Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[HallFamilyFarm]

I would never use any bantam blood to "improve" a large fowl.

Last year Dan Honour wrote about the possiblity of acquireing 100 Buff Leghorn LF pullets from Ideal Poultry Farms and culling to about the 10 best pullets. Mate them to his best male. hatch another hundred and cuill to the best 10 pullets. Mate them to their sire. Continue this for several generations until the offspring meet the Standard. The thought is to improve production.

I believe this would work with some breeds. However, some hatcheries have went so far from the Standard that it would take 10+ generations to get them back. I would never try it with the Buff Orpingtons from any hatchery. None I have seen are close enough to type.

 

[NYREDS]

I shrunk down large fowl to bantams but I never tried to breed them up. If the strain has bantam blood in them its so much harder. What I always tried to do is hatch early like Dec or Jan as they will be bigger than march or April. In bantams I hatch from March fist to April 15 to keep the bantams small. The latter you hatch large fowl at least in my climate the smaller the adult birds.

I also try to select larger eggs instead of smaller ones. Its a long term deal so dont expect fast results.

I have a Friend who has some New Ham shires and they are smaller than the German line and we think the breeder crossed New Ham shire bantam blood in them to improve color.

Once bantam blood is introduced its very hard to get them back to large fowl. So many of our breeds have been crossed with other breeds in large fowl as well as bantams. Why people do this I dont know.

I know someone who does this kind of thing regularly but he's someone who is very knowledgeable about breed origins. All of ou known breeds are the product of a combination of other, older breeds/strains. The person I'm referring to is working to recreate or strengthen rare breeds by recreating their history. Not my cup of tea-I don't have the patience.
I met a man at a show a few years ago that was using Bantam Red Pyle Modern Games to improve the top colour of some large fowl. Most of the large fowl strains are much too light. He was a couple years into the process & the birds were about half way between bantam & large fowl in size & had good colour. Haven't seen him again so I'm not sure how it worked out.
Any attempt to increase size is a long term project no matter what route. Bob, you know how long it took to breed down the Bantam Reds. Breeding up would be at least as long if not longer.

 

[fowlman01]

Probably from John Hayes. He's bred them for over 50 years & most every flock in the country traces back, at least in part, to his birds. John's in his 80s now & still hatches a few Andalusians. However, his health isn't too good & he's talking about getting rid of the last of them.

I recognize the name....that is him. He had great birds.

Walt

 

[fowlman01]

I know someone who does this kind of thing regularly but he's someone who is very knowledgeable about breed origins. All of ou known breeds are the product of a combination of other, older breeds/strains. The person I'm referring to is working to recreate or strengthen rare breeds by recreating their history. Not my cup of tea-I don't have the patience.
I met a man at a show a few years ago that was using Bantam Red Pyle Modern Games to improve the top colour of some large fowl. Most of the large fowl strains are much too light. He was a couple years into the process & the birds were about half way between bantam & large fowl in size & had good colour. Haven't seen him again so I'm not sure how it worked out.
Any attempt to increase size is a long term project no matter what route. Bob, you know how long it took to breed down the Bantam Reds. Breeding up would be at least as long if not longer.

Bantam Moderns are small birds , but the red pyle color seems to be pretty strong....kinda like barring. anything you put it on it shows right away. For some reason they don't have any trouble breeding a large bird.....as I found by accident several years ago. Breeding birds up is just a long term thing unless you get lucky.

Walt

 

[3riverschick]

Hi,
Just a quick question. When mixing poultry colors within a breed... Does it make things more complicated if one is also crossing alleles to accomplish it?
For instance we see folk crossing Light Sussex (eWh) with Silver Sussex(ER) to "bring in more genetic diversity to the Silvers". Crossing 2 black and white
birds seems simple at first. But there is black, white, and silver involved. Does crossing the alleles also make this more difficult to sort out genetically?
Or, at its core, is this still just a simple color breeding?
IMWTK (Inquiring minds want to know.)
Karen
( I don't understand why they don't just cross Silver and Black Sussex? Least they would be staying in the capital "E" alleles.)

 

[fowlman01]

Hi,
Just a quick question. When mixing poultry colors within a breed... Does it make things more complicated if one is also crossing alleles to accomplish it?
For instance we see folk crossing Light Sussex (eWh) with Silver Sussex(ER) to "bring in more genetic diversity to the Silvers". Crossing 2 black and white
birds seems simple at first. But there is black, white, and silver involved. Does crossing the alleles also make this more difficult to sort out genetically?
Or, at its core, is this still just a simple color breeding?
IMWTK (Inquiring minds want to know.)
Karen
( I don't understand why they don't just cross Silver and Black Sussex? Least they would be staying in the capital "E" alleles.)

You know better than I, but I am always suspicious when I read "bring in more genetic diversity".

Walt

 

[3riverschick]

You know better than I, but I am always suspicious when I read "bring in more genetic diversity".

Walt

I can't find an answer anywhere. About "diversity"? Oh man that has caused more grief, misinformation and downright waste than any other genetic "thang" I can think of.
the problem, it seems to me is that few stop to consider what diversity is and how important it is that it be properly applied in order to advance excellence.
As you know, it's way more than just unrelated birds. I mean if one has been in-breeding and then line-breeds, one is adding diversity.
Best,
karen

 

[cgmccary]

Quote: When I mention "genetic diversity," I am talking about maintaining it within your flock; I am not advocating or promoting bringing in some other breed or crossing a whole new strain (and I think it can be confusing to some). No misinformation, just you are referring to something different than what I am when I mention the same.

For the vast majority who really never intend to stick with a breed or seriously conserve a breed, this will mean absolutely nothing (and will go right over their heads). . . but for those few who are here for the long haul: Don Schrider writes,

Quote:
a very small excerpt contributed by Schrider on "Mating Systems," in the book, The Small-Scale Poultry Flock, An all natural approach to raising chickens and other fowl for home and market growers, (2011) by Harvey Ussery (Chelsea Green Publishing, ISBN 9781603582902). I highly recommend the book to anyone seriously breeding poultry on the small scale and wanting to contribute to your breed. Ussery covers a wide range of topics in some detail.

This is what I am referring to when I mention genetic diversity. I believe a lot of what has happened is breeders focus on good improvement breeding to improve a particular trait or traits (for short term gain, it works) and they ignore the role of conservation breeding & thus, they end up losing in the long run. With my Buckeyes, I see that many want to focus on the easy things that any beginner can see, say, solely on color, all the while ignoring that their birds are looking smaller, more scrawny. They ignore type for color.

On the question of increasing the size of your birds (for Large Fowl), on improvement breeding, select and breed your birds with the thickest skulls (that brain needs to be able to operate that bigger body), thickest heart girth & thick shanks & and by all means, WEIGH & HANDLE them ALL at the same age so you can know how much they weigh (this will usually be one bird that weighs the most, has the best heart girth, has the thickest skull & shanks) - if you cannot discern these traits, then just keep the heaviest. I am always shocked that folks do not know how much their large fowl weigh at different ages. The Buckeye, overall, as breed, gained more than a pound with this sort of hands-on breeding (ALBC has excellent hand-outs in pdf form on their website for free that tells you how to select on these traits). One other tip: handle the pullets first day & do cockerels the next day or otherwise, the pullets will all seem too small after you have handled the cockerels.

 

[HallFamilyFarm]

The ALBC handouts are located at http://albc-usa.org/EducationalResources/downloads.html



Quote:

 

[Lacy Blues]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

As of today, I don't have a scale for weighing my birds but I do intend to get one. I was looking online for one this afternoon.

I do have one male from my original Sandhill line who is quite large. He's almost as big as the male I got from Stockton who looks to have Minorca in him. I also have one really big hen. They both have nice wide and deep heads. Once I have a scale I will weigh them, and I will start weighing my birds at specific ages so I have an idea as to how they will progress.

Thanks for the link from ALBC. I will be going there right now to find what I'm looking for.