Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[Robert Blosl]

Quote:
Bob,

I have never seen a gray Call female with mallard or Rouen coloring. I judged over 300 of them at Columbus a couple months ago. Maybe someone else has seen one, but I haven't.

Walt

What I ment was has anyone wrote a article how you go about breeding the color pattern for the female or the male I am more interesteds in the Gray Call colorpattern but I was hoping I may find clues from the other breeds to use on the calls such as the Rouens. I got a interesting email from a waterfowl judge who said my male had to much of this or that as a show duck but would make a great female breeder. He was the best colored young drake when he was two to three months old that is the female color befor he got his drake colors. It still is a puzzle to me. Much like breeding blue chickens. It could be worse I could be breeding those Japinenne Rhode Island Reds with the big legs. bob

 

[halo]

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WOW y is this not more populer??? i tryied it earlyer today on 2 young black Orp roosters... i skined them instead of plucking but other than that followed the directions exactly... being as this was my first time doing it it probably took me the same amount of time... but i can see that with practice this would be way faster and easer to do... no need to get the lung pullers out... would save alot of time in the final clean up of the bird....

thanks so much for posting this

Excellent! I am so glad you tried. Yes, with a little practice, you save immense amounts of time. The only reason we do whole birds is if they are intended to be roasters. Otherwise, this preparation, i.e. spatchcocking, saves time and also gets you one step further to having your bird porperly cut up for recipes.

NB: This is great because it gives you a viable way to cull early and yet make proper use of your culls, if this is an aspect that causes you pause. In other words, certain traits are visible, or weight defficiencies are discoverable at an early age. The ALBC method is really quite good and is suited to all of our Heritage LF, especially those built for production, which is most.
Now, I"m not advocating culling all of one's stock too early. If you cull down to five cockerels at 8-weeks, you're probably cutting your chances significantly. However, if your growing-out capacity is 100 birds, per se, than why are you going to grow about a bunch of fowl you know are not worthy. If your growing arrangements permit (think space and sanitation) hatch out 150 or 200, at 8 weeks, in accord with the ALBC plan, weight out your birds, notice birds with aboslute defects, as well. Reduce down to that 100 number, which is your goal. Now, when you're growing out birds, you at least know they "made the cut", and you still are going to have your quota for watching type, early maturity, etc.... Then when you cull down to 10 +/-, you're choosing from birds that have reached a bare minimum from an early age.

Besides, broilers are truly yummy.

I agree, wonderful post. I will try this very soon, thanks for posting these directions.

 

[fowlman01]

Quote:
Bob,

I have never seen a gray Call female with mallard or Rouen coloring. I judged over 300 of them at Columbus a couple months ago. Maybe someone else has seen one, but I haven't.

Walt

What I ment was has anyone wrote a article how you go about breeding the color pattern for the female or the male I am more interesteds in the Gray Call colorpattern but I was hoping I may find clues from the other breeds to use on the calls such as the Rouens. I got a interesting email from a waterfowl judge who said my male had to much of this or that as a show duck but would make a great female breeder. He was the best colored young drake when he was two to three months old that is the female color befor he got his drake colors. It still is a puzzle to me. Much like breeding blue chickens. It could be worse I could be breeding those Japinenne Rhode Island Reds with the big legs. bob

Dr Darrel Sheraw might have something in his Call Duck book. Female Call ducks are the only bird I know of where you can win best of show on a bird that does not have the correct color. It is usually not a problem in mallards unless you have some pond mallards. My mallards are marked very distinctly. Rouens usually fail in the breast or cushion area. Gray Call females never have the correct penciling. I have tried using males with lacing in the bib on gray calls with some success....but not much. Let me know if you find an answer.

Walt

 

[Yellow House Farm]

As per the grey call conservation, I assume we're discussing the apparent complete absense of distinct penciling in the females, especially in the breast?

 

[buffalogal]

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I remember that they were on there a while now back but your website only mentions the Dorkings, so I wasn't sure if you still had them. I haven't had mine anywhere near a showroom in well over a decade, (and that was only the county fair). I just keep them because I enjoy them. Come to think of it, it's hard to find nice SC these days too, at least in this part of the country. Overall, Anconas are another breed that is so run down that all anyone ever sees is hatchery birds. On the bright side, they say if you have one rosecomb cock in a pen of single comb hens, you will soon have a pen of rose combs. (Maybe that's why people were so careless about them?)


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I used to own this book; I remember I couldn't believe there was a whole book about *my* chickens! I stupidly lent it to someone about 10 years ago when I gave them a trio "for their kids". They kept the birds about 4 months, they kept the book forever. >insert several unladylike swear words here<

 

[fowlman01]

Quote:
Absence of penciling is pretty much everywhere in the gray Call female.

Walt

 

[X2Farm]

So I just got back from a lil show in Jefferson, GA. Had some AMAZING birds... I was drooling over some Buckeyes, bantam RIR's, and LF RC and SC RIR. Wow

If I had more quarantine area, I would have picked up a pair of each! Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I had to use my phone and only got a limited # of pictures. There were TONS of Games. Wow! And they are all so dang tiny! We did come home with a lil Wheaton colored D'uccle and Black Silkie (for the kids) both babies.

My first chicken show, wow, its like a big candy store!

I was even able to talk to a few folks about Delawares, Dominiques and Barred Rocks.

The kids had a BLAST! This was thier first show ever, ours too. My son wrote down the names of all the breeds he wanted.... the list has at least a dozen breeds on it

Might have a budding poultry enthusiast on my hands

Ok, enough rambling, here are the pictures!
White faced black Spanish pair

What passed for a New Hampshire (looks twin to my hatchery ordered New Hampshire)

White D'uccle

White Wyandotte

The lone Duck. A Grey Call?

Dark Cornish

SC RIR

Buff Leghorn

 

[Illia]

Ugh, poor New Hampshire. . .


Love the Buff Leghorn and the White Faced Black Spanish. Good or great quality set aside, it is nice seeing some rare birds.

 

[buffalogal]

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There's an ARBA publication(*) that has that same linebreeding diagram, only one parent is white and the other is filled in black. So the #2 animal which was 50%, was half black, half white. Makes it very easy to see the percentages of the offspring because the circles that represent them are colored in like a pie chart.

(*)I want to say the paperback edition of "Raising Rabbits the Modern Way", but don't quote me on that yet. It's the one where the author talks about his "famous Tans"

 

[X2Farm]

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We almost came home w the WFBSpanish.. DH really liked em...but I just don't have the room,

I don't know the standard for them, but they were gorgeous