BLRW Roo x Light Sussex Hen (and a question about violet laced wyandottes)

[LonelyPageTurne]

I was thinking of breeding my roo to a light sussex hen for a sex linked bird that would work well for the table (cockerels) and eggs (hens). I know there will be incomplete lacing, but I figure the hens should still be pretty enough, and the roos (should be an incomplete blue laced yellow/golden or black laced yellow/golden) should still have light enough pin feathers to have an attractive carcass. I do have a few questions though (and this is a project for next year, I think)

1) How soon would the birds reach a good table weight? Should I feed them meat feed or layer feed?
2) Would you expect this cross to produce decent layers? Would they be slow to lay?
3) Would you bother crossing back to try to get a still lighter roo for the table (and lose the sex linking?)


Basically I'm trying to find some good ways to get my flock to pay for itself, and since I know someone around here who could sell them, but really mostly just wants pullets, I figured that a sex link bird that would be good for the table as well would be perfect. Especially if I don't have to raise the chicks myself lol.


Secondary, but I was also thinking of doing a sex link cross with a SLW to get BLRW pullets...and by tinkering with the genetics calculator I figured I could start breeding fairly reliably for blue/splash laced silvers and blue/splash laced golds by F2 or maybe F3, however breeding for a non-showeable (but novel) bird when I don't know how sought after the babies are is a little scary to me. Thoughts on this? I'm even willing to just give away the eggs for the cost of shipping to the folks on here, as I can't keep many more birds than I already have, but it does seem like a fun project.

 

[Makomd]

1. Both birds have good table qualities, but to speed up the process this might be something you can breed to for better results, breeding those that show faster size. If you are looking for the weights primarily I would probably go with meat feed at least initially.

2.Both parent stock are good layers, so going a hybrid route should increase this aspect, though in my experience my BLRW and GLW were slow to start but rock steady once starting.

3. The males should be fairly light considering they are based on the silver from the LS.

When it comes to breeding for the colors I would breed to your liking. The Blue laced gold is probably not a good idea as it is essentially a BLRW without the Mahogany and most breeders would see this as a poorly bred BLRW. The violet laced though is an absolute beauty and I am surprised that we don't see more of them. I had 2 roosters, one with silver comb that I culled and another with a nice rosecomb, but developed wry tail that I ended up culling, I was devastated, but have another pen set up and ready to go to try again this year.

Good luck with your endeavors.

 

[LonelyPageTurne]

I thought the same about the blue laced gold. However splash laced gold are super pretty, I think. Either way I'm pretty sure I could play around with the genetics calculator to see what I need to do to get only violet laced. Hopefully once I get a line established I just will need to breed a violet lace to a violet lace with an occasional slw in there if the lacing needs improvement.

It sucks that I would need 2 lines for breeding wyandottes if I want to do hens and roos. I know there's not a standard yet, but I hope to see one someday. I really don't think I have a way to do both projects at once if I try to breed hens and roos and then the sussex crosses.

 

[Makomd]

Once you get a splash Violet laced Wyandotte all you need is a SLW and you will breed pure VLW.

We were overwhelmed working with multiple projects at once. Chicks everywhere, grow outs everywhere and feed costs of $100 a week. We are down to 36 birds and two major projects and frankly one of those may go away as well as we turn up the Wybar project. The nice part is its your project so you can make it what ever you want and when you start to see things come together its worth it.

We are working on Gold and Silver Wybars with hopes of adding a Violet Laced Wybar later on.

Right now though we are at that stage where we will be hatching out some birds that should breed true, but we are weeding out the single comb genes brought over from the barred rock. Test mating and hatching out chicks is time consuming with waiting on the birds to know they have mated saving eggs, and then another 21 days to hatch.

Keep us posted

 

[LonelyPageTurne]

Well I'd be happy to send over some violet lace eggs for shipping costs once I get this going. I MIGHT be able to start this year but I'm sure. I definitely won't have any this year but I might next. Anyway keep in touch and once I start getting vlw I will send you eggs