- Jan 14, 2008
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Ok all you long-timers in the hobby....
I have a question regarding tails on my male birds. I have a Columbian Rock cockerel that was hatched "early to mid-March" 2012 (blue band). He's a great improvement over my 2011 cock bird...much better chest, excellent color, good overall width and super length to his back. Only "major" fault was that his tail had relatively little lift, more like a Red than a Rock.
I had planned to keep him and just breed him with 2 pullets who had slightly higher than standard tails, hoping to get a few with his overall build, but better tails.
Now, I've been traveling a quite a bit the past 2 weeks with work and haven't seen the birds much. I was out trying to divide up birds Sunday into breeding pens and WOW, suddenly this guy is a getting a great tail....and oddly the one I had selected as my main cockbird (#26), has developed a tail that's TOO high. This actually makes me extremely happy as the one with a blue band is a much looking bird overall.
My question to all you experts is this...do Rocks take 8-10 months (or more) to develop their tail? I could have made a serious mistake and culled this one, only to be kicking myself later!! If this is the case, then I need to hang on to more males for a longer period going into next year.
Thanks!
A good object lesson-don't cull too early for more subtle issues. Haven't raised any Rocks in quite some time but this was true of the Dominique strain I bred. Tails on young males looked too low 'till one day there they were, right where they belonged.