Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[1MrsMagoo]

I am curious to know if you've noticed any differences between the Duckworth and GSBR strains... even this early on??

I've not seen Duckworth strain chicks...would appreciate some photos for comparison if you get a chance (having 4 brooders is most likely keeping you real, real busy!)

The biggest difference I have seen so far is the difference in color of the cockerels: The Duckworth ones seem to be darker. I will see about taking some photos if I have a chance tomorrow.

 

[cluck-cluck]

That's an interesting tip. With chicks that are light colored, I use food coloring to mark on their stomachs, two stripes per bird, get lots of combinations that way. Then you can toe punch later as well. I wrote an article about how I used to do it when I was breeding Dutch that I put on my website here: http://pathfindersfarm.com/PedigreeBreeding.html

Reading above, I was thinking "What?" so I went and read you site, and I'm amazed at this idea!!! I was thinking about how impractical it would be for me to make a nest trap, but how I would love to know the sire and dam. I will remember this one, and try it out when I get so far! Thank you so much for the idea!

 

[Lacy Blues]

I've tried the dye before and found it wasn't worth the trouble. The eggs that WERE marked, was extremely light and many times I couldn't see the marks at all either. This is one situation when it helps to have two birds that lay vastly different eggs. I know the daily egg appearance can vary but if they are extremely different, sometimes you can tell which bird laid which egg, if you caught them at it once.

 

[galanie]

I have built two trap nests and they really work very well but you have to monitor them to let the birds out after laying. So in that sense, they're probably impractical for a lot of people. They are even impractical for me at this point since I have 10 layers but I do no currently need to do it. In the future I'm considering different options to make sure I know which hen laid which egg. I've tried the food coloring and it didn't really work for me either.

 

[cluck-cluck]

Aw, too bad, seems so simple! I'll probably have to try it some day anyway, LOL.

 

[Robert Blosl]

Rolling Matings
Craig Russell
President, SPPA
​

I believe this to be the most practical and probably the best overall breeding system for poultry. It simply consists of breeding cocks to pullets and cockerels to hens. Yes, it requires at least two pens for each breed or variety, but it requires minimal record keeping, prevents extremes in breeding and helps to select for both vigor and uniformity. The system is also relatively forgiving of mistakes in selection or an introduction of new stock that does not combine well with an established flock. These problems will tend to correct themselves in future cycles.
Here is the formula for starting with a trio of Javas. (Note: Most old time breeders would not use less than two trios of anything, because that was not “deep enough” and preferred a “breeding” of two males and eight to ten hens).
But, in this case, we are starting with an initial trio. Let us say in a single season we raise thirty Javas (15 of each sex). From these, we would keep the three best males and eight or ten of the best females. The rest we sell or eat. The next breeding season, the old male is mated to the pullets and the best cockerel is mated to the old hens. The other two cockerels are spares and show birds. A rule of thumb is always to keep at least half as many spare males as you had breeding males and never keep less than two. This system can be expanded to any size, but when in full swing, it should have at least four males and twenty females.
The following year the two old cocks (the cockerel is over a year old now) are teamed with the 10 best pullets. The young (year old) hens join their mothers with the two best cockerels and the system is now running well.
After each season, the old birds are combined and culled to the two best cocks and the best ten hens. The best two cockerels and the ten best pullets are selected from the young birds. The pullets are teamed with the cocks and the hens with the cockerels. The breeder is ready for the following season.
Old time breeder, Bruce Lentz, would often have “side matings”. This might be unrelated stock from another breeder or culls that had one or more very desirable characteristics. He might work with these birds for years until he got them to the desired state of perfection. Then, they would be slowly worked in on the pullet and cockerel side of his regular matings.
The complaints I have heard about this system are that it is too easy; anybody can do it; it is not breeding, and it depends upon your ability to select breeders or cull.
The answer? It is easy; anybody can do it; it is breeding, and any system depends upon your ability to select breeders. This system will maintain a viable population while you develop the art.


Got a email from a friend asking my experience on Rolling Line Breeding. Have any of you studied this or tried this?

Having twenty females means you should try to raise at least ten chicks per female unless you are keeping ten of them for back ups?

With todays feed prices I do not know if it is practical. What do you think? Great article however.

 

[Robert Blosl]

I have a friend Gary Underwood who lives in Illinois who started a flock of Rhode Island Reds years ago and did this. He did not trap nest them but I think it would work. He turned his lights on at say two am so the hens where up and about. They would start laying sometimes between say four and seven AM. He would go out to the hen house and collect the eggs every hour or so then he would put the eggs marked by the pen number in a egg carton and put in his basement. He would come home after teaching school and the other eggs in the pens would be destroyed. The reason for all this is it would be below zero and the eggs would be cold or frozen when he got home. Over a year or two he developed a strain where they layed early befor he would go to school and this to me was much like the fit of the fittest prinicle I started using down here. If the hens did not lay befor he went to school the eggs where not hatched and only the ones who did would carry on the line of his Reds. If you did this and had trap nests then you could check the nests let out the females so anohte could come in or if you had four females to a pen and had three trap nests then you would beable to write their bad number on each egg befor you went to work.

In the old days Poutlrymen had time to check the nests or had a hired hand to do this as they they had so many chickens this was a full time job.

It could work. With my bantams I have three by tree foot pens one female per pen two pens per breeding pen and rotate the male back and forth with the female. I give the males a rest on the third day he is in his own pen by himself to feed and drink and rest. Then back at it again for say three days or so. If I want to rest him at half time and say put in his brother I rest the females for ten days still put the eggs in the incubator and then hatch the chicks as I did befor. Then put the new male in on the tenth day of rest and start over again with like Pen one B Female Number one or two.

This might work for you who have to work.

In large fowl I used a four by four pen with one female in it. I had say two pens and rotate the male. Sometimes female number two would lay a different egg a white spots on the egg or brown specks and if I knew she was say the number two female I would put the two in a pen together say a six by six pen with the male and I could tell by their eggs who layed them.

If I was mating the best sons back to the hens the next year I did not worry about trap nesting just toe punched the chicks and put the best male their son or nephew back into the pen to inbreed them.

I am dong this more often these days on my red bantams as I have the size down to standard level or maybe two oz below standard and I am inbreeding to darken the quill color or try to remove the black stipes' from the neck feathers and get back to ticking.

I came up with a wild idea this moaning laying in bed as I am writing a article for The English Rhode Island Red Club and they want it on How to breed for Color. I do not have black quill color in my bantams that I shrunk down from large fowl 20 years ago. So I am going to get me a Florida Strain Mohawk Cock bird that has black quill color or his old sister and artificial E. them to my bantams to see if I can get the black quill color in my bantam line.

My theory over five years is to inbreed the top black quill colored males back to two tiny R I Red bantam pullets and inbreed them each year their sons back to them and try to get the size down and yet capture the black quill color. Then in five years figure out a way I guess again inbreeding the smallest males to my little females to get the whole flock to have black quill color.

Kind of a stupid thing to have to do but before I die I would like to have a miniature R I Red large fowl in a bantam format with the color and the type I once had in my old large fowl strain.

I don't think there are any Red Bantams with Black Quill color so I can not cross them onto my line. Also, I risk the chance of crossing the short back elevated top line faults that has captured the eyes of all red bantam breeders and that is what I call the Red Rock look. That would ruin all the work I have done over twenty years.

This second half of this message is for some folks who asked me about breeding R I Red color and anyone who is interested in R I Reds on this thread for the future. These are secrets so try them they should work. Good luck on your trap nesting. I wanted some but the seller sold them before I could get them but he left me with a hour of breeding secrets which I use today. His name was Ralph Brazelton from Kansas. He was one heck of a Orpington Breeder and chicken man.

 

[TheNuttyChick]

[SIZE=14pt]Rolling Matings[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=14pt]Craig Russell[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=14pt]President, SPPA[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=14pt]   I believe this to be the most practical and probably the best overall breeding system for poultry.  It simply consists of breeding cocks to pullets and cockerels to hens.  Yes, it requires at least two pens for each breed or variety, but it requires minimal record keeping, prevents extremes in breeding and helps to select for both vigor and uniformity.  The system is also relatively forgiving of mistakes in selection or an introduction of new stock that does not combine well with an established flock.  These problems will tend to correct themselves in future cycles.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]   Here is the formula for starting with a trio of Javas.  (Note:  Most old time breeders would not use less than two trios of anything, because that was not “deep enough” and preferred a “breeding” of two males and eight to ten hens).[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]  But, in this case, we are starting with an initial trio.  Let us say in a single season we raise thirty Javas (15 of each sex).  From these, we would keep the three best males and eight or ten of the best females.  The rest we sell or eat.  The next breeding season, the old male is mated to the pullets and the best cockerel is mated to the old hens.  The other two cockerels are spares and show birds.  A rule of thumb is always to keep at least half as many spare males as you had breeding males and never keep less than two.  This system can be expanded to any size, but when in full swing, it should have at least four males and twenty females.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]   The following year the two old cocks (the cockerel is over a year old now) are teamed with the 10 best pullets.  The young (year old) hens join their mothers with the two best cockerels and the system is now running well.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]   After each season, the old birds are combined and culled to the two best cocks and the best ten hens.  The best two cockerels and the ten best pullets are selected from the young birds.  The pullets are teamed with the cocks and the hens with the cockerels.  The breeder is ready for the following season.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]   Old time breeder, Bruce Lentz, would often have “side matings”.  This might be unrelated stock from another breeder or culls that had one or more very desirable characteristics.  He might work with these birds for years until he got them to the desired state of perfection.  Then, they would be slowly worked in on the pullet and cockerel side of his regular matings.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]   The complaints I have heard about this system are that it is too easy;  anybody can do it;  it is not breeding, and it depends upon your ability to select breeders or cull.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]   The answer?  It is easy;  anybody can do it;  it is breeding, and any system depends upon your ability to select breeders.  This system will maintain a viable population while you develop the art. [/SIZE]


Got a email from a friend asking my experience on Rolling Line Breeding. Have any of you studied this or tried this?

Having twenty females means you should try to raise at least ten chicks per female unless you are keeping ten of them for back ups?

With todays feed prices I do not know if it is practical. What do you think? Great article however.

This does sound like it would be manageable, but now my question is,what if you're only fortunate to acquire a pair? Would you create separate pens for the offspring and then start this process?

 

[Robert Blosl]

I don't know. I think I would mate the best daughters back to the sire and the best ckl or two ckls back to the hen the dam and go another year and then see what you want to come up with. To me its to many chickens to keep. I like his statement they say its to easy its not breeding. Well if it is why don't more people do it instead of failing and giving up. Breeding is a extreme skill and only one in three hundred can master it if that over ten to twenty years.

 

[TheNuttyChick]

I don't know. I think I would mate the best daughters back to the sire and the best ckl or two ckls back to the hen the dam and go another year and then see what you want to come up with. To me its to many chickens to keep. I like his statement they say its to easy its not breeding. Well if it is why don't more people do it instead of failing and giving up. Breeding is a extreme skill and only one in three hundred can master it if that over ten to twenty years.

Thank you, with that original pair I would assume you'd have to make at least two pens with their offspring to make this work and yes that is quite a few birds, but you work with what you have.