Biodiversity vs. Classic Animal breeding

[Robert Blosl]

http://mgbca.org/MGBC Literature/red pyle w r leverett.pdf

I tried to look up the early history of Red Pyle. I did read on another site about the King II.

Here is a good article by a master breeder of Red Pyles. I read his article and said to myself what a difficult color pattern.

I wounder what kind of genetic chart would be made up for this color pattern and breed.

However, who would think you would have to have a female and male line to produce them or cross another color of moderns in to keep the color true.

Isn't funny on some color patterns you can not breed the same birds to each other or if you do they will fade and become scrubs.

 

[saladin]

What you speak to are DIFFERENT evolutionary forces at work. Before my current occupation, I was a geologist, specifically a micro-paleontologist. Entire graduate school classes are devoted to these evolutionary forces. There are several things to consider. There is natural selection, mutation, sexual selection and genetic drift (and others). Each is different. Simplistically, a mutation is a random change in the DNA and there are different types. (i.e. There are different kinds of mutations -- too complicated to go into on a thread.) Some mutations can be beneficial and some can be detrimental, others, no effect. For example, a well known mutation in humans occurred two or three different times, separately, apart, though random & not related (Northern Europe, Africa are well documented) for our tolerance of dairy {lactose}. This mutation was random and by chance and was NOT caused by the environment (mutations generally are NOT caused-- they're random); however an exception would be damage to DNA caused by radiation or chemicals, etc. I found better explanations than I could word online to the other forces:




[FONT=georgia, serif]Genetic drift is random in that it is a chance happening -- like an meteor hitting the rooster with the longest, fastest legs (who would have made it under natural selection or perhaps YOUR human selection cause you wanted longer legs)[/FONT]

It is really nice to know your background. It's always a pleasure to be dealing with someone who didn't just read their opinion on the web!

Though my doctorate is not in the same field as your own, I do respect education greatly. You'll just have to forgive my typing errors and misspelled words. I'm still the product of the Tennessee Public Education System no matter how much I may desire to distance myself from it! lol.

 

[cgmccary]

Quote:
Geology and paleontology are really my passion. Believe it or not, long before it was popular in the culture, I gave a lecture once in graduate school on the Maastrichtian boundary (Cretaceous) extinction. My specialty was: I studied a little micro fossil called a conodont. The oil industry took a nose dive in the 1980s and so did my job. Another out of work geologist helped me get a job at a law firm where I was talked into going to law school, which I completed, took the bar exam and passed so 20 years later, I am still a lawyer (something I never planned or even thought I'd be doing but a good living, funds my other pleasures) and not something I particularly like doing. I feel like my days are sometimes like that movie, Groundhog Day, & I get tired of arguing with people all the time.

 

[saladin]

Had a good friend that was a geologist for the gold mine up the road. He moved to Australia when it closed. They are scheduled to dig a new hole this next year and open a new mine. If so, maybe you should throw in the towel and move South like 3/4ths of all the other Yankees I know! That's what we need is one more Yankee in the South. LOL.

The trouble with these forums is you don't know alot about the people post. Some are brand new to chickens. Many are amature geneticists (in their own minds) but have never bred chickens to any extent themselves. I don't mind new folks at all. Heck we were all new to chickens once (except I can't remember back that far myself as I've been around them my entire life). What is difficult for me is dealing with folk that have raised a few chickens, read a few books and think they know it all. I much prefer experience with education.

 

[saladin]

My humblest of apologies cgm on thinking you were a Yankee. When you stated how educated you were I just guessed you had to be from somewhere else other than the backwoods rural south like the rest of us rednecks. To think, you are one too. No wonder we get along so well: educated rednecks who still love the South and her folk.

I'm doing pentience the rest of the day for my earlier Yankee refence.

 

[cgmccary]

Quote: LOL, no problem. I was born poor in the sticks of rural Alabama & the only person in my immediate family (parents, siblings (4 brothers)) who went to college. Also, going to college wasn't expected in the world & environment I grew up, so I understand.

 

[HallFamilyFarm]

Quote:

LOL, no problem. I was born poor in the sticks of rural Alabama & the only person in my immediate family (parents, siblings (4 brothers)) who went to college. Also, going to college wasn't expected in the world & environment I grew up, so I understand.

I met both of you at Crossroads in Indianapolis last year. In my opinion...... you are both definitely REDNECKS!

Me? I am an educated Arkie who grow up in Oklahoma, attended college in Tennessee, and now live in Arkansas. No rednecks here! Just us hillbillies and Razorbacks!

 

[tadkerson]

Woke up this moaning thinking about this thread. Climate change on poultry and other livestock such as Horses and Beef cattle?

How does a change of climate say from Indiana or Mo to say Mobile Alabama have a effect on say chicks that where hatched there and raised down here. Example 25 Golden Se bite chicks where purchased and raised down her from John Wonderluch strain in St. Louis Mo. After five months they looked like scrubs from the feed store. Five died from the heat and humidity. John drove down here on a Judging tour and st oped in to see them. He agreed they dont look very good but the brother and sisters of these look great back home. I tell you what I will give you the money you paid for these birds plus $25 for feed and let me take them home and finish them out to see what happens. You got a deal said the man from Mobile Alabama. Four months latter John took four of these chicks to a show in the mid west and won res champion bantam of the show on a pullet that was spending the summer down here with us. She and her brothers went from scrubs to nice show birds in just four months. What caused the mutation on these excellent show bantams.???

I sent 25 chicks Rhode Island Reds to Dennis Meyers in Ohio and he sent me 25 of the prettiest chicks that he has been raising in Ohio for ten years. The same strain as mine from Thompson Georgia. My chicks at six months of age looked like culls. Every one that came to see them said where did you get these scrubs from. His birds once the heat and humidity kicked up in the summer in June started to not grow. They started to die buy July and August. After it was over I had six birds left two males and four females. Two of the females looked ok the males had no tail feathers. Both strains came from Mr. E W Reese in Georgia mine four years be for and my friends ten years be for. Why did they do this.? I told this story to a beef cattle breeder down here who had Registered Angus. He said when we would by a new bull we will not buy a bull unless he is below the Mas ion Dixon Line. Its just a waist of time to get a bull from Colorado or Wisconsin and have them down here. The climate is just to harsh on them.

So does the climate mutate or cause things to change in a bird even if they where born and hatched in the mid west and then brought down here in this hot and humid climate? I lived in Wisconsin for almost two years my wife and I could not stand the climate it made any area of our body that was once injured as kids in sports or what ever hurt like no Buddy's business. We had to leave as we could not take the winters. When I came from Washington State to Mississippi to live in the Air Force during the summer if I drove a un air conditioned car 45 minutes in August I would be soaking wet with sweat be for I got to my destination to work. I could not take the heat. It took me nearly ten years to handle it. Now I can not take the winters.

So think about this what effect does climate change have on livestock and poultry. This again goes to my theory of Raising a closed line breed strain of fowl five hundred miles apart and then when you exchange a male or female to each others flock its just like a com pleat out cross of someone Else's strain yet the strain is still a closed strain for say 30 years. Only difference is a different set of eye balls culling and selecting , different climate, different feed grown in that region and different water. May be colder than where I live such as Knoxville Tenn but once the switch is made every five or seven years its like a jolt of new vigor into my flock and his flock.

Look forward to your reply and thoughts on my above description of closed buddy line breeding.

Robert,

I do not think it was the heat and humidity nor a mutation. It gets hot and humid in Mo. Last year was really bad ( 95 -107 for two months with humidity) and I did not have a bird that died. I would say it was most likely some parasite or feed difference that was giving them problems. Your birds are immune to or tolerant of the bacteria, fungus, protist or whatever that was causing the problem. Could be something in drinking water or something in the soil. Could be something in the feed that is different.

Tim

 

[saladin]

I met both of you at Crossroads in Indianapolis last year. In my opinion...... you are both definitely REDNECKS!

Me? I am an educated Arkie who grow up in Oklahoma, attended college in Tennessee, and now live in Arkansas. No rednecks here! Just us hillbillies and Razorbacks!

Educated Rednecks!

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

I have skimmed over this thread and just thought I'd share a couple things from my own experience. The survival determining genetics thing reminded me of my sumatras. We always keep them outside and we get down to -20 in winters quite often. Sumatras are supposed to be more of a warm weather breed. We have had many birds start to look weak in the winter, if they die from the cold, they never make it to breed. Many of our pens are open sided and we do have birds that die off due to the cold. Same with disease. We never vaccinate for anything and some seasons we do have big losses due to mareks but our original birds that survived tend to throw chicks that have a natural immunity to it. Not all, but many of them do. An example of that is that we bought some chicks from a hatchery this year and didn't get them vaccinated. We put them in the same pens with our home bred chicks. Sure enough, we lost about 1/2 the hatchery chicks to mareks this year and maybe a total of 4 of our home bred birds.

About outcrossing to improve them. I got some legbars like so many other people this year. I am not after a fancy show bird like some folks, I am after utility. In my mind, I picture a bird with a longer back, lighter weight, with the same autosexing color. I love the color of them and all, just not the type. I out crossed to a rose combed leghorn from production lines to improve their laying, and also give me a rose comb so I wont have to worry about frost bite. My pure legbar hen didn't start laying until she was over 7 months old. They both got frost bite when it got to 30 at night. My legbar x leghorn crosses with rose combs are doing amazing out in the cold and snow and look like they will be laying soon (just over 5 months old). I plan to back cross to legbars to basically work on a rose combed legbar with much better production. I have posted on the legbar thread and many of the 'purists' have shot me down and said that the birds I am breeding will never be considered legbars. Well, the joys of chickens are that if it looks like the breed is supposed to, you can call it that which can be unfortunate at times. An example is when I bred a bantam buckeye with a bantam red cochin and got some birds that looked exactly like brahmas in type. I bred them together and got birds that still looked just like brahmas so I sold them on as farm bantams that "look like" brahmas.

One last thing on this, is that some lines of birds can still throw a curveball. I breed bantam phoenix and got an entire flock from a breeder, never introduced any new blood. We had a large group of birds to start with but thanks to predators and natural die offs, we pretty much were left with 2 non related hens. We had a silver hen that molted when she was 7 years old. We had a golden son from her that was the only one that survived a week of no heat in their shed when I was away on vacation. We bred him to a light brown hen that was unrelated and they always threw weak chicks so they never were mated together again. Well, we bred the cockerel back to his mother and got a white cockerel in addition to some of the basic light brown pullets and golden cockerels. I knew the line had white in it, all the white chicks they ever threw were always weak. Well, I wanted more white and silver chicks so I figured that if I bred him back to his mother, I would get white and silver. I ended up getting "silver pyle" (red breasted white pullets and white cockerels) and silvers. As inbred as they were, the silvers from them are rather strong. But I also ended up getting a great BBR (no hackle striping like the light browns) and some goldens. Some things that surprised me were yellow based skin showing up which I haven't had pop up in the last 7 years that we've had the line. Some other things that came about were extremes of feather. I have 2 golden cockerels that are full siblings. One has really short saddle/tail and looks like a leghorn in feathering, his brother has 14" saddles and a 2 1/2' tail that are all still in pin feathers. I plan to outcross to a different line this coming year that isn't related to mine at all that I know of. They have similar traits and all, just different ways of getting to the same thing.

So what I am getting at, is that without as much close linebreeding, I doubt that I would have gotten all of these throwbacks. Due to them being so closely related, the best of the best and worst of the worst genetics can rear their ugly heads.