Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[Wynette]

This is so funny to me!

You do not have to sell your house and move to the country to help preserve Heritage Breeds.

As an example, I live in the city and am only supposed to have 6 hens. I have already hatched SG Dorkings for a local breeder. Next Year, I will be partnering with the Breeder to hatch a lot of chicks for her. I will also be keeping Roosters at her place in the Country to breed with my own projects. I am working on Penedesencas and EO Basque. I may work with Heritage RIRs too. I will at least hatch a couple of dozen Heritage SC RIRs to share with local breeders in my area.

Keep on learning and encouraging!

Here's the thing: folks who are serious about preserving these breeds typically keep about 10% of what they hatch. You need to hatch hundreds in order to move your flock forward. To be in a situation to be able to do so requires more space than areas where you can only have a handful of birds. Helping others by hatching for them - that's fantastic, and I'm sure you've done and will continue to do a ton of learning in the process. So - do what you can!

 

[Fred's Hens]

Is that a homemade feeder box I see attached to the frame in the last photo? What are the dimensions? I'm looking for ideas on easy homemade feeders that the males with huge combs can get their heads into that the birds also cannot beak out the food easily. Thanks.

Yeah, we knock together any number of these feeding trays. We just use scrap 1 x6 or 1x8 whatever was cut off from this or that project. A little yellow glue and a nail gun and it goes quick. The folks that make similar feeders from guttering also do a good job with those. Whatever works. Whatever can be "re-purposed".

 

[Fred's Hens]

This is so funny to me!

You do not have to sell your house and move to the country to help preserve Heritage Breeds.

As an example, I live in the city and am only supposed to have 6 hens. I have already hatched SG Dorkings for a local breeder. Next Year, I will be partnering with the Breeder to hatch a lot of chicks for her. I will also be keeping Roosters at her place in the Country to breed with my own projects. I am working on Penedesencas and EO Basque. I may work with Heritage RIRs too. I will at least hatch a couple of dozen Heritage SC RIRs to share with local breeders in my area.

Keep on learning and encouraging!

Ron, good for you. Hatching is one way to help, I guess. But, as you yourself say, you cannot have a rooster, thus you cannot keep a breeding flock on your property. Hey, it is what it is. Good for you in doing what you can and it's great you have access to a country place to do your breeding there. Not sure everyone has that option.

The intent of my post was not to be mean or cruel at all. I apologize if it was perceived that way, as that was not my intent. But, the reality is what it is if one is going to keep breeding flocks.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Quote:
My first resource is always you guys that have been breeding successfully for years. The knowledge and experience you have is irreplaceable, not to mention the "eye" that you have to see what needs to be seen. But I do think there is a place for the genetics folks too, probably more for you and Bob than for me, quite frankly, because you guys are at the point where you are fussing about the fine nuances of your beetle green sheen and the quality and character of red in the shaft of your feathers whereas I am still focusing rather more on type and building my bird from the ground up.

 

[FOGELLY]

At the risk of offending some of the people who find those coded formulas interesting it doesn't seem to me to correlate with quality results. IMO breeding is much more art than science.
Using my circle of friends & associates as a sample I count among the several very well known breeders but none who who communicate in "genetic speak". I think that if there were no more to breeding than knowing those coded symbols then none of the people I know would be successful & the people here who spew genetic code would all be master breeders.
To answer your question Bob, no, none of the 400-500 old articles on Reds I've read included any of this information. Never came up in conversations with Ken Bowles or Ralph Knickerbocker either.
Personally I think I'll keep sitting in the run with a pail of cracked corn watching the birds & checking my breeding log to make my breeding decisions. Someone else can write down symbolic formulas, it doesn't interest me.

Setting in my pens looking and watching my birds is exactly what I do to decide my pairings. I know knowledge on genetics is probably helpful, but nothing replaces experience. All good breeders have "The Eye" for their particular breed or breeds.
When I select my breeders and matings it is because something they have catches my eye. Also strengths on weaknesses.

I grew up around farming, dairy and beef cattle along with chickens. You just develop "The Eye"
Maybe a little simple minded compared to Genetic Code but I will leave that to the professors.

Ron

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
Disclaimer: I know nothing about chicken genetics. I was, however, a teaching assistant for a university genetics class at one time. Gene expression can be affected by many things including environmental factors and the presence or absence of other combinations of genes. That "sundry melanizers" catch-all would include all those things affecting melanin production (black) that the geneticists don't know about yet. There is a lot they don't know about, and the person who made that statement knows they don't know it all. Which is a good thing. Thinking we know it all can get us in big trouble.

Healthy, vigorous birds are more important to me than fancy-looking ones. Color-related chicken genetics makes my head hurt.

Sarah

 

[Wynette]

Healthy, vigorous birds are more important to me than fancy-looking ones. Color-related chicken genetics makes my head hurt.

Sarah

Sarah, I couldn't agree more, on both counts! Let's not even BRING UP the PATTERN genetics!

 

[CharlieVoda]

Here are the genotypes for the 4 shades of Black-Tailed Red, the "Family" of Red in which the RIR resides.
From Van Dort and Hancox, "Genetics Of Chicken Colours-The Basics":

Black Tailed Red (Red Brown; Mahogany black tail)

eWh/eWh s+/s+ Ar+/Ar+ Di/Di Mh/Mh (New Hampshire)

eWh/eWh s+/s+ Ar+/Ar+ Di/Di Mh/Mh Ml/Ml (similar to New Hampshire but with Ml which provides black stripe in lower hackle)

eWh/eWh s+/s+ Ar+/Ar+ Mh/Mh Db/Db (true red form as in New Hampshire but darker, lacking Dilute {Di}).

eWh/eWh s+/s+ Ar+/Ar+ Mh/Mh Db/Db 'rb/rb' (exhibition Rhode Island Red , depth of color from interaction of Mh and rb on Wheaton base. Undercolour from light Mahogany to salmon colour.
All credit to Van Dort and Hancox book. ( available in softcover from author).
-------------
s+ = Gold : s- allele , extender of red/gold
Ar+ = autosomal Red : not sex-linked red/gold
Di = Dilute : diluter of red/gold
Mh = Mahogany : extender of red/intensifer of red
Ml = Melanotic : extender of black
Db = Darkbrown : extender of red/restrictor of black
'rb' = Recessive black : extender of black
---------------------------
Best,
Karen

Here is my question of the day.
Since the genetics folks know what all of the genes listed above are can someone tell me how to turn the dimmer switch up or down for lets say 'rb/rb' or perhaps Mh/Mh?
I would like to do this without crossing in any different kind of birds or strains into my flock if possible.
Charlie

 

[FOGELLY]

Here is my question of the day.
Since the genetics folks know what all of the genes listed above are can someone tell me how to turn the dimmer switch up or down for lets say 'rb/rb' or perhaps Mh/Mh?
I would like to do this without crossing in any different kind of birds or strains into my flock if possible.
Charlie

Again, I am simple minded, but would not a person need to know excactly what genitic code was residing in your bird to began with in order to make corrections based said codes?

Ron

 

[Spangled]

Before people begin fantasizing about heritage birds and breeding them, let's take a moment for a reality check. It seems the beginners who live in the city, who are limited, by ordinance, to 6 hens, allowed no roosters, who have only had chickens in their bathroom or backyard tiny coopette for just a few weeks, ought to really master the whole keeping of birds first. I'm trying to say here what needs to be said, not necessarily what folks want to hear.

Use some hatchery grade hens to practice on. Get used to raising out chicks, integrating birds, living with them for a few years and experience the entire cycle for a couple of years. Feeding, coop cleaning, life, death, euthanizing, disease, the whole deal. If you succeed with those hatchery birds and still want to do this in two years, great. Until then?

Sell your city house and buy yourself a place in the country where you really can breed quality birds, keep crowing roosters, learn all about rooster behaviors up close and personal, build multiple coops, pens and barns. Meanwhile, sit in on some local breed club meetings. Go to regional APA sanctioned poultry shows, look at the fancy birds, submit to a mentor, meet some people, and spend a whole lot of time as a student and spend a lot more time just listening.

Otherwise, this is all just an internet fantasy.

Good points. A little dose of reality is of value.

I think the fantasy you refer to persists because people are told that certain breeds are "at risk," some critically, etc. Everyone wants to help save a breed and genetic material. That's a noble thing. Truly. And there are "authorities" out there telling us that anyone can help save a breed, which ends up including those who don't own any roosters.

Do you think that maybe there are different levels of participation? Without any certain level being necessarily a better level of participation that the others, but maybe some levels can get more accomplished? For instance, one who will keep roosters and breed a hundred or more chicks a year, raise them up to so many months, pick their five to add to the breeding group ... this participant will get more accomplished toward keeping the standard.

Another participant who is willing to breed to the SOP and sell eggs or chicks will be working on another portion of the process of breed preservation, which is getting chicks into the hands of people who just want some eggs and will enjoy and promote the breed just because they own a few.

Still another participant in the preservation of the breed will be that person mentioned above that will buy chicks from breeders of heritage breeds. It takes a little bit of effort to find a breeder (as opposed to propagator) sometimes, but buying chicks from her/him supports that breeder's efforts to preserve the breed and is, therefore, ultimately helping to preserve the breed.

Anyway. I don't have the answers. I'm just thinking out loud. If there are different levels of participation in heritage breed bird preservation (ALBC preservation), then I fall in the group that just buys a few from breeders. I don't end up with many heritage breed chickens for various reasons, but I have a few and I enjoy them. Of course, I look for ones that lay eggs because I keep chickens for their eggs. (I have some non-ALBC heritage breeds (as in old type of chicken, but not APA) that I've been keeping, but they, of course, don't count here.)

What do you think, Fred's Hens, (or anyone, I guess), you wrote: "Use some hatchery grade hens to practice on." Do you think it's necessary that one use hatchery grade birds to practice on? What if a person got some good (not superlative) breeder quality chicks and practiced on those? (If money isn't an issue for the buyer. And whatever the breeder was willing to part with.)

After two years you suggest, if any hens are still alive and maybe one looks especially promising, maybe it could be used to breed from with a newly bought rooster? That hen will have proven herself longevity wise and might possibly already have a good laying record if records were kept. If fifty chicks were hatched out of her maybe one or two would be great? You know how that can work. The genetics would be there as a possibility because she'd be a heritage chicken from a breeder. Couldn't this be a way for the owner of the little backyard flock that has newly moved to the country to have a head start on a heritage flock. Maybe? Your thoughts?