Barnevelder breeders lets work together and improve the breed

[birdnbeast]

I did the black sex link cross a couple years ago just for fun mating a black copper marans rooster to a hatchery barred rock and also got some excellent layers in the hybrids, but alas the eggs were the color of the barred rock, so it would be a nice surprise to have them laying darker eggs.

Andy, so if I get this right the resulting pullets laid a regular brown (non-orange tint) egg without showing the influence of the sire? If so, that sorta' throws out the "breed to a sire from desired egg color to get better color in the get's eggs" that has been passed down for ages. I guess it just couldn't have been that easy, darn it.
regards, k/

always striving .....

 

[Dr Bjorn Netland]

Regarding crosses, I have had numerous such over the years. The darkest eggs were the result of a Welsummer cock x (German origin) Barnevelder hens, and they were also decent layers. Wish I had kept them going. I once acquired 2 cuckoo (clean legged) Marans hens, one of which laid a dark, dark egg. These 2 hens were a bit large for a bantam, but still acceptable as regards size. My search for a male proved unsuccessful, and I had these two pullets in with a blackbreasted red Easter Egger cockbird, and the one Marans hen that laid the dark eggs disappeared and came back some time later with a brood of chicks, one of which turned out to be a pullet that I kept. She grew into an intermediate size bird and was silver penciled (so much for what one can expect from crosses) and very quiet and easy going. Then the egg color: as blue as blue can be, no olive eggs. She laid a medium size blue egg practically every day for an entire year (lighted run) until she decided to stop for the molt. She never laid another egg after the molt. I always wondered what was behind her stellar performance and what caused her eggs to come out the color they did. Other crosses between Easter Eggers and brown egg laying hens resulted in olive eggs.

 

[RachaelS]

Quote:
It is still a nice cross, the lady with mine says they are dark eggs, so who knows. If nothing else you can sell them as brown egg layers

Also, I did notice the Roosters from the cross ended up bigger than their father, so for meat birds, they would have been great, no CornishX but still at 12 weeks they were pretty darn big and felt like they had a lot of meat.

 

[Tailfeathers]

Sorry for the delayed response. Holiday period was rush rush and then my computer has been down the last several days. Took a while to get my computer tech over here but thankfully he found it was only my monitor that died and not my computer. He did say I've got some transistors or something on my motherboard that are bulging and it could go anytime though. Anyways, I haven't been on BYC or this thread in weeks and have about 9 pages to get thru. So I won't be commenting on much but did want to add just a couple of things.

First, I wanna say "Thanks!" to Bjorn for popping in to this thread. Many folks do not know that Bjorn was one of the five original breeders to get both the Barnies and the Wellies approved and accepted into the APA in 1991. Bjorn, if you're still following this thread, I'd love to have you go back to the posts around November 17th or so and look at the pics I posted of the pullet that took BB and Reserve Continental behind one of my Wellie pullets that took Champion Continental. Love to hear your critique of that bird. As of this moment I have my Barnie rooster stud that I've used last year and will be again this year, one hen, and one pullet. I lost the champion BB pullet within a day or two of bringing her home from the show. Have no idea why. Almost positive I didn't bring anything home from the show. I put her in with the hen and the rooster thinking they would be the first I'd breed this year and get them cleaned out so I could start collecting eggs this month. So my guess is that the rooster killed her trying to mate her or something.

Second, on the issue of Mareks and Barnies. I don't recall having a big problem with Mareks but did have some. More so was the problem I had with CRD. At that time there were many folks I talked with who were having problems with sickly Barnies and it was getting to the point where several of them gave up on the breed. I almost did too. Then several years back I decided to keep one cockerel and two pullets that never got so much as a sneeze or sniffle. I stopped medicating and over the next two years I pretty much eliminated all the problem with sick Barnies. Even to this day I rarely have any sick Barnies.

Now back to catching up with the rest of the posts...

God Bless,

 

[Tailfeathers]

Ok, I'm back. Real quick like I wanted to say that I'm seeing a pattern show up in many of the pics of the Barnies where folks are questioning the lacing. This is just a pet peeve of mine so please bear with me and realize I'm not trying to condemn or put down anyones birds. But something that is often overlooked is the leg color. Just a reminder, the Barnie should have really nice dark yellow legs and the yellow leg gene is not only recessive but it is also sex-linked and therefore can be easily lost in a generation or two. I'm seeing an awful lot of Barnie's that are otherwise terrific looking birds in Type and Color - but have white legs.

God Bless,

 

[birdnbeast]

Ok, I'm back.
God Bless,

This is quite a slow moving thread and such a small, but loyal, follow-ship that when one 'member' is absent for a bit he is missed. Welcome back and speedy recovery to your 'puter.

Wishing you a Decent New Year with many Happy Days in it

k/

 

[Tailfeathers]

Trishia,
The Barnevelder males in the British, Dutch, and OUR (APA) standard should NOT have lacing in the breast. This was a hotly debated topic in the Dutch club, but one of their top breeders (I cannot recall his name -- maybe it was Mr. Osram) proved that males with totally black breasts could be mated to nicely laced females to produce sound offspring, both male and female. Again, the double laced variety we have in the APA standard does not call for a male with breast lacing. (Some of the European standards, such as Germany, Denmark, France, and others may accept or require males with breast lacing, but I hope we don't go down that route.) Birds hatched out of eggs from the Netherlands we received around 20 years ago never produced a single male with breast lacing, whereas some of the (German origin) bantam Barnevelder males I imported from Canada showed breast lacing in the males. In my opinion, it is of pivotal importance that breeders here in the US agree on this issue NOW because the breed is still a relative novelty in the APA and confusion at this point would not help the breed (let alone the judges). Another thing to look out for is the body shape (I have seen some birds that leave a great deal to be desired in this respect -- pictures of US breeders' birds I have seen), which I think is just as important as the lacing issue. Accepting the breed as "partridge" in the APA was idiotic, but it may be due to Mr. Grezcmiehl's limited language skills (a German immigrant to Canada, he was very instrumental in having the breed accepted by the APA; passed away a few years ago) and could be easily remedied by petitioning for a change in the standard description.

I think there may be some misunderstanding about what the SOP states. So, while hoping I ain't breaking any rules or getting myself into any trouble, let me quote here from the 2010 APA SOP that just came out last year:

From Page 142 of the SOP

BARNEVELDERS

The breed was originated in the district of Barneveld, Holland, with the brown eggs as one of the chief attractions. At first the birds were of mixed markings, some being double laced, others single laced, while the majority follwed the stippled partridge pattern. Two varieties were standardized, the double laced partridge and the stippled partridge, but the former gradually came to the top and is the popular variety in Holland today.

Now, from pages 35 & 36 of the SOP describing the color "Partridge" in the male and then female respectively:

Male

HEAD: Web of feather, lustrous rich red
NECK: Hackle -- web of feather, lustrous greenish black with a narrow lacing of medium shade of rich, brilliant red, shaft black
BACK: Back, including Saddle -- web of feathers, lustrous, greenish black with narrow facing of a medium shade of rich brilliant red, a slight shafting of rich red permissible. Rich brilliant red predominating on surface of upper back; saddle matching with hackle color.
BREAST: Lustrous greenish black
(Other parts of body omitted here to save time and space)

Female

HEAD: Deep reddish bay
NECK: Hackle -- black, slightly penciled with deep reddish bay and laced with reddish bay
BACK: Deep reddish bay, with distinct black pencilings.
BREAST: Deep reddish bay with distinct black pencilings.
(Again, other parts of body omitted here to save time and space)

Now back to Page 142 of SOP for comparison to the above:

COLOR - MALE

HEAD: Each feather black with slight reddish brown edging and reddish brown shafts, tips of feather black
NECK: Each feather black with slight reddish brown edging and reddish brown shafts, tips of feather black
BACK: Each feather reddish brown with very wide lacing of lustrous, greenish black
Saddle - Each feather black with slight reddish brown edging and reddish brown shafts, tips of feathers black
BREAST: Each feather reddish brown with a sharply defined lacing of lustrous, greenish black
(Other body parts omitted)

So, one can see that the APA SOP does require lacing in the breast of the Barnie male.

COLOR - FEMALE

HEAD: Plumage, lustrous, greenish black
NECK: Lustrous, greenish black. Front of neck - same as breast.
BACK: Each fether reddish brown, free of black peppering, with a well defined outer lacing of lustrous, greenish black and a well definted inner lacking of lustrous, greenish black. The outer lacing to be distinct yet not so heavy as to give a black appearance to the bird in the show pen.
BREAST: Each feather reddish brown, free of black peppering, with a well defined outer lacing of lustrous, greenish black and a well defined inner lacing of lustrous, greenish black. The outer lacing to be distinct yet not so heavy as to give a black appearance to the bird in the show pen.

So hopefully this will help clarify why the Barnie is considered a "Partridge" colored bird and how that applies to the specific coloration of the breed. And it should also correct any misunderstandings about whether our SOP requires lacing in the breasts of the male.

God Bless,

Royce

 

[Tailfeathers]

Ok, now one more quick and last post.

Trisha, can you remind me again what it was that you used to start your Blue Project?

The reason I ask is because I was thinking it may have been a BLRW? And I'm hoping that may be the case because, as you know, I've been trying to develop a Rosecomb Barnie. Well, I'm pretty excited this year because I've got one real nice looking cockerel with a pretty nice RC (not perfect but close) and I'm going to be breeding him back to his Mom and keeping all the chicks from that one pair. And I'm really hoping that this mating will get me to just where I want to be with the RC Barnies.

Then, on top of that, I got to thinking. I know. I know! VERY dangerous!!! But I've got a a trio of BLRW's and was thinking, "So, why not mate them since they already have the RC to your RC Barnies and see what you wind up with?" I'm thinking maybe it would be a quick way to BL RC Barnies?

God Bless,

Royce

 

[Tailfeathers]

Oh, and thanks BirdsnBeast

 

[tls_ranch]

Royce, so do you think we should ask the APA to modify the SOP so that males should have black breasts? Or stick with the current standard with males having laced breasts?


I used BLRW to get the blue gene.


Trisha

edited to add: sorry I was so "short" with the questions above. I was typing from an ipad...I'm not good with those things.