I got 5 Welsummer pullets in my order of Cackle Hatchery this spring. They were only $3.55 each.
http://www.cacklehatchery.com/welsummer.htm
BCM Roo x Red Selinks - 3 generations and they're a new BCM?
- Thread starter NTBugtraq
- Start date
I got 5 Welsummer pullets in my order of Cackle Hatchery this spring. They were only $3.55 each.
http://www.cacklehatchery.com/welsummer.htm
- Thread starter
- #52
Folks, I really appreciate these price checks, but sending fertile eggs from the U.S. to Canada is no small feat, if its allowed at all (there are definite restrictions on sending from certain states right now due to Avian Flu concerns).
Regardless, I am not interested in a Welsummer cross...that can be someone else's project if they want. Please re-read the first post in this thread if you're unsure what I am trying to do in this project. You are diluting the signal to noise ratio with all this other chatter. Please don't take offence, I just want to keep the conversation in my project thread on my project, or anyone else who has project birds that are very similar to mine.
Regardless, I am not interested in a Welsummer cross...that can be someone else's project if they want. Please re-read the first post in this thread if you're unsure what I am trying to do in this project. You are diluting the signal to noise ratio with all this other chatter. Please don't take offence, I just want to keep the conversation in my project thread on my project, or anyone else who has project birds that are very similar to mine.
- Thread starter
- #53
I wanted to respond after my first reading of W. H. Card's treatise on breeding.
He starts with a basic premise; "buy the very best male and female possible for your line-breeding". Well, if this isn't the most important thing he says, I don't know what is. He is basically saying; "look for what you want, find it, and start with the best pair of it you can find". He then goes on to state "show quality" or "fancy poultry" a lot...and only has one reference to eggs at all. He also never mentions the flavor of chicken food (eggs or meat), so this is clearly a guide to show birds. I am not saying his teachings cannot be applied to egg color, taste, or meat taste, I am saying he says nothing about it.
I would also point out that he states that, "Uniform shape can be achieved in 3 years' breeding"...so not every trait requires 8+ years. He certainly notes some traits as taking 10 years...but since he says nothing about egg color, he hasn't taught me anything about how many generations it takes to achieve egg color.
What he does say is that cross-breeding is useless. Ativism will always win out. Well, that makes this entire forum useless. He seems to say, the best you can achieve with a pairing is a line equal to the pairing. Everything else that occurs from the pairing will not last. It is interesting that practically every breed going today is a result of breeding manipulation, even many of the breeds that Card saw were not "naturally occurring". But it would seem he was suggesting that improvements on breed could not happen, or should not, as Ativism will always correct man's attempts. I appreciate his purism, but he seems to talk more about 1 year phenoms than his own 40 years of experience. His treatise confirms his attempts at selectively creating better show birds and how Nature defeated all his (and his observed) attempts unless his facts were accepted. That's pretty self-serving, especially given what we know today...not all poultry is grown to show.
My project is designed to create a bird of who cares what color, shape, type. It is intended to create a bird that survives better here, and provides me with produce I can sell at a premium. I will definitely follow his major rule about vigor, as like him, I wish to see chicks survive hatch, pullets survive maturity, and chickens live healthy lives. But he taught me that in like 3 pages, the rest is about achieving show qualities, and I care not about that.
I am surprised he was touted as being a luminary, in this thread. Clearly he should be a must read for anyone trying to grow show birds, or sell eggs from show winners...but that's got nothing to do with my project.
I have a lengthy list of tombs I should read, can anyone point me to something more specific about egg color, taste, or meat taste? Again, please don't be offended by my response, its just the way I talk.
You can't develop a "breed" until it breeds true. All of the birds in the APA SOP were accepted to a breed standard, and that breed standard is different for each different breed in specifics such as tail set, carriage, egg color, feather type and color, clean or feathered shanks.
You can create crossbreeds now, as I am doing with my flock. My goal is to produce a good laying dual purpose fowl with a range of egg colors. The hens are ISA Brown red sex link light fowl, there are two roosters, an Ameraucana/Salmon Faverolle cross and an Ameraucana/Light Brahma cross. Both roosters hatched from green eggs.
The hens produced from the Salmon Faverolle based cross will be bred to the most superior flesh and conformation Light Brahma cross. Light Brahmas are very poor layers and very slow maturing birds. This will be a dual hybrid cross with the goals of creating a rainbow of egg colors and a moderately fast developing, large, good laying flock.
Since I am not selecting for color, but instead for egg production, I will be selecting for productivity rather than for a conformation and color. Over several generations, I expect the offspring to become somewhat standardized, and at that time I can choose to selectively breed for flock color. Right now I have pink, yellow, and green shanks; clean and feathered shanks and feet; short and wide birds and slim, narrow birds. I have white with black, black with white, partridge colors, buff, white with buff, and jubilee/cuckoo colors. All these out of the gene pool that makes up "ISA Brown" and a couple of crossbred roosters.
Concentrate on the traits you desire most, and develop from there. Your dual purpose birds may have some individuals (in a same age flock) that consistently lay larger eggs, darker eggs, or more eggs. You will need to balance these, as more eggs leads to less dark eggs, and large eggs lead to fewer eggs, and darker eggs are a result of fewer eggs. You can also encourage or discourage additional pigment freckles by selective breeding. Many of my customers like them, even though they are a "fault".
I know you are looking only for scientific treatises, but since you are not breeding to an existing standard, most of the work will be careful selection on your part.
And I too need winter hardiness, so my birds are rose or pea comb.
You can create crossbreeds now, as I am doing with my flock. My goal is to produce a good laying dual purpose fowl with a range of egg colors. The hens are ISA Brown red sex link light fowl, there are two roosters, an Ameraucana/Salmon Faverolle cross and an Ameraucana/Light Brahma cross. Both roosters hatched from green eggs.
The hens produced from the Salmon Faverolle based cross will be bred to the most superior flesh and conformation Light Brahma cross. Light Brahmas are very poor layers and very slow maturing birds. This will be a dual hybrid cross with the goals of creating a rainbow of egg colors and a moderately fast developing, large, good laying flock.
Since I am not selecting for color, but instead for egg production, I will be selecting for productivity rather than for a conformation and color. Over several generations, I expect the offspring to become somewhat standardized, and at that time I can choose to selectively breed for flock color. Right now I have pink, yellow, and green shanks; clean and feathered shanks and feet; short and wide birds and slim, narrow birds. I have white with black, black with white, partridge colors, buff, white with buff, and jubilee/cuckoo colors. All these out of the gene pool that makes up "ISA Brown" and a couple of crossbred roosters.
Concentrate on the traits you desire most, and develop from there. Your dual purpose birds may have some individuals (in a same age flock) that consistently lay larger eggs, darker eggs, or more eggs. You will need to balance these, as more eggs leads to less dark eggs, and large eggs lead to fewer eggs, and darker eggs are a result of fewer eggs. You can also encourage or discourage additional pigment freckles by selective breeding. Many of my customers like them, even though they are a "fault".
I know you are looking only for scientific treatises, but since you are not breeding to an existing standard, most of the work will be careful selection on your part.
And I too need winter hardiness, so my birds are rose or pea comb.
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- Thread starter
- #55
OMG WalnutHill, you sound like you get what I'm thinking...thank you!! I'm still wading through scientific stuff, and maybe you have understood the science to do what you're doing...but if you're just looking at the results and selecting from them, that's what I am trying too!!
Are you doing trap nesting yet? I don't need to do it yet, but I figure I will have to eventually. For now, my goal this year is to get rid of all my red sex-link hens replaced by my 1st project layers. So then I can be sure all my eggs are 2nd generation. I'd do that again next year...etc...
Exactly. It may take a few generations to get the commercial production levels I want. I will separate the juniors and remove all roosters except the one that develops quickly into a meaty large fowl. As all the others will be table fare, it's not a bad contest for me. The original breeds of chickens were all developed with a purpose in mind, and the traits eventually became a standard. Using dog breeding as a helpful aid, they are all dogs and from a few common types of parent stock, but generations of selective breeding have produced a large number of highly functional herding, hunting, and working dog breeds. Understanding the genetic nomenclature for the chromosomal differences is meaningless if you breed to a creature that isn't functional for the purpose.
The uniqueness of the offspring my crosses have made makes it easy to visually track them. I will trap nest if necessary, but generally I can track the birds in a flock of 50 or fewer visually when they are distinct in appearance. The ISA Browns all look too much alike to track.
(Ignore the bantams, they aren't with the program)
sjturner79
Songster
I'm going to have to go through this thread and all the links here carefully so I can work on my own project: I want to make black egg sizzles and blue egg sizzled, then head on to avacardo eggers
There are no breeds of chickens that lay black eggs. Please be sure and document how you accomplish this.
sjturner79
Songster
I'm guessing the best I will end up with ( and the op will end up with) is a very deep brown like in a bcm
- Thread starter
- #60
As Enola said, no such thing as a black egg...but as you said, there are the dark colours known to Marans. Like you, I call them black eggs (and if anyone is smart enough to mention the Chinese "processed" eggs that tend to be black, we have a fun convo). The links here are great resources, but there's a lot of reading, so have fun and be patient.
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