Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[thedragonlady]

Any concerns about them eating it?

I've never had a problem with birds eating it. It's just baked clay.

 

[catdaddyfro]

I knew it all along....Bob "Points Chaser" Blosl!
The New Hamps that won belong to Rodney Kroll from Tennessee. He had 3 Pullets in the show along with 2 Cockerels and 1 Cock Bird. One of his Pullets won Champ American, Champ Large Fowl & Reserve Super Grand Champ of the Show in the first show and a different one of his Pullets won Champ American and Champ Large Fowl of the second show. Could not happen to a nicer guy. Rodney is a friend of mine that I called and invited to our show a couple of weeks ago and he agreed to come. Maybe I shouldn't have called him...he cleaned my clock with his New Hamps. LOL.

Alright, and Matt I'm not whoopin' and a hollerin' 'cause he cleaned your clock. I just rejoice that these NH's are kicking some tail in these shows as of late. These orange chickens are my favorites if some haven't ever gathered that from some of previous posts and for the new posters here too, LOL
Of course I still like the reds, the whites, the barreds, and ect and ect....on and on, too, LOL

Jeff

 

[FOGELLY]

Nice to see some nice colored barred Rocks. The last picture look at the extension of her breast to give her that Gravy Bowl Look. Nice leg color for a barred rock. If her tail could only be in the next two months fully out and a nice V shape you got a real nice bird. If these are the Frank Reese old line you all are making great progress with them since we started.

Thanks for the comment s Bob. Yes these are from the Reese line. They came from JWhip. I traded a person some RIR for seven chicks back in July. I still have all seven. They are nice healthy easy to care for birds, with very good temperament..
My boy really likes them, he plans to start showing with this line next year. He is 8 and can handle everyone of them. They just swarm him every time he goes in their pen.

The pictures don't so them justice. Their barring is hypnotic. My wife says the cockerels give her vertigo looking at them.

Ron

 

[Robert Blosl]

Boy I woke up and got emails, personnel messages on where can I get Heritage Large Fowl. So Frank Reese if you are lurking this thread and you might you asked me two years ago if I would start a movement on Heritage Fowl and see if I can get people interested WELL WE HAVE. No one wants purple chicken or blue ones so that made my wife happy. She gets bent out of shape and other things when they ask for BLUE rocks.

I am going to Wall Mart to buy me a fancy book to store my stared WINS in.

Going to order my wife some Frizzle or Silkie Seromas for Christmas. We will get a big bird cage and put a pair next to the window so they can look at the birds eating her new bird feeders. I paid about $200. for these fancy things and the pole. She had 30 moaning doves, 10 Red Birds, five blue jays and numbers of spa rows around plus the two squirrels.

In regards to the New Hamps from Tenn they where super conditioned birds and when you show against guys like Matt 1616 and this fellow you better be a master conditioner or you will not get on champion row. One person asked how did you build your boxes.

I call these SAND boxes and I made them out of a sheet of thick plywood to hold the weight. Then I cut them 3 feet wide and nailed and glued 1x4s around the edges to old the sand or kitty litter from falling onto the floor. Then I took some good caulk like you use on your windows from Ace Hardware and caulked the bottom to make this thing so tight that it could hold water. Then put in about a inch or so of white play sand or kitty litter and make a pen 3x4 for each White Leghorn or White Rock bantam male. They have to get into these pens when they are still young so they will not soil their feathers with their droppings. There is a fellow in Florida who told me he did this a couple of years ago and his white birds are spotless.

So that is how you do it. For a large fowl you should have a 4.4 or even a 4x8 pen with the wire going up about 4 feet so he can move around well. I have a few white rock ckls and will build two pens like this for them then I can put a divider in the middle for bantams when I want to or leave it open and put four females in there to condition them for a show. My White Rock Pullet that I won with and her sister where very clean. I had them in a 8x8 pen with a bale of Wheat Straw on the floor and that kept the droppings off of them and they looked great.

Hope to have some pictures of these birds as I left my camera buy the computer after I posted the pictures of the great Buckeyes but next year I will try to get more organized. For you who live with in say 400 miles of Pensacola Florida we will have another big show in the Spring which I am sure will be big er then this show and again a year from now. With a 125 large fowl for a small show that is a lot.

Thanks to Matt and his Dad for all the effort that they put out. Hours and hours of labor and thought went into to this project. The high light of the show for me was to see all of the 20 or so members working in harmony together to put this on. Many just got into chickens or converted from being Chicken Mamas and Chicken Daddy's to Heritage Fanciers and breeders. Some still have not converted but after seeing all these top bird from the South show up here they wants some.

Well I got to go outside and show Mr. Silkie the pictures I posted of the quite Seroma Silkies . He may let me have some and he can take care of them. Have a nice day and Promote Heritage Fowl .

 

[3riverschick]

Where in TN is he? It is a LONG state so he is surely at one end or the other, they are never in the middle.

It's usually that way in Pennsylvania as well!

Karen

 

[Chris Herzog]

Guys,
I had a really good time at the show in Pensacola. Even thou it was only my first APA show I thought that it was run very smooth and organized with no problems. I liked having the vender's there as well and meeting and talking with all the people at the show.
I brought and showed 4 birds all LF….a BR cockerel, a NH cock, and 2 RIR cockerels. None of my birds were DQed and I wasn’t told to cull any of them so I was happy for that! If nothing else I got to see some of the things I need to work on but all in all it was a great time!

Thanks guys for a nice outing and I look forward to the next one!
Chris

 

[Marengoite]

I thought this thread was trying to help people to get started with Rare Breeds and try to preserve the birds that we have today. So many breeds are need to be helped from extinction. Please dont get caught up in crossing breeds on these old Heritage Breeds. This is a method that takes years of breeding and cost lots of money. Heck you can do the same just by crossing strains to weed out the negative posts. This is kind of like going to a place that has rescued dogs and cats from a puppy farm that got in trouble with the law. We need to adopt and try to preserve what we have. If you have to go out and cross other breeds onto a line of Hatchery Chickens to try to bring them back to what they once was in the 1940s you are better off moving over to a breed that is in less need of skill and help.

Help preserve Rare Breeds of Heritage in need. This is the year we need to double the numbers of family's, hobby farmers to take them on.

Dont forget my Jersey Giant Project. Lets do it for Goldie? bob

Bob,

Do you have a list of priority fowl you'd like to see preserved?

ALBC has their list, but I find it somewhat confusing. For instance, they have Buckeyes in "Threatened" and Hamburgs in "Watch" according to this: http://www.albc-usa.org/cpl/wtchlist.html#chickens But when I wanted to get started in breeding chickens I had no problem finding Buckeye breeders. The hard part was figuring out which ones I wanted to buy from. When it came to Large Fowl Silver Spangled Hamburgs, I've only managed to find one breeder, Paul Hardy. It would seem to me, ignorant boob that I am, that Buckeyes are more plentiful than Hamburgs. So why does the list appear to have them exactly backward of expectations? Maybe the ALBC breed list has a priority formula that isn't based on "ease of availablility" or total numbers.In any event, I'm not sure what the criteria are for getting on each of the lists (despite reading their descriptions) and would like a "second opinion" on breeds that should be a priority.

Clearly, it isn't just rarity of the breed, If that were the case then Greenfire Farm would be the ones setting priorities with all their rare imports for high-dollar prices.

So what do you think would be good for folks to work on?

rick

 

[fowlman01]

It's usually that way in Pennsylvania as well!

Karen

You folks better look at CA...now that is a long state.

Walt

 

[Robert Blosl]

Quote: I never put much into their list. Sometimes I think they include hatchery fowl and that will make the list grow by hundreds. Like Rose Comb Reds this time of the year. How many area alive? 100 300 500 1,000. My guess maybe 50 or no more than a hundred. Mot led Javas how many less than a hundred. Light Sussex who knows maybe 50 or a 100. That's not many to go around.

In Single Comb birds like Partridge and Silver Penciled Rocks I know about every buddy who has them. Less than a hundred. Know there will be people who tell me I got some I got 50 of them but when we look at them they are scrubs from the feed store. I can not count a bird unless they score at least 91 points out of a hundred and the better ones will score around 93. That's pretty good score if you judged them by the old fashion scoring system of the APA. Now birds that I saw this weekend that where best of breed and champion large fowl had to score at least95 points and these are the kind that make you foam at the mouth ad drop to your knees when you see them. When a older experienced judge tells you those are the best I have ever seen and he has been judging for twenty to thirty years that is a compliment.

Any way dont get bent out of shape over those list and fads and wanting to cross breeds. Jut make a list of five breeds you would like to locate. Tell us what they are. We have enough connections with the top judges in the country some who come on this thread to locate you some good stock. You dont have to get the birds from the top breeder in the USA like Black Jersey Giants but he may have sold some of his birds to someone a year or so ago and they will ship you some chicks, eggs or adult birds. If you locate this family you can make a road trip with the family and pick up say two males and three females and you are ready to go. It fun that way and you will appreciate what you have. If you dont want to show them that is OK we need you o share your blood lines with others like your self years down the road. We would just like to find birds or breeds that are as close to true to breed appearance so you wont waist years of work trying to maintain or improve them. Remember these large fowl cost allot of money to feed and grow up. You got to learn how to raise them and breed them the smart way so you wont get discouraged and then give up like so many have done be for us. bob

 

[fowlman01]

I think the albc list is just not kept up to date. Nankins are considered critical, but shows here in the west have 100 entered on occasion. Now that they are in the SOP they will be all over the place. I have 50 here.

Walt