Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[Yard full o' rocks]

Ok all you experts out here (Walt, Bob, Chris, Jamie, others...) I need some help/advise

First, let me set the stage here. I have Heritage Columbian Rock and Barred Rock large fowl. My "passion" is going to be with the Columbian Rocks. I currently have space in 3 separate coops with attached outside runs to "comfortably house" about 40 grown birds and have 2 smaller coops with runs for "grow up" pens. I have no interest (at least not at this point, LOL) in showing birds, I just want to raise them to be improved each year, closer and closer to the standard in the SOP, and for my enjoyment.

Jamie Duckworth was kind enough to send me a LOT of old poultry reading materials including a copy of "start where you are with what you have".....

So.....I have been doing as much reading and learning as I can and I am planning for next year. I think I have a grasp on the concept of line-breeding and how it should be done. Looks like I will have:

In Columbians
2 cockerels and 6 pullets

In BRs
2 cockerels and 4 pullets

So, let's say this next Spring I hatch off 100 chicks from the Columbians and I get (using the rule of 10's) 10 better looking young birds to keep. Let's say its the best 8 pullets and best 2 cockerels. At that point I become "lost" as to what you do. I understand that you want to breed the daughters back to the fathers and sons back to the mothers...BUT,

Do I:

1. Keep only the hens that produced the best chicks (the ones I decided to keep) and sell off the others?
2. Do I keep the original sires AND the 2 new cockerels?
3. Sell off a rooster if he did not throw one of the better cockerels?

I guess I'm looking for some advise or plan for after "breeding year 1", how do you decide what to keep of your original stock? At what point do you begin replacing aging hens and/or roosters?

I know this is a little long and I'm sorry for that.....just trying to get a handle on what I should be planning for in 2011.

Thanks!

Scott

 

[Jared77]

Ok here's my question, how do you keep the fertility rates up if your working with a limited breeding pool to work from? Let say I track down some nice RIRs from a breeder. I get eggs, have a good hatch and want to continue to work with the line. How do you ensure that in 5 generations from that original hatching you still have good fertility and egg production to hatch enough chicks to have a good pool of chicks to see if you have anything worth while to hold back to breed on?

Are you selecting the daughters to then breed on and the older hens are culled? What happens when you need to replace an old rooster?

Even if you got 2 seperate lines of birds going your still working with a very limited pool of good genetics to work with.

Just don't want to work hard to get a good line of heritage birds only to breed myself into a corner in a few generations because I have a small pool of birds to pull from.

 

[thechickonthehill]

Great questions Yard full o' rocks (sounds like my yard!

) and I anxiously await the answers. Also, could some one send me or tell me where to get a copy of "Start where you are with what you have." ? I would love to read it.

 

[Mrs. Turbo]

has anyone contacted Bill to see if he has all the poultry press copies saved somewhere.....he might be interested in helping.

 

[NYREDS]

Quote:
A lot of the old poultry info has disappeared over the years, so retaining any info is a good thing.

Walt

Bob Blosl had quite a collection of old articles on Red breeding. Still have them Bob?

 

[lildinkem]

That would be a cool thread to start. A Heritage of poultry knowledge by the greats that we wished we knew.
A thread just dedicated to sharing old articles

 

[Robert Blosl]

I have drafted two thoughts on this subject One is called Inbreeding the other Line breeding. My wife wants the computer back my ducks are yelling they are hungrey and want fresh water and I got to put my washed chickens in the barn for the night.

My problem is I think is Poultry in 106 level and this needs to be written in Poutlry Breeding 101.

I will have to go back and reread what I wrote. I think its to heavy and will put you to sleep.

I used Line breeding on my large fowl reds to get them to lay heavy in the old days.

On my Rhode Island Red Bantams I used a priniclpe called Judious In Breeding to shrink large fowl down to bantams in 20 years.

Which ones would be best with Colubian I dont know. I do know crossing a white rock large fowl male mine onto a Columbian Plymouth Rock females got us the prettiest barred rocks you ever saw.

I get back latter after I please everyone out side. bob

 

[TACEYPERKINS]

OHHHHH YEAHA, I finally have read through all 105 pages. I have been patiently waiting to get to the end to post. I wanted to be up to speed with everyone else.

First of all, I just wanted to say thank you for starting this thread. And to everyone who has chimmed in and given invaluable information. This is what it is all about, sharing info to achive one goal. The goal of raising THE INTEREST AND KNOLEDGE OF HERITAGE LARGE FOWL. It has been wonderful to read all the info that has been discussed so far.
I do have a couple of questions....

1. My first question is, I raise Mottled Javas and Delaware. I have only been raising the Javas for about 2 yrs. So I haven't had much change towards my goal yet. And I have only had my Delawares since earlier this year. I want to know what you think about them. And maybe what direction you think I would be best to go in to reach SOP?

2. I also want to know if I should try showing them, are they good enough? And when you show, do you take your best birds? What if they get sick? What is your preperation for getting them ready for a show, and do you quarintine them when you return from the show?

Well, I am full of questions and I will ask some more after these have been answered. Thank you~ Tacey
Here is my java roo, please be honest, it is the only way I can learn!

I will post my Dellies in another post, I am still down loading them. Thank you~ Tacey

 

[punky rooster]

hey bob can you delete some pms i can't pm you

punky

 

[HallFamilyFarm]

Quote:
These look as good or better then what was at the Arkansas State Fair this last week.