Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[culler]

Barb, It has been many year since I studied Mendel Theory is a school of higher learning. I believe the Poultry be be different from the others.

 

[Arielle]

Arielle, If you cull male and female for temperamint and your line of fowl are close linebred, then you would have to cull the entire line. Much easier to brring in a new male to start with, try to get a male from the same line as your females.

You can still cull the worst offenders and SLOWLY move the average. Close linebreeding can lead to a number of problems; been there, done that. A population close, or not, can be altered. The fastest change comes from using unrelated stock. How unrelated depends on your specific needs.

I looked up chicken genetics a year ago, and the greatest difference was the sex determination. The XY system does not apply to chickens; rather a WZ system is applied as the female carries both WZ. The male is double for the sex genes, so you can make faster population change by heavy selection of the male. I also include the females in my selection because she supplies half the genes to my roosters in the next generation.

If I have misunderstood this, please let me know.

 

[culler]

I will go through some of my old poultry books and see if I can find a study that has been done on the mean chickens, they did everything else in the early days so might get lucky.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Barb, It has been many year since I studied Mendel Theory is a school of higher learning. I believe the Poultry be be different from the others.

Poultry are not necessarily like mammals, it is true. It is HARD to find info specifically on poultry. Most research is done to support commerical exploits - uber egg production and meat. Maintaining a breeding flock is not a huge priority for most researchers.

Speaking of Canadian dew and genetics (going back almost as far as Mendel

) .... F. B. Hutt says in Genetics of the Fowl in 1949 that "stubs are caused by an undetermined number of multiple genes. .... , and since the incidence of stubs is presumably influenced little or not at all by the environment .... " (using Leghorns)

My respected poultry guru tells me otherwise and his arguments are convincing. Are you aware, is there any new science, by any chance, to suggest stubs might have an environmental influence?

 

[Arielle]

I will go through some of my old poultry books and see if I can find a study that has been done on the mean chickens, they did everything else in the early days so might get lucky.

Was talking to the owner of the local feed store and his opinion was that the old timer info was valuable and getting forgotten. Ditto! Let us know what you find!!

 

[DMRippy]

Barb, Just saying that the old timers always said, cull the mean male. There is so much of the genetic theory out there that has never been proven to be correct. The only way to really know is do a study.

Might have something to do with the Canadian Dew also do you think ?

you are NEVER going to live that one down, are you?!?!?!?!

 

[DMRippy]

The male you have would not necessarily be classified as being genetically flawed. The male that is genetically flawed will attach for no reason and will hit at you every chance they get.

The male that will on occasion hit you can be gentled by just picking up and hold onto for a few minutes, all the time using the index finger to rub under the beak and upper neck in a downward motion. I have said before on here that most chickens like over ripe Banana , while holding let the male peck on the Banana. I feed all my young fowl Banana three times a week and they love the Banana. Just a little patience goes a long way with the nervous male.

Don?

 

[culler]

Arielle, My favorite old poultry book is Poultry Breeding by Morley Jull. It is I believe an old text book as each chapter has test at the end. I have several old Morley Jull Books and they can be bought on Abe books very reasonable. Most of the info is supported by Test ran at different Colleges of the day. I have not found anything yet but still looking.

 

[culler]

Yes, it is me. Changed my internet service to WIFI and dropped my email and could not figure out how to change the email on file since I had already canceled that email name. I had too many posts on that name anyway.

 

[culler]

Barb, just my personal opinion but I see no way that stubs could be caused by the environment. I think it is what is in the Genes. Some breeds have a problem with them and others never have any of them at all. I have had several breeds with clean legs and never had a stubs show up. I will look in some of the Jull books and see what is in there about Stubs.