Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[3riverschick]

We are making outdoor runs this weekend. We live in the south, main predators are hawks and dogs. Going to put net overtop 15 x 7 feet, 3 side by side. Would you recommend burying the galvenized wire or not? Has anyone had any experience with something digging under the fence? They will be locked indoors during the night (its a converted cucumber grater building) so nothing can get in unless they have fingers. I'll post pics when we are done.

I buried mine a foot deep all the way around the fence.
Karen

 

[Robert Blosl]

When are we going to talk about the H chickens again. Seems you all have got off subject. I guess you have got all your rare breeds lined up and dont need to find anything rare anymore.

I have a question. What happens if you get say a old line of large fowl lets say one in a million chances of a rare blood line owned by a old time breeder somewhere in the sticks of USA. Then one day a guy calls you and says I have two males and two three year old hens from this old old old line of large fowl. I have chosen you as the care taker of this old line that Mr. So and So breed for 40 years and I got some of his birds from his son after he died. There are no other birds from this old man but these two.

Question to you who have been reading and soaking up this information for the past two and a half years. What do you do with these four chickens? How do you breed them?

If you are lucky with getting 20 chicks from them How many do you keep? How do you breed them and how do you breed the young birds back to the parents or do you.

How are you going to share these birds in two or three years with others to help spread this rare breed and color pattern onward so the breed and strain does not die?

This just happened. Two males and two three year old hens. People had no idea that these birds where still alive anymore. So lets see if we can put together a brain storming session on this tread on how to get this old line up and running. Look forward with your comments. bob

 

[snowbird]

Bob, I know you are old enough to know that any time a Teacher leaves the classroom the class will stray.

 

[wsmith]

Quote: Split the breeding season between the two males, and hatch all the eggs. The next year start culling, but raise as many chicks as possible, culling as needed. In my mind, you need as many chicks as possible from each of these males. Then set up your breeding pens, breeding the best young cockerel back to the older hens, and split the pullets into two groups and breed the old males to these groups. Again, hatch out all the eggs. Now you potentially have many birds of this strain and you cull as needed..

Just my thoughts.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

When are we going to talk about the H chickens again. Seems you all have got off subject. I guess you have got all your rare breeds lined up and dont need to find anything rare anymore.

I have a question. What happens if you get say a old line of large fowl lets say one in a million chances of a rare blood line owned by a old time breeder somewhere in the sticks of USA. Then one day a guy calls you and says I have two males and two three year old hens from this old old old line of large fowl. I have chosen you as the care taker of this old line that Mr. So and So breed for 40 years and I got some of his birds from his son after he died. There are no other birds from this old man but these two.

Question to you who have been reading and soaking up this information for the past two and a half years. What do you do with these four chickens? How do you breed them?

If you are lucky with getting 20 chicks from them How many do you keep? How do you breed them and how do you breed the young birds back to the parents or do you.

How are you going to share these birds in two or three years with others to help spread this rare breed and color pattern onward so the breed and strain does not die?

This just happened. Two males and two three year old hens. People had no idea that these birds where still alive anymore. So lets see if we can put together a brain storming session on this tread on how to get this old line up and running. Look forward with your comments. bob

Very hard to answer a hypothetical like this. How perfect are the birds we are starting with? No bird is perfect even in the best, most established line.

So assuming I am starting with basically equal birds, all basically good type, successful, established line, hatch from both hens with one male and then the other, starting with the male that I think most compliments the strongest female in the bunch in case I run out of time with the hens. Keep the off-spring that fits my expectation of the line. Cull the rest unless somebody has a trait that I feel might improve the line. Assuming this is a successfully established line correctly representative of the breed, I shouldn't have much to cull because all the work has been done for me. Breed the best cockerel (son) back to the hens and perhaps even try a brother sister breeding in that generation to see if anything flushes out. I might also breed the daughters back to the best of the fathers depending on individual details. It would be nice to figure out if one of those original males was throwing better offspring (males? females?) than the other. Or, possibly pass one of the original males off to someone else with a daughter or two or three and have that person focus on continuing a line there. My goal would be to take whatever is weakest and cross that with whatever is strongest in the opposite sex - keeping in mind that my original two hens are not young so I have a limited amount of time to work with them.

The key in my mind would be to hatch every egg that was laid by those original hens and cull only as needed so that no time was wasted. And keep VERY careful records.

 

[cgmccary]

Hum,
Maybe I will grow some penyroyal in my herb garden this year.
Good idea,
Thanks! How much do I put in a 4x8 coop?
Karen

I planned on putting it liberally in their nest boxes and sprinkling it liberally in their dusting holes (as one who believed in & would sevin dust or DE). Pennyroyal is a mint, isn't it?

 

[gjensen]

With two males and three females, you have six possible matings. Set the three females up in three seperate pens. Work one male on two pens, and the other on one. After you have twenty eggs from each hen, remove the males and set the next week of eggs. Wait one more week and switch the males. Now you have eggs from six pairings. I do not know how you would know what the next step would be until you grew out the next generation. By then, you would have an idea what you were working with.

Share eggs with a few others as soon as you can. In case something happened to what you have. One flock turns into two flocks, etc. This happened in California with the Catalanas. One man took Ideal Catalanas, hatched and culled for five years and now has something worth working with. He shared them with a woman that has done well with them also. Now there is two viable flocks in California.

In my case, that is encouraging. Ideal Hatchery got their start from Rev. Romig a while back. That means that they would be related to what I have, but there is some distance between the three flocks now. And there is another . . .

I think you have to keep looking. If their is one flock, likely there is another. You just shared (hypotheticly) eggs with a few others. Now there are three, even six flocks established in different places. Now the breed or variety has a chance. Some people to exchange eggs with.

By next year there might be eight known flocks of authentic Catalanas in the States. One in the North East, three out West, two in the midwest, and two in the South East. There seams to be some interest in cooperating among the keepers or potential keepers.

 

[maryhysong]

We are making outdoor runs this weekend. We live in the south, main predators are hawks and dogs. Going to put net overtop 15 x 7 feet, 3 side by side. Would you recommend burying the galvenized wire or not? Has anyone had any experience with something digging under the fence? They will be locked indoors during the night (its a converted cucumber grater building) so nothing can get in unless they have fingers. I'll post pics when we are done.

I lay scrap fencing; preferably weld wire of what ever mesh I have flat on the ground,about 18-24 inches wide, attached to the base of the fence, then put rocks all over. Most diggers will come right up to the fence itself and try digging there, it's like they don't figure out that moving out farther would be more successful. So far the only thing that has dug into my pen was gophers and there's not much you can do with an animal that burrows 5 feet or more through ground that is like concrete.

If your ground is very wet then the fence will rust if it's buried. Layed out flat you can see when it starts to get too worn out with rust and can just lay some more on top of the old. A lot less work that way too

 

[Pozees]

Split the breeding season between the two males, and hatch all the eggs. The next year start culling, but raise as many chicks as possible, culling as needed. In my mind, you need as many chicks as possible from each of these males. Then set up your breeding pens, breeding the best young cockerel back to the older hens, and split the pullets into two groups and breed the old males to these groups. Again, hatch out all the eggs. Now you potentially have many birds of this strain and you cull as needed..

Just my thoughts.

Agreed, and may even take one of the cockerels from the first generation and breed him to a sister or two to try and locate any recessives that may need to be addressed. Even culls I might offer to a chicken buddy to hang onto and breed to see what they produce - if it's worse they are not worth pursuing, obviously, but if they have offsetting faults and may combine to create good offspring it can help expand the gene pool. A hen that has a tail too low can be useful if you have a nice cockerel whose tail is too high, for example.

 

[Pozees]

I lay scrap fencing; preferably weld wire of what ever mesh I have flat on the ground,about 18-24 inches wide, attached to the base of the fence, then put rocks all over. Most diggers will come right up to the fence itself and try digging there, it's like they don't figure out that moving out farther would be more successful. So far the only thing that has dug into my pen was gophers and there's not much you can do with an animal that burrows 5 feet or more through ground that is like concrete.

Ain't it the truth!!!