Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[BarnGoddess01]

Quote:

I'm betting if you offered Bob OR Walt 25k, you'd be in the quality chicken game too!!!

 

[PA Farmer24]

That is up to him, but that does not say that all breeders would do that. Again.....BYC is not the pulse of the show poultry world. So far I have only seen one post where a person actually tried to buy birds and was not able to buy any. Most of the posts seem to indicate that breeders are helpful. At the end of January 100's of quality birds will be sold by breeders at the PPBA show in Stockton. Thousands of birds are sold at the Columbus show.

I don't think the average poster here has any experience actually talking to a real breeder.

Walt

I am new to chickens and I am taking my time on doing research on what breeds I want to raise. I am below average poster and I know how and what to do on looking up a breeder and asking the questions that need to be asked for first timer. And if I make a mistake in asking a questions the breeders that I am speaking too are helpful enough to correct me and give me the info that I am in need of. So far I only found one breed of chicken that I would consider buying from a breeder for the purpose of what i am looking for. But with that if I'm just looking for plain old meat birds then the hatcheries are the way to go for some and maybe for me. I am looking for a dual purpose birds with good or better than normal egg laying and who also has good meat qualities. So far I found one like I said. Again I am doing my research and whating to get my items together prior to jumping in and buying my new chickens.

Dave T Jr.

 

[Texasmja]

I'm betting if you offered Bob OR Walt 25k, you'd be in the quality chicken game too!!!

That would only work if the offspring would earn me back 5 fold.

 

[Marengoite]

My wife said this mourning it seems that most of the breeds that people want you to look for are meat breeds or dual purpose breeds. Not many want Leghorns, Miniorcas, Silver Spangled Hamburgs ect. Not many want Brahma or Wyandotte large fowl why would this be?

Many of the new converts coming over from the hatchery side of the table are wanting breeds that are flamboyant in color and then when they pick a breed for me to locate for them I have never heard of them or not many have them anymore or they are more of a two out of a scale of four on a rating list.

That is exactly how we got into Hamburgs, Bob. My son liked their flashy looks. So we bought some hatchery birds from Meyer and I came to like the little scamps. Want to get rid of the bantam size fowl we have and get LF Hamburgs.

But I can tell you exactly why they aren't popular - they're crazy as junebugs. Keeping them side-by-side with Buckeyes and they refuse to integrate into the flock. They are flighty, or skittish compared to my Buckeyes and hatchery Barred rocks. And what is the payoff for these skittish chickens? Small white eggs. Not a very popular size or color in the "farm fresh egg" market. Seems like anyone raising a white egg layer isn't going to do well selling their wares at the roadside stand. So that's two strikes against them. And finally, they don't make very good "pets" compared to snuggle chickens like Orps and your favorites - the seromas and silkies.

But since I'm a stubborn, go-against-the-grain type, I want to switch out the hatchery birds, get some quality fowl, and start keeping good Hamburgs. I want to see if the "Dutch Everyday Layer" lives up to the hype in the "heritage" press.

rick

 

[vebyrd36]

I talked to every breeder I could find that has show quality birds.  One tried to sell me a trio that looked no where near the SOP, I guess being new to a breed meant I was ignorant to what a quality bird looked like.  I gracefully declined and said it wasn't what I was looking for.  Another told me to contact her in a month, which I did, told me to contact her in the fall, which I did, then decided that she would only sell to people she knows.  Another breeder, has decided to not breed anymore.  Two other breeders are APA, ABA judges were wonderful to talk to, answered questions, offered advice, and yes they both are shipping me chicks in 2013.  I am grateful that these two longtime breeders are willing to send me quality birds.  

Im glad ur gonna get some babies. I have been speaking with Kathy Gleason here in Texas. She is great and very helpful. Gonna get eggs and or chicks from her. Bob has also added me to the growing waiting list as well. I have a friend gonna contact Mr. Flanagan to hopefully get a rooster from him.

 

[mschlumb]

That is exactly how we got into Hamburgs, Bob. My son liked their flashy looks. So we bought some hatchery birds from Meyer and I came to like the little scamps. Want to get rid of the bantam size fowl we have and get LF Hamburgs. 

But I can tell you exactly why they aren't popular - they're crazy as junebugs. Keeping them side-by-side with Buckeyes and they refuse to integrate into the flock. They are flighty, or skittish compared to my Buckeyes and hatchery Barred rocks. And what is the payoff for these skittish chickens? Small white eggs. Not a very popular size or color in the "farm fresh egg" market. Seems like anyone raising a white egg layer isn't going to do well selling their wares at the roadside stand. So that's two strikes against them. And finally, they don't make very good "pets" compared to snuggle chickens like Orps and your favorites - the seromas and silkies. 

But since I'm a stubborn, go-against-the-grain type, I want to switch out the hatchery birds, get some quality fowl, and start keeping good Hamburgs. I want to see if the "Dutch Everyday Layer" lives up to the hype in the "heritage" press.

rick

I don't mean to start an argument but how much money is made from selling eggs at the roadside stand? Is it enough to completely pay the feed bill and earn actual profit?

I guess my point is who cares if white eggs bring a little less a dozen than brown. Odds are you're not making a profit on brown eggs anyway. The best it can do is pay off some of the feed bill. And most white eggs birds tend to be smaller and eat less.

This applies to the more serious breeders who do not make the sale of eggs there number one concern but rather are more concerned with producing excellent purebred stock. which I think most people on this thread are breeders or are trying to become breeders.

Like I said I'm not trying to argue or knock anyone who does sell eggs to make a little extra cash. I just don't think it's wise to choose a breed based on how well their eggs sell at the local farmer's market if your goal is to preserve old breeds and become a "breeder".

 

[3riverschick]

Quote:

Can't sell eating eggs here in PA without a license. Can give them away.

 

[vebyrd36]

Raising chickens for profit is a hard press win, but it can be done. For the most part a person will be upside down until they have a firm footing in their stock. As to selling eggs depends on what you are using for layers. I use golden sex link that I get from a local breeder out of San Antonio. I sell about 40 dozen a week at 3 a dozen. My chicks sell from 4 to 12 dollars.

Now I do have chicken that are my Heritage birds that are not for bring money they are for my enjoyment.

 

[Lacy Blues]

That is exactly how we got into Hamburgs, Bob. My son liked their flashy looks. So we bought some hatchery birds from Meyer and I came to like the little scamps. Want to get rid of the bantam size fowl we have and get LF Hamburgs.

But I can tell you exactly why they aren't popular - they're crazy as junebugs. Keeping them side-by-side with Buckeyes and they refuse to integrate into the flock. They are flighty, or skittish compared to my Buckeyes and hatchery Barred rocks. And what is the payoff for these skittish chickens? Small white eggs. Not a very popular size or color in the "farm fresh egg" market. Seems like anyone raising a white egg layer isn't going to do well selling their wares at the roadside stand. So that's two strikes against them. And finally, they don't make very good "pets" compared to snuggle chickens like Orps and your favorites - the seromas and silkies.

But since I'm a stubborn, go-against-the-grain type, I want to switch out the hatchery birds, get some quality fowl, and start keeping good Hamburgs. I want to see if the "Dutch Everyday Layer" lives up to the hype in the "heritage" press.

rick

What I do with my over abundance of white eggs is mix them with the other colors we get around here. We have varying degrees of brown eggs, got some Ameracauna mutts this past year for blue eggs, some of my brown eggs lean toward pink, I have a couple marans so have some really dark eggs and then I have all these white eggs. I don't think there is anything prettier than to open an egg carton and see all this different colors all mixed up together. A carton full of white eggs is somewhat boring to look at but when you only have 3 or 4 among all these other colors, they look really nice and crispy white. A very nice blend!

 

[Matt1616]

I have been trying to keep up with this thread for the last couple of weeks. It seems to have kicked into overdrive. I don't post a lot but I want to kick my to cents in. I don't know if it will help anyone understand any of this any better but here goes.
As far as the term "Heritage" goes...it means many different things to different people. To some it means Non Hatchery pure bred birds as they were intended to be by the originators of each breed. There is no disputing that what the hatcheries sell are poor representations of what these breeds were originally meant to look like. To others the term "Heritage" means they can get $10.00 a chick for their birds instead of $2.00 a chick. And there are yet others that it means various others things between the 2 things that I have mentioned. Now, knowing Bob like I do I think when he started this thread he was meaning "Non Hatchery" or "Pure Bred"....nothing more and nothing less. I think some of you are trying to make it more complicated than it really is.
As far as breeders being hard to get stock from....I am a breeder and I can speak for myself when I say that some of you guys make it sound so easy to just pump out thousands of chicks each year so that everyone that wants some can get them. Well, it is not that easy. I have many orders for several different breeds that I raise and show each year and as hard I try I never fill them all. For example this past year I had about 25 orders for RIR chicks. I managed to fill about half of them. As a show person my first objective is to hatch for myself. I will always hatch for myself first because if something were to happen like predator attack or bad weather or disease, I have to make sure that I get what I need to carry on. After I hatched for myself I started hatching for orders. First problem I had was a light malfunction where my light timer wasn't working for about a week before I realized it. It took me a week or so to get them back to laying right again so I could continue setting eggs. About the time I got going good again I had a hen go broody and that messed the other hens up because they all want to lay in the same nest so it took me about a week to get that straightened out and I was back in business again. Well, about 3 weeks and I had another hen go broody so that set me back another week. I'm telling you all this because it is not as easy as it may seem. I guess the other thing that will make all this make sense is that most breeders that I know as well as myself don't breed from 20-30 hens. I breed from one or two Trios and that is it. I don't flock mate, I only breed my best birds. I don't know any serious show breeders that have 20 or even 10 hens that they would consider good enough to breed from to produce possible winners. What that means is you can only hatch a certain amount of chicks out of a limited amount of hens each year. Getting back to my story, after about 4-5 months of hatching chicks and many days that i had to take off work to make trips to the post office to ship chicks I got my fill and shut the incubators down so could give the hens and myself a rest. Now most of the people that I didn't fill the orders for were understanding but a few were pretty ugly about it. There is one more thing that I and many breeders have learned....that is that alot of beginners think that they can get chicks from you after they saw a picture of a bird that you won with in Poultry Press and that every chick that they get is going to grow up and look just like that and when they don't they call raising sand about how their birds don't look like that bird that they seen at the show. Well, there are alot of factors that go into that bird that they seen in the Poultry Press or at the show. The living conditions, quality of feed, and conditioning. Anyway, these are just a few examples of why it is not as easy as it may seem to get everyone the birds that they desire.

Matt