Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[Fred's Hens]

Hello..gallorojo and others..

Thanks for posting the magazine article. I had not seen that. I've read some of the book and really liked it.. It made sence to me.
I'll be building my first big coop in a month or so.. and planning to use the ideas here.

I have read several places about the "draft" issue.. here and on other sites too. I googled " draft chicken coop" and there is a full page of NO no's. the coop must be draft free.. they say.. so how can you have great ventaliation and draft free too.

I wonder if that is some how an idea or need - that was intended for chicks born in winter with out a mother hen - that has been transfered to the needs of an adult bird. (any one heard the joke about the Christmas ham? new husband asks .. honey why do we cut the end of the ham off..)
Or if there's some thing im missing?

I have recently seen several of the old style open coops.. and the floor was 5' off the ground had mostly chicken wire for the floor and a 3 wall cubby hole along the back with a light above one area. ( this part did have a floor). and still had an open end for fresh air on this part. These were very open structures.. just as described in the book.

debra..

My advice, especially since this is a Heritage thread, is to consider the heritage barns and coops of by-gone days. There was logic and experience behind those designs and really put to shame these modern things that too many people invest in. The Monitor was the classic, in my view. When I re-built our barn a few years back, I largely modeled what we were doing after that design. Here's a few photos. These might also help you better understand ventilation. A roof vent on a house allows stale, moist air to exit. VENT, to let out. BYC is a great forum, but too often the confusion on such a simple word astounds me. Hope you get inspired by the pictures.




This is our barn.


This is a historic example




This last one is Walt Leonard's barn and I love it!!

 

[Marengoite]

Quote:

 

[Marengoite]

I built a highly ventilated coop out of a pallet and some scrap siding. I put a board in front of the screen when the winds kicked up but the roof still has a gap and the floor is open since it is a pallet. Any rising air goes out the front vent.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/g/...llet-coop-from-other-side/sort/display_order/

rick

 

[3riverschick]

I know this question has been answered, the only thing i would add is that when you pick a breed do not pick the rarest breed in the standard. I know you may feel compelled to help save the really rare breeds but you will frustrate yourself when initially trying to find stock and trying to add new blood when the time comes. This is especially true if you are new to breeding chickens.

You will be able to get more and better advice if you choose a breed that a decent number of people are already breeding. My advice would be to find a breed, raise it for a few years, then once you are comfortable with breeding strategies and and know the basics of selection and have learned more then you can add a little more rare of a breed. Its really easy to get carried away with wanting several breeds at once to save them. Again stick with one breed to start and preferably one with an easy color pattern

====================
That a super, wise piece of advice! Just great! I would second it, being sadder and wiser now. I started out with both Cuckoo and Black Marans. Decided I wanted to "help resurrect a a rare variety". Picked Golden Salmon Marans What a stupid mistake. They were too rare. After 2 wasted years and 5 false starts (including the lost money involved). ..I decided to leave Marans. A Sussex breeder contacted me and offered to share his Light Sussex. Now I have a lovely foundation flock. Show quality. From a breed needing help in numbers , but with a wide enough genetic base and enough breeders, I am not struggling to find quality stock if I ever do decide to strain-cross to an unrelated strain in Light Sussex.
Another important point is to pick a breed with a literary heritage. It's such a help to be able to read the breed's history. What the old breeders did to bring the breed to where it is today. This knowledge gives us the info necessary to help select proper breed type and know what the veterans did to maintain and improve their stock.
Also, pick a bird with only one or two colors (this includes not several hues of the same color). One without fancy patterns on each feather. There are a lot of lovely birds which meet these choices. It will make your color balancing choices much easier. Choose a breed with a comb which is simple to breed and doesn't have genetic issues associated with that breed's type of comb.
Choose your birds from one strain which has been line-bred for years and won consistently over a number of years in the show ring. Breeding judiciously within the strain, there should be plenty of variation and genetic diversity to suit your artists' eye. If you stay within the strain, your genetic variation will be eight. If you cross to another unrelated strain or breed, your variation increases exponentially and it will take years to reselect the excellence you had before the cross. Always bring in new blood thru the dam's side. Never bring in more than 1/4 foreign blood at a time. Crossbreeding (to a different breed) brings in 100% foreign blood to a breeding. Strain-crossing to another unrelated strain in the same breed brings in 50% foreign blood to a breeding because tho the strain is unrelated, the birds are still from the same breed.
It gets more complicated if we cross to an unrelated strain in the same breed which is a different color variety than our own birds. The amount of foreign blood variation seems to rise above 50 percent because of the color differences ...plus ...that fact that different colors can be painted on different color foundations ( called a locus..such as e+, eWh, ER, and such) within the same breed. This means if you cross color varieties within a breed and the two colors happen to be painted on different color foundations...you will be trying to repaint the color picture you had before the cross....on a color foundation which is constantly trying to change from one color to another *or* be a swirly combination of the two colors. Now you have added a whole 'nother set of genetic variation you need to deal with...above and beyond the virtues you were trying to add to your flock thru the strain-crossing. It's a real pain to clean up the color mess and get your color foundation to permanently stay the same color you had in the first place.
The synopsis of all this is: choose a breed without extreme genetic challenges, with simple color, from a quality vintage strain, and stay within that strain and genetic locus if you out-cross. A breeding within the same strain can be considered a out-cross if the birds are distantly enough related or if the strain has been bred in another location at least 500 miles distance from you , for a notable number of years by another breeder.
Best Regards,
Karen
in western PA, USA

 

[3riverschick]

This last one is Walt Leonard's barn and I love it!!
=========================================
Hi,
We have a 4' x 4' version of this barn here. As Walt has done here, coops wth peaked roofs should have a cupalo to let out the foul air. We also found it easiest to run the cupalo the entire distance of the roof ridgeline. What we did with our small coop was to nail hardware cloth over, and then build slider channels along the upper and lower edges, of the 2 long cupalo windows. Then we inserted sliding plexiglass "windows" . Now we just slide the window(s) open and closed depending on the temperature and the direction from which the foul weather was coming. This is the one coop with which we have never had humidity issues.
Best,
Karen

 

[Robert Blosl]

Quote: Excellent advice. I agree dont make it any harder than you have to.

 

[Robert Blosl]

http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-...=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269547186&sr=8-6

The hardy, multipurpose Dominique chickens that came to the New World with the Pilgrims and later travelled in pioneer saddlebags to help settle the West were once too numerous to count, by 1990 a mere 500 hens survived. This is but a single example of the diminishing diversity of farm animals: half of once-common livestock breeds are endangered, others are already extinct. The need to preserve farm animal diversity is increasingly urgent, says the author of this definitive book on endangered breeds of livestock and poultry. Farmyard animals may hold critical keys for our survival, Jan Dohner warns, and with each extinction, genetic traits of potentially vital importance to our agricultural future or to medical progress are forever lost. This comprehensive book features: * complete information on the history, characteristics, qualities, and traits of 138 endangered livestock breeds (goats, sheep, swine, cattle, horses, other equines) and 53 poultry breeds (chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese) * where these breeds may be seen today * the degree of rarity of each breed in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada * information on feral livestock populations * 160 color photographs and over 80 black and white photos and historical illustrations

I was searching on the internet for German Rhode Island Reds to see if I could locate a picture of them to show a person I am helping to learn how to mait Rhode Island Reds. I went to a story on Mother Earth News and then hit this link of a book that this lady wrote. I liked the introduction of the book which I have cut and posted above. Who would ever think that the birds the Pilgrims brought with them to America would some day be rare. I myself can not be leave there are 500 females alive right now in the USA unless they are also counting hatchery quality birds. If they have single combs they are not Dominique chickens. Many at the shows call production barred rocks domineckers. This is a old time name my mother called my uncles barred rocks but they where my first chicks at age 8 and they where barred, single come and typical production color.

Its funny how people get things mixed up. My part beagle and German Sheppard was looking at a dog out of the car window yesterday at a Publics Grocery Store and I looked at the dog and told him I bet you wished you looked like him. A pure breed German Sheppard and what a good looking pure breed dog he was. Kind of like chickens when you go to a poultry show or large fair. You see the true to breed kinds and then the feed store kind.

By the way the Mottled Javas are starting to lay. Going to put some eggs in a small incubator today. Maybe I can get five or ten new ones this year. They are still flighty like Leghorns to me. But that must be their nature or at least this strain.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Bob, I was reading this this morning in J.H. Robinson's Fundamentals in Poultry Breeding and thouth you'd find it interesting. Concerning mottling:

.....As the Standard is now, a small tip on about one feather in five gives the desired amount of white in most sections [...]. THe old-style Anconas and Houdans had very much more white, so much that as the plumage faded with age some birds became nearly white. The Mottled Java, now rare, has this character of plumage. (pg. 43)

As we mentioned while speaking, the extra white on those birds is probably indicative of their age, as seen regularly in Anconas, but this suggests also that there could be a level of underdevelopment for discipline in color that circa 1921 was, apparently, general knowledge. Regardless, it is of no importance, to whomever decides to take them up, it only adds a level of breeding adventure.

......


I'm not as quick to dissuade beginners from taking on a more difficult pattern, as long as they are willing to recognize it as such, but I say this with the very important caveat that it is extremely important to have good mentors. If one's mentor either has the desired pattern, or feels comfortable offering guidance nonetheless, then by all means go for it. So much depends on whether or not one is going to take the Lone Ranger approach or be surrounded by community. I definitely suggest the latter of the two; it makes everything so much richer: one breed, an SOP, good mentor(s), lots of chicken shows, and, as Karen pointed out, a lot of literature.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Hmmm...I was walking away, and then it occurred to me that some new to reading this thread might have questions about finding mentors.

1. You need to attend poultry shows. There are more than you think, and they take place throughout the year. If you're ready to jump in, subscribe to the Poultry Press. Most shows advertize therein, as do many breeders whom you can call up and who often love to talk chicken.

2. Once you're there, the most important thing to do is spend the day, look around, allow everyone to get used to you being there, too. At the end of the show, volunteer to help with the tear down. It is a valuable way of getting to know the people who make things happen, and most of them know how to connect you to the mentor you need and a source of stock that will help. Moreover, if you go a time or two...or three.. and you're on their radar, and they are sure of your commitment, even if they don't know how to find the specific stock in which you are interested, they'll know whom they can ask and will feel confident on doing so on your behalf bcause you've illustrate your commitment. Literally, volunteering at poultry shows is a huge step in the right direction.

 

[Robert Blosl]

Hmmm...I was walking away, and then it occurred to me that some new to reading this thread might have questions about finding mentors.

1. You need to attend poultry shows. There are more than you think, and they take place throughout the year. If you're ready to jump in, subscribe to the Poultry Press. Most shows advertize therein, as do many breeders whom you can call up and who often love to talk chicken.

2. Once you're there, the most important thing to do is spend the day, look around, allow everyone to get used to you being there, too. At the end of the show, volunteer to help with the tear down. It is a valuable way of getting to know the people who make things happen, and most of them know how to connect you to the mentor you need and a source of stock that will help. Moreover, if you go a time or two...or three.. and you're on their radar, and they are sure of your commitment, even if they don't know how to find the specific stock in which you are interested, they'll know whom they can ask and will feel confident on doing so on your behalf because you've illustrate your commitment. Literally, volunteering at poultry shows is a huge step in the right direction.

You are so right. I just got off the phone with my Motel in New Nan Georgia and got my confirmation number. Will be up there with a few of our members from the Panhandle Poultry Club this coming Weekend. Getting ready to make a new pen with the Cochin Club logo on it in a few minutes. Got some great wood from Chis in Louisiana and using a Maple color and they are coming out real nice. It is a learning process no mentors except what I learn on the Internet and watching U tube videos.

Hope I can find a mentor in New Nan who can help me with Mottle Javas. They are starting to lay and caught a big large fowl white rock in the nest this afternoon laying her eggs. Black berries are starting to blossom Spring in the South is around the corner. Turned on the incubator and hope to see some chicks in a three weeks. Then the work begins.

Thanks for the info on the Javas and Mottle. I think the reason they have more white is their age. The young chicks will be normal I am sure. Did you get any snow up there around the Yellow House?