Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[thedragonlady]

Really like the wording, this is probably why so many new comers and less skilled/educated breeders are so stubborn against crossing even different strains of the same breed. If you know your standard, know what end result you want, and have either the natural eye or a really good trained one, its not some big scary thing to outcross a bit. I'll echo one of my poultry heroes, "we breed chickens, not people."

The other side is exactly what you said in other post but is so important I want to reword it and restate it, only keep and breed from birds that have the qualities you want. Not the relatives of that bird that don't have the qualities.

Exactly ! Thank you !

 

[BGMatt]

Well maybe if something gets said enough it will stick! LOL

 

[cluck-cluck]

Duly noted! There is nothing I can do about being a newb, but this does excite me and I have time

 

[gjensen]

Really like the wording, this is probably why so many new comers and less skilled/educated breeders are so stubborn against crossing even different strains of the same breed. If you know your standard, know what end result you want, and have either the natural eye or a really good trained one, its not some big scary thing to outcross a bit. I'll echo one of my poultry heroes, "we breed chickens, not people."

The other side is exactly what you said in other post but is so important I want to reword it and restate it, only keep and breed from birds that have the qualities you want. Not the relatives of that bird that don't have the qualities.

I will agree with all of this providing the influence of family tendencies are considered. The influence of an entire family is stronger than the influence of an individual. I have not played around with this long, but long enough to consider family tendencies. I am mentioning this as something to be mindful of, and not disagreeing.

 

[cbnovick]

Well maybe if something gets said enough it will stick! LOL

Repetition is key in education or so I'm told....I need written notes often times though.
Btw- Love your avatar!!

 

[NYREDS]

Really like the wording, this is probably why so many new comers and less skilled/educated breeders are so stubborn against crossing even different strains of the same breed. If you know your standard, know what end result you want, and have either the natural eye or a really good trained one, its not some big scary thing to outcross a bit. I'll echo one of my poultry heroes, "we breed chickens, not people."

The other side is exactly what you said in other post but is so important I want to reword it and restate it, only keep and breed from birds that have the qualities you want. Not the relatives of that bird that don't have the qualities.

I would agree with the proviso that outcrossing needs to be done carefully, with a purpose in mind & with careful record keeping & rigid culling. The outcrossing that often gets talked about here rarely produces desireable results, that being the buy a hen here & a cock there & see what happens approach.

 

[Robert Blosl]

Ok, Bob, I gotta a question for you (and the others can feel free to offer their insights). You mentioned many times how you pressured and went fishing and caused the Mohawk gene(s) to surface. How did you know it was surfacing, what did it look like to you? I am assuming it was a black quill or similar? How did you know which bird it came through, the dam or the sire? Maybe you didn't know and it didn't matter or maybe it sure did. If it did matter, what were your next steps after it surfaced?

I ask because I've been working with this old line of shabby Reds and have pressured many nice features to surface, color, feathering, front chest for better type, etc. But there are still some glaring weaknesses that remain. These tid bits are invaluable to those of us still working on some birds.

I had a good strain much like this today but the feather quality on the females was stringy and I wanted pullets to have tight webbed feathers over their back at ten months of age. I kept pushing and the brick shape got better, more length of body they where like school busses but oblong and then at the five year mark a male popped up and I said Holy crap where did he come from. Keep breeding him to others kept keeping good records on laying date, crowing times ect. Then it just showed up a male like Mr. Reese had that I saw that was six years old and I had the sister to him.

It can revert backwards just as easy as I found it and I have some birds that came from me that have some what but my point is you never know what's locked up in these old gene pools. If they are still pure and know one messed up by crossing other breeds into these old lines. I hate to tell you this but many have done this in banam strains and we can see latter the changes come back to haunt you.

The trouble with crossing strains its like a ping pong ball effect you may not see it for three to five years then BAM the show up. Got to cull then start over again. We as Preservationist have no time to loose. I lost three years on my red bantams because of a female I used that had a sloping back like a Minorca as I thought I can breed this out. I did the first year then the second every one of my chicks was rainy day. Big mistake on my part as I had enough genes pulling against me with large fowl blood and bantam blood going around.

If these chickens are black it wont take no time to get them close and improved to standard breed look. I have seen Capines improve and get on Champion Row. Its kind of like people that want to take White Face Black Spanish and cross them onto Black Minorca's. Do it and see how long you got to clean up the messes. Just improve what you. You start out with what you got. Move forward and improve. I hope you take on this old breed and we will help you anyway we can as what works for one breed can work on another. bob

 

[cluck-cluck]

Thanks, I'm back to maniacally taking notes and reading again, and thinking....LOL.

 

[Regin]

We are newbies too. For several years I had been interested in getting some chickens for eggs(mostly). A friend hatched some of her eggs for us. Well, now we have 8 Dominique Mutts. Our chickens are now 14 weeks old. My husband likes them too, but it's mostly my project.

There were several things about chickens that surprised me. There is very much more I still need to figure out. I have been reading a lot and found BYC (especially this thread) to be very helpful.

We built a movable coop with attached 4x8 run, that we move every 3-4 days. It's a little bit heavier than it should be. When I was designing it I was reading about predator issues! I call it Fort Chix. We let them out to roam some, and they always come back to the fort.

I am interested in getting into some heritage breed(s) of chickens, but first I have got to figure out if I can handle culling. Then decide what breed(s). One step at a time for now.

Next step is to see if I can get involved with someone's butchering process. If I can do that, In the next few months I will decide if I want to get in any deeper.

So for us, not really a fad, but not ready to jump in over our heads either.

 

[cluck-cluck]

Love fort knocks! Good job! I'm really hoping that in the next few years, we can move to the country and I won't have all these restrictions, but I also don't want to sit still. I think for now, I might do some smaller scale experimenting since I'm now given some interesting option ideas

Gosh, I got some baby chicks over a week ago and I haven't seen them since Wednesday! I'm so frustrated sitting here in bed! . I'm going nuts!