Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[CluckyCharms]

The spangled aseels I looked at in google are indeed very similar to the one I saw, just not all that red in the face (but I saw it for 10 seconds so perhaps I was so enamored with the body markings that I didn't pay that much attention to the face) but the predatory look is similar. But...Aseels don't have a funky weird name either. Perhaps it was an aseel and the caption was only the owner's name. =/

Thanks to both of you for helping me with this!! For now I'm going to say it was probably an Aseel or a mix of an Aseel and something else.

Edit = opened my SOP and found out they're not heritage (forgot I had it) lol

 

[TomNY]

 

[FeyRaine]

@ 3riverschick / Karen

Thankyou for the link, will make great winter weather reading !

FeyRaine

 

[Pozees]

This thread goes fast. Don't pay attention a couple of days and there pages and pages. I didn't see where anyone had answered Pozees question.


Spiral Breeding:

Maintain three lines (or you could even have 5 lines) - A, B, C - for season one mate them to females of their own line. Daughters of season one are added as breeders to the line that produced them (they stay with their mothers). Sons are compared to their fathers for quality. In season 2 mate the C line male to the B line females, mate the B line male to the A line females, mate the A line male to the C line females - rotating them. Females from season 2 are added to the line that produced them along side their mothers. The best son of the C line male mated to the B line females is kept and mated to the B line females; same for the other matings; the old cocks are retired.

Once the system is up and running, males are used twice, then retired in preference to a son. Males rotate one line over every other year. This gives you a year of outcross and a year of line breeding. The simple name for this system is "Spiral Breeding". Well known the world over, very old system.


Rolling Matings (from BYP magazine):

Rolling matings require at least two pens for each breed or variety but a minimum of record keeping.

Rolling matings select the best cockerels and pullets from each season and breed them back to the best breeders of the previous season. Cockerels are bred to hens, cocks are bred to pullets.

Rolling matings can improve the stock and maintain genetic diversity with a small flock, but larger flocks provide more opportunities to select the desired characteristics.

http://www.backyardpoultrymag.com/issues/1/1-2/Craig_Russell.html


In regard to strains and lines, I like how Don Schrider put it when explaining it to the Buckeye club (ABPC):




IMHO, it is important to know the origin of your birds as much as possible (for reasons of crossing, etc.). Also, I am always in favor of knowing more, having more knowledge, etc (why not?). I disagree that it is all simply about making a buck. I know I don't make any money but spend enough each month for a mortgage payment. I also know that is not always possible to get the information about the origin of your birds, but even if the birds are not up to SOP, knowing their origins, you might can know the genetics can still be there.

For instance, I say that I have the McCary Line of Urch Strain Buckeyes X ALBC Strain. I happen to know what lines and strains went into the creation of the ALBC Strain. I also know that Urch has had his Buckeyes since about 1958 which he acquired at that time from Howard Tallman in Florida. I am told the Urch strain can be traced back to the creator of the breed. Some hatcheries have never divulged the origin of their Buckeyes so that knowledge is lost.

Thank you!

 

[3riverschick]

@ 3riverschick / Karen

Thankyou for the link, will make great winter weather reading !

FeyRaine

More than welcome, FeyRaine.
Karen

 

[3riverschick]

Talked to the breeder tonight. My birds ship out tomorrow and will be here Thursday or Friday. Can't wait to share pics with ya'll!

Best,
Karen

 

[Lacy Blues]

I'm hoping somebody here can help me (I think you probably can, you folks seem to have answers to everything I've asked thus far). =)


A few weeks ago, I ran across a crazy-gorgeous breed of chicken (online).  Unfortunately, our ISP was having "cable constipation" or something, and we lost internet...as I came across this bird.  Needless to say I was frustrated...but I figured I'd get over it and find something else I liked.  Well I can't get that blasted bird out of my head and I have very little information about it....ONLY info that comes from the 1 (and only one) picture I saw.....so I can't even tell you if the bird I saw was an accurate representation of the breed as a whole.

Clues:

It had a very similar coloring to the spangled russian orloff in regard to the rich mahogany with splashes of white and darker colors.
It had a very similar stature as the Russian roosters we see today from other countries (not the ones here) - very vertical, regal, massive looking chicken
It looked larger than your average large fowl chicken in the picture (but I can't say for sure if it is or not)
It had some sort of name that one would usually relate to a human being.  Like...  Thomas so-and-so or maybe Mr. so-and-so (for some reason Mister sticks in my mind but when I google Mr. Chicken and Mister Chicken nothing comes up remotely related to chicken breeds (which I figured would happen) but I know the name of the bird was some sort of *person's* name which is weird.

The name might have been the name of the person who owned the chicken and not the chicken breed, but I don't think so...it was captioned like "such-and-such chicken"

Thank you in advance for any guessers willing to help me.


And YES I think this would qualify as a heritage breed if it's really a breed according to the APA because the picture itself looked pretty old (depending on whether or not the picture was actually taken in the US and I don't know that either)

Also - it was *not* the speckled sussex or the jubilee orpington or anything else that is a "common to everyone" breed....it had a really weird name for a chicken all things considered.  Albert something? Robert something? GAH I don't remember.

I even tried googling "chicken breeds with people names" and that didn't amount to anything. lol!

[Edited to add]  I suppose it's possible this bird isn't even a chicken, but it definitely looked like a chicken, just taller and bigger.

If you know what day this happened, or what month...

Up at the top of your internet window, you have labels like "File, Edit, View, History..." click on history. It will ask how far back you want to look. You can peruse the links that come up and MAYBE you can find it again.

 

[Robert Blosl]

The first chart I think is a Roller type method.

I had a fellow from Canada ask me about this method and it is simply mating the daughters back to the sire for like three to four years or matting the son back to his mother or maybe even better his aunt for three or four years.

The other methods are line breeding methods that I K Feltch wrote about 100 years ago. It has taken me 30 years to figure out what he was trying to get across. The bottom method is one I put together and used called Rotational Line Breeding and that is simply taking the top male from pen one and put his in the pen two pen, then the top two male to pen three the top pen three male to pen four and the top male from pen four to pen one. The top pullets always going back into the pen their eggs came out of.

Dont go nuts over these charts they are only a guide. I dont know of any master breeder that goes crazy over charts but you need to think about some method in the near future. Hope this helps you on the question. Very heavy stuff that can screw up a beginners mind and cause bad results. Becare full it is almost like VOO DOO .

Bob

 

[FeyRaine]

In getting caught up on 3 days of posts I saw the info. about 170 some of these breeds being in dire situations re: poss. complete loss.

I knew it was that bad a decade or so ago, but I was (mistakenly) under the impression that since keeping chickens has come back into popularity,
and so many mag. articles etc. have promoted the rare breeds that things had improved. It feels like a gut punch to learn that *so many* are still
right there on the brink of total loss.

In light of how dire the situation is, could some of the more knowledgeable folks on this thread give some sort of "Do No Harm, & yet help keep something from total loss guidlines".
I mean specifically, if one of us newbie types found stock worth keeping and just wanted to help by keeping that stock alive for a few more years what would the best course of action be?

I saw the advice for novices to stick to solid color birds to learn type first, so that is a specific pointer on how to help w/ less chance of messing up.

But what else is would be the best course of action for those w/ the desire to help, limited resources in terms of # of birds to keep, & not (yet) a real breeders knowhow on breeding.

?1.)ex: Would 1 breeding pair or trio actually make any difference?
or another way to put the question -- what is the SMALLEST # of birds (or Cocks & Hens) of a breed that one could maintain in order to be making a contribution to _maintaining_ (not nec. improving, just preserve what is) the breed as is right now (ie to keep things from getting worse, prevent total loss).

?2.)If one were to try to at least keep what is (maintain/preserve) w/ a hope at improvement toward SOP which style of breeding (Spiral, Rolling, other?) would allow the fewest number of birds in order to be helpful in keeping that breed from vanishing.

?3.)If the goal is to maintain some birds from a breed on the brink of total loss, is there anything pro/con of sourcing initial stock from more than one source if possible?

I'm hearing that people w/o a clue on how to breed are likely to do more harm that good in trying to maintain these breeds & I'm trying to figure out how to get around that in some way favorable to the survival of the max. # of breeds. B/C from the sound of it these breeds can't really wait for all of us newbies to get 20 yrs breeding practice, they will mostly be gone by then

That & I'm now feeling rather remiss that I didn't go ahead and get started 10-15 yrs ago when I first became aware of the overall loss of heritage breeds.
(hoping better late than never is not, in fact, too late)
FeyRaine

 

[3riverschick]

The other methods are line breeding methods that I K Feltch wrote about 100 years ago. It has taken me 30 years to figure out what he was trying to get across.
Bob
======================
Care to share, Bob? I have been looking at that chart for years and still don't understand it!

All the analyzes of it I have read as just as confusing as the chart.

Best,
Karen
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