Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[cluck-cluck]

http://www.cutlersupply.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=939. That is a good price for 72 hours of warmth.
In a pinch, a hand warmer under the excelsior pad works ...8 hours at 135 degrees.

cool idea! We have some electrical hand warmers that double as usb plugs for your phone, etc... in a pinch. They'd do the same thing but I never put 2 and 2 together ;P

 

[bnjrob]

I hatched another black and white chick last night for you who don't know what the heck I am talking about its a Mottle Java from a rare old strain a man had here in Alabama that we thought was gone. A fellow brought me two males and three females in Jan and I am trying to increase the numbers and keep his flock for him till he gets back from Afghanistan. They lay huge eggs and are getting tamer. Lots of vigor for a old family of possible inbreed birds.

WooHoo! Am excited to hear that you're getting some fertile eggs from them!

 

[Robert Blosl]

That's what these nice people think they want to save the environment and all this. Most likely the company's that make these new bulbs or parts for them supported some of our nice men and women in Washington.

These bulbs dont put out any heat and I think if you get your finger prints oil on them they will go out sooner.

I got ten silkie chicks coming from a friend and I still have a black silkie male so I will cross the females onto him next year and make me a army of sitters. I will also, cross Mr. Silkie onto some white rocks bantams this may and June and have some mutts. Should make good sitters. Going to go back to the stone age and raise chickens like they did in 1890s. Might shut off my lights and go all the way. Don't need lights anymore as I don't need a incubator. By my wife a wood stove to cook on.

Totally, Mother Earth News.

 

[el pollo rey]

Hi, I get mine from http://www.tsksupply.com/72-hour-shipping-warmer/

also in sporting goods at wallmart hunting section hand and foot warmers

 

[Yard full o' rocks]

I start out with 100 watt old fashion incandecent bulbs, then 75 and all the way down to 40 watts as they grow. I am hording incandecent bulbs as the 100 watts are not being made and this year they stopped making the 75w..and so on until you can't get them unless hyou smuggle them in from some third world country. I haven't used a thermometer in the brooder for years. Just watch and listen to the babies.....they will tell you what they need. I have seen them lean on the bulb when they get cold....not sure why they don't singe themselves, but they don't. The wattage (heat) is dependent on the size of the brooder. These plastic storage boxes hold heat pretty well.

It is another crazy thing that somebody thought would be good for the world. Most of the alternatives that are being sold are very dangerous (filled with mercury) not to mention how expensive they are and IMO they don't work well unless you double or triple the lumens . If you want a 75w light you need to use 150 and wait for it to get to that brightness all the while remembering all the bad things it says on the box..... lots of warnings about mercury etc. If these things use mercury why are they such a good thing???????????

In the early 50's I remember my dad complaining about all the new "regulations"......hahahah.....little did he know!

Walt

Walt

I bought OUT the Dollar Store in my town of every 100W and 75W bulb they had (4 packs were $1)....I think I have a few yrs supply for brooding, BUT, I just ordered one of these

http://www.ebay.com/itm/250W-110V-C...EPTILE-PET-COOP-GROW-/160957476753#vi-content

I should arrive this week and I am going to try it with my next hatch of chicks....I got a 250W and a 100W. My brooders are outside under my screen porch and each are roughly 4ft x 4ft with a partition dividing in in half. Half is totally enclosed, the other half has wire top and one side so they can see out and for fresh air

I'll let y'all know how they work. I'm setting another hatch of Col Rocks and BLRWs this next Sunday

 

[MagicChicken]

Looking for advice on a long-term breeding plan. I have 22 black javas from Duane Urch that are now 12 weeks old - still way too young for culling but I'm thinking ahead. I want to maintain and improve this line without introducing other lines into the flock. Of the 22 birds only five are pullets and at least fifteen are cockerels.

With that many cockerels I may have to cull a bunch before they are a year old. There are a couple of cockerels with good size and decent body type. All five of the known pullets are very small. A couple of the pullets have good wide tails, relatively broad backs, and generally decent type. They're just small. With dainty shanks, so I'm not expecting a significant growth spurt later.

Question #1: How hard is it to improve size using small females and large males? Feedback on this issue would help me decide if I need to import some other Urch line pullets, since all of my pullets are on the small side. If I just use the birds I have, size is going to have to come from the males. Can this be done?

Plan is to build the barn and then paint it, so I want to focus on getting the size and body shape right first - BUT if I'm going to "paint" the barn later I've got to have some "paint" to do it with! Javas must have yellow soles on their feet. Lack of positive yellow is a disqualification. From what I understand, yellow soles is a recessive trait. I've only got two birds with positive yellow soles, and they are two of the smallest birds and not necessarily the best body type. Most of the rest have white soles. I have no idea how many of those white-soled birds may be hiding a yellow-soled gene.

Black Javas are supposed to have dark brown eyes. I've only got two birds with truly dark brown eyes. The rest have much lighter, muddy greenish-brown eyes. Those light eyes may darken a little over time, but I don't expect them to get truly dark brown.

The two best-shaped and largest cockerels have light eyes, pale grey shanks and feet with white soles. If I use those large, well-shaped but poorly-colored cockerels I am likely to lose the dark eye and yellow sole color genes from those family lines as I "build the barn." I don't want to cull out the two dark-eyed birds and the two yellow-soled birds, even if their body type is not the best, because those are the only birds that I know are carrying the necessary color genes I will need a few years down the road.

Question #2: Should I hatch out some chicks from the dark-eyed and yellow-soled birds anyway, just to keep those color genes available in the flock, while I work on improving the "barn" in a couple of specific family lines - knowing that the "barn" improvement will likely remove several of the critical color-related type features from those family lines?

Question #3: How persistent is crow-headedness? A few of the birds in this flock look a tad more crow-headed than I would like, including the two dark-eyed birds. Is crow-headedness something I can breed out fairly easily if I need to use a more crow-headed bird later to bring back the dark eye color? Or is crowheadedness something that takes over the flock if you're not careful?

Thanks for any insight you can give me. It will help me make some critical decisions over the next few months.

Sarah

(Edited to change "yellow-headed" to the intended "yellow-soled.")

 

[Yard full o' rocks]

Looking for advice on a long-term breeding plan. I have 22 black javas from Duane Urch that are now 12 weeks old - still way too young for culling but I'm thinking ahead. I want to maintain and improve this line without introducing other lines into the flock. Of the 22 birds only five are pullets and at least fifteen are cockerels.

With that many cockerels I may have to cull a bunch before they are a year old. There are a couple of cockerels with good size and decent body type. All five of the known pullets are very small. A couple of the pullets have good wide tails, relatively broad backs, and generally decent type. They're just small. With dainty shanks, so I'm not expecting a significant growth spurt later.

Question #1: How hard is it to improve size using small females and large males? Feedback on this issue would help me decide if I need to import some other Urch line pullets, since all of my pullets are on the small side. If I just use the birds I have, size is going to have to come from the males. Can this be done?



Sarah

Sarah

I can't specifically speak to Javas, BUT, I can say that in my Rocks, if I use an undersized female it hurts me tremendously. I kept 2 females from a line in Ohio when I got my original trio of Col Rocks. BOTH were small compared to standard, light by approx 2 lbs. I was able to get 2 decent males with better type (they were slightly smaller as well) from them but EVERY female was undersized that came from that line. Moving forward after that year I never kept another small female. I got rid of them both and kept the 2 males. Right now my females are running 6lbs 9oz to 8 lbs 2 oz (after 3 years)...much better. Seems to me that a small female can really hurt by diminishing your overall size rather than a large male bringing it up

Just my opinion from the experience I've had

 

[heritagehabitatfarms]

i only raised Java's for a short time so am no expert... but ill speak to what i know from chicken breeding in general... if there is 2 birds in there that have yellow showing they pro all carry it... it can be really hard to pull yellow legs out of white legged birds... in my white Emps last year the adult flock was 50% yellow and 50% white legged and i hatched 95% white legs so i decided to cull down to only the yellow legged birds... this year with a yellow legged male and 3 yellow legged hens i am still only getting 50% yellow legged offspring... so if you insist on keeping his line pure i would find a bird with yellow legs that is totally different (like a white leghorn) to use in test matings... only cull roosters that have a bad fault and keep say 10 to use... breed one at a time to some white leghorn hens and hatch say 15 chicks... u can normally tell white from yellow within a week or 2... if they all have white legs cull the male if there is some white and some yellow than he can be kept for use... only do single matings your 1st year and hatch about 20 chicks from each male over each hen... i would shoot for 1 keeper male for each female to give you the most diversity u can get... keep very good records of what chicks came from what parents and then evaluate them accordingly...

if you know that all your males and all your females are at least carrying yellow than u should be able to keep it going in the line while u build the barn...

on the smaller females i don't think u will see there full size potential until at least 9 months so i would not worry about it to much just yet...

Looking for advice on a long-term breeding plan. I have 22 black javas from Duane Urch that are now 12 weeks old - still way too young for culling but I'm thinking ahead. I want to maintain and improve this line without introducing other lines into the flock. Of the 22 birds only five are pullets and at least fifteen are cockerels.

With that many cockerels I may have to cull a bunch before they are a year old. There are a couple of cockerels with good size and decent body type. All five of the known pullets are very small. A couple of the pullets have good wide tails, relatively broad backs, and generally decent type. They're just small. With dainty shanks, so I'm not expecting a significant growth spurt later.

Question #1: How hard is it to improve size using small females and large males? Feedback on this issue would help me decide if I need to import some other Urch line pullets, since all of my pullets are on the small side. If I just use the birds I have, size is going to have to come from the males. Can this be done?

Plan is to build the barn and then paint it, so I want to focus on getting the size and body shape right first - BUT if I'm going to "paint" the barn later I've got to have some "paint" to do it with! Javas must have yellow soles on their feet. Lack of positive yellow is a disqualification. From what I understand, yellow soles is a recessive trait. I've only got two birds with positive yellow soles, and they are two of the smallest birds and not necessarily the best body type. Most of the rest have white soles. I have no idea how many of those white-soled birds may be hiding a yellow-soled gene.

Black Javas are supposed to have dark brown eyes. I've only got two birds with truly dark brown eyes. The rest have much lighter, muddy greenish-brown eyes. Those light eyes may darken a little over time, but I don't expect them to get truly dark brown.

The two best-shaped and largest cockerels have light eyes, pale grey shanks and feet with white soles. If I use those large, well-shaped but poorly-colored cockerels I am likely to lose the dark eye and yellow sole color genes from those family lines as I "build the barn." I don't want to cull out the two dark-eyed birds and the two yellow-soled birds, even if their body type is not the best, because those are the only birds that I know are carrying the necessary color genes I will need a few years down the road.

Question #2: Should I hatch out some chicks from the dark-eyed and yellow-headed birds anyway, just to keep those color genes available in the flock, while I work on improving the "barn" in a couple of specific family lines - knowing that the "barn" improvement will likely remove several of the critical color-related type features from those family lines?

Question #3: How persistent is crow-headedness? A few of the birds in this flock look a tad more crow-headed than I would like, including the two dark-eyed birds. Is crow-headedness something I can breed out fairly easily if I need to use a more crow-headed bird later to bring back the dark eye color? Or is crowheadedness something that takes over the flock if you're not careful?

Thanks for any insight you can give me. It will help me make some critical decisions over the next few months.

Sarah

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
Thanks. I was afraid of that. Now I have a dilemma. Either give up on keeping this line pure, or try to find a large Urch line female of good type. Unless it comes directly from Mr. Urch I won't really know if it's an Urch line bird. Will start looking around. In the meantime, maybe one of the two birds I'm not sure about will turn out to be a pullet. They're both larger than the known pullets. It will be interesting to see how small they really are once they grow out. Maybe they will surprise me.

They've got to get through the summer first. Vigor is top priority for this year's culling decisions. Several birds were panting the other day when temps hit the low 90's. That doesn't bode well for summer, when it's routinely up around 110 for weeks on end. So we'll see what's left of this flock when temps start cooling down again in the fall. By which time they'll be 9-10 months old and I'll have a better idea what they look like.

Sarah

 

[suncatcher]

Quote: Will be interested to know how this one works for you, I bought one, but it was not warm enough for Colorado in Feb/March.

I did have good luck with this one, and is low Watts,so it doesn;t run up your electric bill. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Critter-Culture-Night-Heat-Bulb-75-Watt-Pets/10323662 Is meant for reptiles, but works in my brooder, I turn the regular 75 watt during the day, and this one at night, but if it is very cold, then I leave them both on.