Another thing - I have heard some say - for example, "the genes are there," when they have a cull from good stock. (Well, of course, there are always culls.) In my opinion, "the genes are NOT there," and that is why the bird was a cull. Not ALL genes are passed on.
Tell me, Walt and Bob, is my thinking right here?.
You are right Kathy. After about three years of breeding and God knows how many hours of reading and phone interviews of the masters befor they died I came up with this thinking. The genes are there and I as abreeder have to go after the ones I want and cull the ones that I dont want. Ralph Sturgeon made me think its like cooking fried fish after you get done in a few hours all the clean oil is on the top and the sedament is on the bottom. You take a big spoon and take the good oil and put it in a jar and when you get down to the sedament of rustic looking oil you take it out side and put it on the back fence and let it go. You can re -use the good oil for another batch of fish next time. In my breeding I kept the females that matured the fastest and layed befor the other females and took two of them and breed them the next year. Then that spring I would watch the chicks as they where in the brooder box for early fast development and would put magic markers color on thier down color to mark them and put that mark on a three by five index card. Latter in a month I would wing band them. I would watch thier groth and again out of say thirty females I would pick the best looking fastest growing birds and do this all over agian. I did this for five years in a row. Each year they would grow faster, lay thier eggs sooner and befor I knew it I had a strain of Reds that layed about 200 eggs in thier pullet year. They had gone from poor feather quality on thier backs to tight webing, they had incradable brick shape type and I had searched for the lost genes which I called the Mohawk gene. It was thier all the time since 1929 just waiting to be plucked by me.
Another example when I was doing research on Black Javas for a article I wrote for the Poutlry Press and the Java Club. There was a farm musium in Illinois or some where that had some of Urchs old Black Javas and one day he hatched a chick that was blusinsh red or something. Then some one else a year or so latter hatched a chick just like this one but the oppoist sex. They crossed the two togeather and the next thing they knew they had a new color of Javas. Not black or mottled but this color. I then found out in the ealry days of black Javas they had this color pattern but never got it in the stanard so the color pattern died and went to the way side. This color pattern was just laying there in these black javas for over 100 years just waiting to be found.
We have a lost gene in Rhode Island Reds that I always look for it a chick that has blueish down color. These chicks are like the white Buffalo that is Born every once in a while in the planes where they are breed. They produce great colored birds they say in the old days by great Hall of Fame breeders. So you as a breeder have to be a person who is hunting for lost genes. My first article I ever wrote for the Red Club was called In Search of the Lost Genes and I still to this day looking for these classic old genes when selecting my breeders for next year.
In Orpingtons those classic old great birds are still there waiting to come out and help you. If there is a look you want do what Mr. Sturegeon use to say to me. Put breeding pressure on the trait or gene and it will come to the surface. In your project with Delawares you are in a new frontier. You are trying to invent a old breed. Their are others out thier that have other stains and have to try to push the good barring and type to the surface. Is it there to be found I am not confident that it is. It may take 20 years for them to improve just one point. However, I think your method will have faster progress in five to eight years.
Searcing for the lost gnes is what is fun in breeding. Only one in three to five hundered breeders can do it. That is why Mr. Sturegeon use to say many are called but few are chosen.
Boy you guys sure did kick this thread up a notch. Thank you so much.
Off to feed the birds and look for lost genes. Funny thing the reason I called Mr. Brazelton 27 years ago was to buy the trap nests that he was advertising in the Poutlry Press that he use to use. Best phone call I ever made. bob
