Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[cbnovick]

I have ten of Bob's mottled javas. Four ckl and six pullets. They are chicks from this year, only a few months old. I just finished a second pen. Later I will build two more for grow out of next year's "crop". At 63 this is my first time with any kind of chicken. I have lots of time and they take it all. I will only have McGraw's mottled javas and will keep the strain pure. That's all the challenge I need.

Better later than never with regards to undertaking the poultry fancy---welcome aboard!!

 

[Yellow House Farm]

I have ten of Bob's mottled javas. Four ckl and six pullets. They are chicks from this year, only a few months old. I just finished a second pen. Later I will build two more for grow out of next year's "crop". At 63 this is my first time with any kind of chicken. I have lots of time and they take it all. I will only have McGraw's mottled javas and will keep the strain pure. That's all the challenge I need.

That's great!!! We'll all be looking forward to updates.

 

[sgribble]

Bob, did you pick the Java back up again? I thought you had disbanded the flock.

I talked to Bob earlier and I think he is getting the breeder birds back.

 

[Laingcroft]

I've been lurking a little bit but not enough to recall who has what, how many or how long.

Call me a chicken enabler, but it is possible to have multiple breeds of chicken if you want em, even on small acreage. As long as there is enough room for all to be comfortable and happy.

If you really like several different breeds (and are just starting out) purchase one or two pullets of each to see how they do in your environment. Some may thrive, others may crash and burn -- it's better to find out with one or two over a substantial investment in many. Then you can settle on the best breed for your environment to WORK with and keep the 'guilty pleasure' chickens in a layer flock. After all, you're not going to be eating the eggs you're planning to hatch!

For example, I love the top hat (crested) breeds but with two exceptions thus far, they just don't do well for me. When the breeders aren't set up in pens, I free range ALL of my chickens on 10+ acres of woodland and pasture. We have LGD and perimeter fencing, but we still occasionally lose one or two to predators -- and it's always the cresties. I could keep them penned 24/7 but that's not how I want to raise my chickens.

 

[catdaddyfro]

Liking the avvy Laingcroft

That there is picture of heritage awesomeness,LOL I'm particularly partial to those "orange" chickens.

LOL I had another post here all typed out and it all blew to oblivion on this contraption and I'm too tired to redo it now maybe tomorrow.

Jeff

 

[cbnovick]

Liking the avvy Laingcroft

That there is picture of heritage awesomeness,LOL I'm particularly partial to those "orange" chickens.

LOL I had another post here all typed out and it all blew to oblivion on this contraption and I'm too tired to redo it now maybe tomorrow.

Jeff

Oh, I'm liking that avatar too, Laingcroft...those up and coming NH's are such excellent birds...vigor, vigor, and more vigor.

Jeff, I hope you do consider retyping your lost post...still waiting on some pics of your birds...any of them...NH's, WR's etc etc..

 

[gjensen]

I've been lurking a little bit but not enough to recall who has what, how many or how long.

Call me a chicken enabler, but it is possible to have multiple breeds of chicken if you want em, even on small acreage. As long as there is enough room for all to be comfortable and happy.

If you really like several different breeds (and are just starting out) purchase one or two pullets of each to see how they do in your environment. Some may thrive, others may crash and burn -- it's better to find out with one or two over a substantial investment in many. Then you can settle on the best breed for your environment to WORK with and keep the 'guilty pleasure' chickens in a layer flock. After all, you're not going to be eating the eggs you're planning to hatch!

For example, I love the top hat (crested) breeds but with two exceptions thus far, they just don't do well for me. When the breeders aren't set up in pens, I free range ALL of my chickens on 10+ acres of woodland and pasture. We have LGD and perimeter fencing, but we still occasionally lose one or two to predators -- and it's always the cresties. I could keep them penned 24/7 but that's not how I want to raise my chickens.

Some people can do quite well with a number of breeds. I am not one of them. I am pushing it with two, and would do better with one. I told everyone that I was going back to one breed, and then picked up a project breed that is going to take a lot of effort, time, and money. Silly me.

I know one person that has 6 breeds and a few projects and she does real well. She is making progress, has her head into all of the particulars, is organized, and enjoying all of them. I am impressed with what this person is doing. She quietly goes about her work.

When and if my circumstances change, I would like to try out some new things. There are a lot of breeds and varieties that appeal to me. I have played around with a few breeds, and have learned from each of them. I enjoyed each of them. It is fun trying something new.
I like the variety of poultry breeds, and the variety of people that they appeal to.

But . . . . right now, at this point in my life . . . I need to temper my enthusiasm. Boys to finish raising, a demanding job, a wife, my gardens etc. I better stick with what I already have.

I like this hobby. I have enjoyed this a lot, and that is all I want to do. Enjoy the birds. I will let someone else save the world. It is all I can do to get my birds just a little better than they were last year and learn a little along the way.

 

[Fred's Hens]

We only do two, but with two strains in each breed? Well, that's actually four, I suppose. Yup, I agree that it pushes the limits. We've 6 acres, but the whole thing cannot be chickens, if you know what I mean. There's fruit trees and especially gardens, huge gardens that make up the major land commitments on a homestead.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

I've been lurking a little bit but not enough to recall who has what, how many or how long.

Call me a chicken enabler, but it is possible to have multiple breeds of chicken if you want em, even on small acreage. As long as there is enough room for all to be comfortable and happy.

If you really like several different breeds (and are just starting out) purchase one or two pullets of each to see how they do in your environment. Some may thrive, others may crash and burn -- it's better to find out with one or two over a substantial investment in many. Then you can settle on the best breed for your environment to WORK with and keep the 'guilty pleasure' chickens in a layer flock. After all, you're not going to be eating the eggs you're planning to hatch!

For example, I love the top hat (crested) breeds but with two exceptions thus far, they just don't do well for me. When the breeders aren't set up in pens, I free range ALL of my chickens on 10+ acres of woodland and pasture. We have LGD and perimeter fencing, but we still occasionally lose one or two to predators -- and it's always the cresties. I could keep them penned 24/7 but that's not how I want to raise my chickens.

Laingcroft, one certainly can. One can, indeed, do many things, but paths end in destinations. There is an infrastructural recipe that leads to powerful success when one's intention is to breed (not simply reproduce) but breed, seeing definite yearly improvement in specific areas. Certainly, as long as it does not detract from the truth of your infrastructural needs, having a grab bag laying flock "just for pretty" won't overly interfere with breeding goals, although it does add to expense and work load. I know one excellent breeder that does, indeed, keep a flock of pretty whatevers just to see on occasion.

However, it also depends on the goals. Bob refers to chicken collectors. The work of chicken collecting is of very little consequence for the good of the fowl collected. It is a dead end. In his work "Creative Poultry Breeding", Dr. Carefoot rights, " The future of quality stock is to breed aggressively with the intention of improvement. If every breed has but a handful of breeders competing fiercely, quality would most certainly improve dramatically. Consequently the urge to collect breeds of poultry, as some collect postage stamps, does little to improve the breeds kept. In the opinion of the author the fancier wishing to keep rare breeds alive would be more effective if he concentrated mainly on one or two breeds, hatched and reared plenty..." (190). No one is arguing that one can't keep a trio of 8 different breeds, but it will lead to very little. It will advance not the birds nor the keeper. Years later one will generally know what one knew at the beginning. One might be better skilled at dealing with mites and lice and other environmental hazards that will visit a yard regardless of the number of breeds kept, but one will have little to no extensive experiential knowledge of breeding for meat or for eggs, for form or for color. One will know nothing of all of the variables that go into breeding and know even less about the variables that come out of breeding. One will have practically zero idea of what is possible with concentration and steadfast discipline.

One learns to understand other poultry by understanding one's own. The knowledge of one or two breeds, ever deepening through unwavering commitment, will give you the skill set needed to understand the other breeds you see at the show. The actual hands-on knowledge of breeding for productivity will lead you to see the structural strengths and faults of every breed you encounter. The studying of specific standards and the long-term application of those standards in a permanent breeding program will guide you in grasping the effects of other standards on their respective breeds.

On can keep a few of this and a few of that, but one will move in a circle like the dog chasing the tail. After a long walk one will arrive back at the beginning. Then one will be frustrated or bored and move on to something new. This is a scenario some on here have seen time and again. Every year I meet people who are going to change the chicken world. They tell me what they're going to do. They're all excited. They're clueless. I try to gently suggest this or that, but "oh, no" they have it all figured out, and I never see them again. On the other hand, if one begins with the proper gear and provisions, if one follows the map and does not deviate from the course, if one does not continue to change path every so often because on an underdeveloped ability to control attention span, if one isn't tempted left and right by the next new thing that sparkles, if one submits to the authority of a mentor, if one associates with like minded peers, if one accepts the difficult with the leisurely, one can arrive at a great vantage point and appreciate the wealth of knowledge and experience that comes with that. This experience is in many ways what the "Heritage Poultry" thread, and the "Old and Rare" thread, and the "Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry" thread is about. One does not restore and advance the science and art of heritage poultry by collecting chickens; rather, the transformation is first in the keeper who, by conforming to the way of the masters who have gone before and by becoming a true breeder of standard-bred poultry, brings breeds toward perfection one or two at a time, renewing the art for a new generation.

 

[catdaddyfro]

Oh, I'm liking that avatar too, Laingcroft...those up and coming NH's are such excellent birds...vigor, vigor, and more vigor.

Jeff, I hope you do consider retyping your lost post...still waiting on some pics of your birds...any of them...NH's, WR's etc etc..

LOL Ok maybe today I can get me a photo studio setup (a make shift pen) for a photo session now that it has cooled down to a arid 90 degrees and only 50% RH here. I will make an effort at it for sure Cindy. Most of the older stock is in molt (actually the first time I've seen any of my stuff actually go through molt at a descent enough time of the year) they usually wait till the dead of winter here, but hey whatever huh? Hey maybe they'll lay a little this late year and I can hatch EARLY like Dec and Jan and raise me up some stock before the ever scorching days of summer hit around springtime here LOL

'bout forgot what I had intended posting last evening as I have slept since then (I wake up in a new world regularly) LOL not good, mostly, if you know what I mean. I have to leave little reminders very often on what I'm supposed to do next. I have the AADD(really its just called forgetting what your supposed to be doing/oldtimers)

Jeff