellYB]

A lot has to do with what you want to do with something, in both the kid of educational courses mentioned here, or any of this about where to get animals. In the educational courses, you seemed to have had a very different focus, what you wanted out of them, than in my own. All those courses I chose were toward thoughts of what might come were I too choose and be able to continue into post-grad level after my B.S. Mine (Psychology/Physiology) were heavier on physiological, medical, since my hope were I to go on would have been Clinical Psych, specializing toward physio/neuro psych. My genetics course had no subtile, it was just genetics, but also as a senior level course, and geared to preparing for post-grad work in one of several fields.

In aquiring animals, what our plans and intents are make difference. Feeder rats work for your interests, someone breeding rats for a bio-secure research facility would have different needs. For all the pre-cautions I took with my past breeding stock, none of that was relevant in aquiring the two pet dogs I now have..one a mixed breed I took on when its orginal owner, a familty member passed away, the other, a Lab that was an adult rescued stray, of unknown origns and background. And both are fine for my needs. It just all depends what each one's needs and plans are.It wasn't relevant in my recently aquiring my"Chicken Little" bird cage chicken rescued from dogs. Sometimes the biggest and first choice IS figuring out just what we need and want, what is important. Such as you, discovering large, calm, heavy breed chickens better adapted to a protected lifestyle weren't the best for your own free range situation. Better free range breeds might not be so well adapted to a closely confined lifestyle, just the same. That's why there are so many wonderfully different breeds....to meet different needs.