Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[AllenWMiller]

It is alright Jeff a lot of clean living and happy times with poultry got me this far and the mind is still open and willing but the body some days just is not! Well truth be told the mind is not willing some times either; case in point Robert's question.

And I hope Robert that this time I came up with the term you were looking for! Otherwise let me know and I'll rattle my brain a bit more and see what falls out!.

Cheers

JA

 

[Minniechickmama]

I knew there was a term! I almost got ahold of my old ag teacher to ask him. Luckily, it wouldn't have been too hard to do, he is a friend of mine still.
Dr. Miller, if I am as sharp at 79 as you are at 97, I will really have something to celebrate.

Okay, your personal info says you moved back to Pa from SJ. Where is SJ?

 

[AllenWMiller]

We used to live in Southern New Jersey aka SJ.

 

[Minniechickmama]

We used to live in Southern New Jersey aka SJ.

Ah! All I could think of was San Juan and San Jose and neither of those made any sense from seeing what your background is.

 

[Robert Blosl]

Well that is great. I have a term to go with my process. I hope some of you one day can have partners who will work with you like I have. We are like blood brothers. We will not do each other wrong and we strive to breed by the standard. You should see my little Rhode Island Red bantams. They look just like big eight pound large fowl but in a miniature package. My grandpa use to say to me as a little boy where there is a will there is a way. If you want to shrink down a large fowl Red to a bantam it can be done. You should see my females as they look like my old large fowl females ten years ago however, four years ago they where sorry. I just said I have a heck of a male and he is the one in my avatar picture and I will just inbreed him back to his daughters for three years. It worked. If I didn't I would have had red rock females and brick shape males.

Thanks for all your help lets see if we can come up with something else to learn from. bob

 

[Robert Blosl]

http://www.theburkelab.org/reprints/Evolution2007.pdf

I have not had time to dig into this term but I do wonder in this article I found from Gerogia on plants if there is somewhat more of a
hybred kick in the flock when you make a cross from one line say in Illionis and the other line in Tennessess. Also, a term I thought of
is Closed strain Out Crossing as a term to make it understood. A closed strain in my view is a line purchased from a breeder say twenty five years
ago and no outside blood has been introduced. You use a method of line breeding which I like Rotational Line breeding of four familys rotating a good male from one pen to the right
each year for say 16 years. Then you pick up a three year old proven hen and cross her to your pen one male and then rotate her son back to the right to pen two the next year then you put two of her daughters back into pen one and go on for another 16 years. Never again using any new blood in your line just fixing the good traits each year and culling out the bad ones having a over all flock that would lay say 200 eggs per pullet year and if scored by a old time APA judge would have a flock score of say 94 points. This would be one of the top three strains of large fowl in North America.

Clossed Outcrossing, Closed blood line Hybred vigor is a term that comes to my mind doing this.

Let me explan a story told to me by a Turkey breeder from Wisconsin who raised bronzed turkeys for us to eat each year. He had 15 familys. He rotated the best Tom Turkey to the right pen each year. He had done this for over twenty five years. Now the Tom was Artifical Assementated to the females as the breasts where so large they could not mate natualy. This is how I cam up with this term and idea for my White Plymouth Rocks and Rhode Island Red large fowl. That is how I breed my Rhode Island Red Bantams today. I called it Rotational Line Breeding.

He told me a story of a fellow in the 1920s who had a fantastic strain of Dorok Hogs from Wisconsin. He had at the time the best show line and production line in the USA. He had two sons one lived in middle Wisconsin and another lived in Southern Illinois. They both line breed thier fathers hogs for over 50 years each one would swap a sow the best one of the year every 8 years and that would give them new blood for their farm. They did ths till they grew to thier 80s and retired from even when these men where in thier old age thier hogs where equal in value and type as their father had done when they where young. boys. As I paint this picture I hope you see what I am trying to get across. If the term GENETIC DIVERGENCE applies to this method so be it.

It would not be hard to do in any breed of fowl. I am doing it with my Rhode Island Red bantams with three breeders. I have a partner in Gray Call ducks in Oregon and we have done it for five years. We have the same strain as a fellow who is a master breeder in New York. I have a new partner in Canada who has my Large Fowl white rocks and he has the same Gray Call line from New York and his line has been line breed and closed for six year. I have one of his drakes to cross onto my line.

If anyone else who has some views on this or have heard others do it please put in your two cents. I tell you again the number one reason new people fail with Heritage Large Fowl in three to five years is crossing stains. You end up with more head aches than positive results. You are in the long run money ahead to stick with a strain of say Rhode Island Reds like Don Nelson, Adraian Radamacher, or Greg Chamness my old Moahwk line then cross any of these three lines onto each other. Even outcrossing White Rock Chickens will give you three good years of cleaning up befor you get stable off sping with out naging faults. The reason for crosing in most people is fresh vigor or new blood. Look forward to your ideas. bob

 

[Robert Blosl]

This thread got stop-ed on the issue of breeding a strain from someone else to another and I thought I would tell you of a lost strain of White Plymouth Rock Large Fowl that I found.

I went to a fellows home about two weeks ago to look at some Rhode Island Reds I gave him about four years ago and after I looked them over I said I would like to borrow one of the old hens and cross onto my line. He said sure. Do you want to go and see the White Rocks? I said what White Rocks. He said I got some of the old White rocks you gave me ten years ago. I said you got to be kidding me. He said come over and I will show you. When I walked over to a pen in the woods sure enough there was a cock bird and two old hens. Wow I said to myself what a hen. What classic Rock type. What a tail and lift in her back. I said could I bring you say two hens so I could borrow that female and cross on to my big cockerel. He said sure. I then asked him how did you find these birds. He said I gave some to a lady and she had them for about seven years and then she had to give them up because she was to old to care for them. I have had these three for about four years.

I thought this old line was about played out with only two others in the country that had any of them but me. Its a miracle I said. She breed them to the two pictures you gave me and I gave the pictures to her and told her to pick the baby chicks when they grew up to look like the pictures.

So never give up hope that sometimes when you share large fowl with someone you may by just a slim chance see them again maybe in as good if not better than you had to begin with.

I am a happy fellow and cant wait to cross this line with my old line which goes back about 50 years from a fellow in California.

So this also answers some of the personnel messages asking me if I got my old line of White Rock Large Fowl back and I do have two males and seven females, plus I will trade this fellow three new birds for these old birds and cross them onto my birds next year for some fresh infusion of out cross same strain blood.

Bob

 

[cherylcohen]

This thread got stop-ed on the issue of breeding a strain from someone else to another and I thought I would tell you of a lost strain of White Plymouth Rock Large Fowl that I found.

I went to a fellows home about two weeks ago to look at some Rhode Island Reds I gave him about four years ago and after I looked them over I said I would like to borrow one of the old hens and cross onto my line. He said sure. Do you want to go and see the White Rocks? I said what White Rocks. He said I got some of the old White rocks you gave me ten years ago. I said you got to be kidding me. He said come over and I will show you. When I walked over to a pen in the woods sure enough there was a cock bird and two old hens. Wow I said to myself what a hen. What classic Rock type. What a tail and lift in her back. I said could I bring you say two hens so I could borrow that female and cross on to my big cockerel. He said sure. I then asked him how did you find these birds. He said I gave some to a lady and she had them for about seven years and then she had to give them up because she was to old to care for them. I have had these three for about four years.

I thought this old line was about played out with only two others in the country that had any of them but me. Its a miracle I said. She breed them to the two pictures you gave me and I gave the pictures to her and told her to pick the baby chicks when they grew up to look like the pictures.

So never give up hope that sometimes when you share large fowl with someone you may by just a slim chance see them again maybe in as good if not better than you had to begin with.

I am a happy fellow and cant wait to cross this line with my old line which goes back about 50 years from a fellow in California.

So this also answers some of the personnel messages asking me if I got my old line of White Rock Large Fowl back and I do have two males and seven females, plus I will trade this fellow three new birds for these old birds and cross them onto my birds next year for some fresh infusion of out cross same strain blood.

Bob

Congrats Bob, that's awesome!

 

[Robert Blosl]

Just thought of a subject to interject to this thread I started over a year ago and its about promoting the old breeds or the catch all word that some hate for me to use HERITAGE BREEDS but it worked didn't it. I bet I got at least a 100 of you interested in STANDARD BREED Poultry which is the old time nice word to use but here is my thoughts. So many of you want to help out a noble old time breed but you are so frustrated that the Quality of the birds you are getting are so poor. You want me to shake the BUSHES and find you some sleeper cell strain in the Mountains of Arkansas or Montana that some old timer has been breeding. In many cases, their is no one. The breed was and always was very hard to breed for color and that is why even the keenest of breeders don't fool with them or they passed away and took their secrets to the grave. Some want Delawares or Sussex or White Face Black Spanish. Could not fine you many or any worth a hoot to get. They where about as good is over all quality as a Hatchery Chicken. I have learned some of these owners are doing their best to JUST keep the gene pool alive for you guys but they do not have the time or money to cull hard as hobbiest does and what you get is what they have. You have to learn how to breed them up and it may take five to ten years to do it.

One person wrote me about three weeks ago and is giving up the BREED that they have been working with for about two years. They are just to small and wont get better or bigger. I think the reason is to get this breed back to some quality the owner ten years ago crossed a great bant am Cockerel onto his large fowl hens and improved the color but he left us with the bantam gene to pull down the size of a correct weight in the large fowl. One lady with the same breed got some new birds from a fellow and will cross these large fowl onto hers to see if size will get bigger. One fellow with the same problem is crossing a Different color but same breed onto his Silver Pencil led Rocks a big Partridge pullet that is as big as my White Rock Pullets. He said a fellow in England does it with Large Fowl Wyandottes and the color comes out ok. But he might be able to pull the size up with this female.

So I thought why go out and try to find another breed that needs helps that's in the same boat as the one you spent two years trying to improve. Why not ask some of us old guys what strains or rare breeds are out there that need help that are respectable or could at least score 92 to 93 points out of a hundred if judged using the old fashion HERITAGE scoring system. Example::
Lets say I had I K Feltch or Henry K Miller or Maurice Wallace from Canada with me and we would go to flocks of chickens all over North America and look at the different strains. We then could have a list from these classic old judges from the early days of Poultry tell us this is a good strain of Silver Laced Wyandottes, Rhode Island Reds, White Plymouth Rocks,Dominique's, Black Austral ops or Buff Orpingtons.

Now I have just named some breeds that you may think is popular but are not very poplar in my view at this time but there are some folks that have some very good birds for you to obtain and get started with.

Think first or find out the status of a breed be for you get the HOTS to get them because you see a pretty picture in a catalog or on a coffee cup that Diann Jacky has on her web site.

You may have just got a new APA standard and went nuts over this breed say BLUE ROCKS. Yet I cant find you any master breeders for this color pattern. It was the most popular rock asked for this past year and about drove my wife nuts. She would tell me why don't these people ask for something that is available and not buy a stupid picture. So in conclusion she is so right.

Why don't we this year think and study be for we buy or ask. I have a better grip on what is out there this year. Lord knows I have made en-ought phone calls and emails to Judges and breeders asking for these rare breeds.

Lets try to improve the endangered breeds that are not yet a lost cause. Then in time we can come back and try to help the other breeds or just try to keep them close to their shape and look but not spend so much time and money on them you want to give up. Its only natural for you to feel that way. I did on my first breed Light Brahmas. When I saw what they should have looked like I cry ed. Why would someone tell me such lies to a kid. The old man did not know any better. He did not have a standard or went to a good poultry show.

What says you. Do you want to help some of the good quality HERITAGE breeds this year?

bob

 

[capayvalleychick]

Lets try to improve the endangered breeds that are not yet a lost cause. Then in time we can come back and try to help the other breeds or just try to keep them close to their shape and look but not spend so much time and money on them you want to give up. ...

What says you. Do you want to help some of the good quality HERITAGE breeds this year?

bob

I understand what you are saying and you have a good point.

Personally, I don't want to see an ancient foundation breed wither away and risk extinction. So, I'll stick with my SG Dorkings. I don't think that they have the time to waste, waiting.
I'm stubborn enough not to give up and think that they are worth it.

Kim