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What breeds and how many birds of each breed do you have that you are curious about?
Bob has some great breeding info here in his article
Becoming a breeder
http://bloslspoutlryfarm.tripod.com/id27.html
Good luck with the birds
Charlie
Thanks Charlie for bringing up Gary Underwoods article he wrote for the Rhode Island Red Chronicle when I was President.Gary is my mentor on Rhode Island Reds. He would have matings of three to two females per matting and then take the best males and mate back to the two or three hens. He could fix traits faster than any one I ever saw.
I like to use the Old English Game Bantam method Pairs and trios. In Call Ducks you use pairs and you pick the best type birds and mate them the way you want for improvement.
I was looking today at a Gray Call hen and she has the body that I want but does not have the head that I want. Then next door in a pen I have a female that I call Daphne for Daphne Mays who had some of the best gray females I ever saw. How do I get the neck from Daphne on this other hen. This is the magic of breeding. I did this with Rhode Island Reds about 15 years ago. I had a male with the most perfect head I ever saw but had a short body or back. Then in a pen next door I saw a male with a killer brick shape Red body with a poor looking head and said to myself how can I get the head from the pen one male on to the pen three male. Then sitting in front of me was a female that was scratching in the dirt who had a great brick shape body good head and good color. So I mated her to the pen one male for 35 days and the pen three male for 35 days and got a male from one pen that I really liked then I mated him to the hen the next year and then I hit the jackpot. I got a male named #68 the best male I ever raised with great brick shape and a perfect head. Maybe I can use the same methods on my female call ducks as I did on my Reds years agobut in reverse.
These are methods learned from Gary Underwood that he learned from his father George Underwood and shared to me over twnety years ago.
Charlie how are you going to breed those killer light brahmas this year?
Standards written in the Rhode Island Red Chroncle years ago ment standard fowl vs bantams. The author Maurice Wallace always used this in his writtings.
Standard Breed in my book means breed to the book. Anyone who breeds to his likeing is not going to have a strain uniform to true type. When your birds are in front of a good judge like Walt you will pay the price. When you build a house or a barn you got to follow the blue print. If you do not follow the blue print your finished product will be off and you will have to ajust yourself to get the finished product correct. This works ok in tree houses as kids but in the contruction world it does not work. Same thing in Breeding live stock. If you want to maintain a strain to a certain trait or look got to try to follow the blue print.
However, you have the choice not to follow it and thats all right to. Just enjoy your birds as you see fit. I just like trying to improve the birds better than I found them.
I am sure glad I got this old book.
Hope you all have a great night. I am going to sit back and watch my New Orleans Saints play those dirty birds from Alanta, Georgia. bob
Yes Gary Underwood what a great RIR man.
Gary Underwood and Shannon Huggins are go to people for any genetics questions they are the best. Gary is an icon and Shannon is getting her degree in genetics down in Texas and is a Light Brahma girl.
I plan on breeding six females with two cockerels. I will set up 6 pens. Hens 1 thru 6 in separate pens. I will breed cockerel 1 to hens 1 thru 3 by moving the cockerel from pen to pen. I will do the same with hens 4 thru 6 and cockerel 2. I wll set about 30 eggs per hen. Then I will remove both cockerels and wait 28 days and reverse the cockerels with 2 on hens 1 thru 3 and cockerel 1 on hens 4 thru 6. I will hatch about about 150 birds if I only get about a 75% hatch rate with this system and toe punch each hens offspring differently. It is extra work for this year but I have a plan. Next year I will either quad breed 3 hens per cock bird or I may pen breed 12 hens to 2 cock birds. This will depend on this years turnout.
This year and the next two years I will be working on vigor and fertility. This years culling will be heavily based on early feathering and active behavior in the chicks from day 1 through grow out. My birds have excellent type and color presently. I also have the benefit of two other serious breeders Mark Peterson and Joe Burns breeding the same line within 20 miles of me to share birds with. This is a great system for any breeder as fresh blood is readily available to each other as needed. I highly recommend any serious breeder to find a partner or two within a reasonable distance to help each other in preserving your lines of poultry. This is an old practice that has been used by many of the top breeders. I am also doing this with a dark brahma line with Bill Erpelding and Duane Urch.
Mark and I got about 40 birds 30 to 33 weeks old processed and the average weight when done was about 7 lbs. per bird hens and cockerels combined. They are excellent slow roasters for eating or soup. This is what Heritage is all about.
In today's world I too think of standard bred poultry as any birds being bred to the standard of perfection. I must admit though I sometimes find myself referring to large fowl as standard fowl, probably due to my age.
Any one breeding non APA ABA birds could use an old standard if the bird was once in the standard or use the standard from another country. The U. S. is not the only country with a poultry standard. If all else fails just e mail Walt.
I see the Saints won Hooray. Send me a note if you got my email. Things are moving along.
Good luck with the birds
Charlie
Charlie, that is so kind of you to point me in this direction.
