Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[Germaine_11.20]

Mrs. Turbo :

Quote:
Reminds me of the time I finished putting up one of the dividers in the rooster house and didn't nail the boards good enough. Jerry had a SQ White Wyandotte rooster in there he had been growing out for 12 months to show...the show was 2 weeks away, and the bantam rooster next to him got a couple of the boards loose and beat up that great big wyandotte rooster. He was covered in blood and a broken beak.....he had to be put down after that.

I thought my husband was going to kill me....he just turned around and walked away cause he was so mad.

Thank you for sharing. It sure sinks in better when people give life stories and examples. I don't always have to learn the hard way and this I will remember!​

 

[Robert Blosl]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Uyw0l4iEQ

I think this thread is all ready a on line Heritage Poultry Show. Look at those buff Orpingtons. There is a male next to the edge of the pen look at his head and his comb near perfect. Next look at the color of the feathers. Do you see the golden hue of buff? Look how even the color is and his females have buff color like the Buff Rocks I have seen pictures of in England. Its just a joy to see such outstanding Heritage Poultry and two see them breed to the Standard of Perfection. It makes no difference if you have the latest out Standard of Perfection or you have one like me that I have had since 1964. The laws and guidance is in the book. The secret you must obey the laws of this book and if you do tied in to select fast feathering early develpement genes you will have great looking chickens. I had a lady who called me today who wants blue laced Wyandotte large fowl. I have never seen one and I bet there are not 50 alive today in the USA that could score 90 points out of a hundred. Blue is a very difficult color to breed. You have to double mate them to even get close to a standard bird. Why people want these hard to breed colors I dont know. There are so many old breeds that needs or help and are so much easyer to breed. Thanks for the pretty pictures. We got to start learning how to do U tube with live birds. I am going to give you a taste with these one link. I am going to try to learn how to do it myself. Just got to do it.
Off to work to make some money to buy chicken feed. Keep the Poultry show coming. bob

 

[Robert Blosl]

Scotts your Dawf Colubian Rock female. Scott last year I raised a Rhode Island Red bantam that had a goof eye one was normal one was large. I liked her color and raised her and then she lost her big eye. I called her one eye. I mated her to the rooster thats below my name her father. Never got one chick out of her. WHY? In my strain of Rhode Island Red bantams is large fowl. 22 years ago I crossed a Rhode Island Red onto my Mowhawk large fowl. Over 15 years I shrunk down the birds to a bantam then crossed a red bantam and half mine onto my strain. Then I got the bantam gene going again with out loosing the large fowl brick shape and level wings. The reason you get sprots like this some times is in your case someone might have crossed Colubian bantams on to this line of large fowl Rocks. I even thought of getting the best large fowl Columbians I could find then cross them on to a super strain of Colubian bantams and breed them up. It could be done to get the color and type. Would take about ten years of work. When I saw the Columbian large fowl from Canada I said to myself it would be easyer to get these birds into the USA and then get them in the hands of good breeders. You will get screwing chickens sometimes but you cull them and breed from the best birds you got. Also, this is what happens sometimes when you cross to strains of chickens onto another. You think you are going to hit the jackpot but what you end up doing is sturring up a gene pool of bad and good traits. You have to skim the bad traits off the top of the pot to end up with the good traits you wish to see in your flock. Hope this helps you. Dont breed from her. Breed from the femlaes that have the best Rock Type you can find. bob

 

[Yard full o' rocks]

Quote:
As always...THANK YOU SIR!! I just feel bad for her. I hope that perhaps I can raise her up and put her in with my DWs 2 silkies. She is truly a fun little thing to have around...just not the "breeding stock" I need to make a go of these Columbians. Somehow I gotta get out of getting "attached" to these birds if I am going to breed properly. My wife always tells people that I would take in any stray that wandered up....and she's right. I guess I have a real soft spot for God's other creatures....I should've been a vet!!!

 

[Intheswamp]

I apologize for responding to an older message and if this has already been covered, but I've been away for quiet a while and I'm only up to message #519 in this thread so far...

The idea of the "off season" hatched birds being inferior is something that has bugged me for a while and something that I've just recently re-visited. My initial curiosity was tweaked by something I read in Gail Damerow's chicken handbook regarding fall-hatched pullets possibly being more prone to prolapse.

It appears that the problem is not really an issue that the chicks are hatched in the fall but rather that they near maturity or come to maturity during a time of increasing daylight hours. Follicle stimulating hormones (FSH) cause the formation of ovarian follicles and eventually ovum/yolk. The increasing daylight hours tend to increase the FSH formation and thus accelerates the sexual maturity of the pullet...possibly bringing the pullet to sexual maturity *before* the pullet is physically/structurally mature thus causing problems with egg-laying.

Conversely, with "in season" (spring/summer) hatched birds they will near maturity or come to maturity during a time of decreasing daylight hours. The time of decreasing daylight hours causes the formation of FSH to decrease and thus slows down the pullet's sexual maturing so that their skeletons, etc., are physically matured when they finally come into season.

Here is a good article at the University of Main (the entire article is good, but about halfway down is a section titled "The role of light in reproduction"... Lighting For Small-Scale Flocks

Here is a graph calculator for determining daylight hours... Daylight in a Graph

Using the graph and noting your hatch date you can count forward to your pullets' estimated POL and visually see whether they will be coming into maturity in decreasing or increasing daylight hours. If they will be maturing during increasing daylight hours you might want to read a couple of the sections on down in the UofM article.

I don't know whether these hormones or others that are light sensitive could be causing the smaller birds but there might be a connection...???

Just some food for thought but remember, this comes from a guy that still doesn't have a chicken on the place.

...one day, though....

Ed

Quote:
The Fall hatched birds tend to be smaller. They carry the correct size genes, but they are physically smaller in most cases. Fall is a good time to hatch bantams but not large fowl.......or that has been my experience in this very temperate climate here in Calif.

Walt

I did experience that with hatching Delawares. I had a hatch the first of November and a hatch in March. The March birds are noticably larger. I thought it was because I changed feeds, and started using Game Bird feed with the March hatch.

Shoot, guess I will unplug the incubators now.

 

[joletabey]

Ed, thank you for that piece of information - it makes perfect sense!

 

[Mrs. Turbo]

wonder how that would cause a problem for the roosters because our fall roosters are always smaller than our spring hatched roosters....does kinda make sense on the pullets

 

[Chook-A-Holic]

How the heck did I miss this thread? Well, back to page one...

EDIT: WOW, Great thread!!!

Just want to add a few pics of my RIR's

Cockerels at 5 months

Cockerels at 6 months

Pullets at 6 months

I have really enjoyed raising these. Can't wait for some offspring. I wonder why the DW says I'm obsessed?

 

[Intheswamp]

Quote:
You're welcome joletabey. As much as BYC has helped me with my poultry education it's good to sometimes pay some of it back.

Actually the section in the UofM article entitled "Lighting for Growing Pullets" is really the one I should have pointed ya'll to...

Mrs Turbo, I really don't know what to say about the roosters.... ??

Now if I can just get some nice heritage BRs lined up for this spring.

Ed

 

[fowlman01]

Mrs. Turbo :

wonder how that would cause a problem for the roosters because our fall roosters are always smaller than our spring hatched roosters....does kinda make sense on the pullets

Calif weather is a lot different than most other states. The late hatch birds are usually smaller here...male/female the same. That could be different in other climates.
I'm always for doing what works.

Walt​