Brahma Breeders thread

[Tim63]

Tim could you advise some of us re diet? I have a great foundation pair from jackie but just curious what you do re feeding
Ps the east coasters keep their showbirds out of sun for fading

Just a good quality feed. I use 20% game-bird breeder pellets. No-scratch. Lots of grass. Everyone keeps the buffs out of the sun because they will fade. Lights, mostly males, will get brassy if not shaded.

Tim

 

[Tim63]

Just a side note. The reason I have stopped feeding grains/scratch is the birds prefer it over the breeder pellets. They will fill up on the grains and miss the nutritional value of the pellets. I have tried feeding all kinds of stuff and concluded the birds do better on the nutritionally balanced pellets. I feed chick starter grower to about three months and then the pellets. I do feed a small amount of black oil sunflower seed to birds I am conditioning to show. The high oil content does help feather quality. Just five or so a day per bird. This of course is from my personal experience. I have done lots of dumb stuff and made plenty of mistakes.

Tim

P.S. and please don't kid yourselves......birds do better on feed that contains ANIMAL protein. All this vegetarian diet feed crap is pure B.S. Chickens are omnivores.

 

[Tim63]

A few of my Buffs. They have not been shaded so yes, they are a bit faded. Breeders.

Tim

 

[Tim63]

B R A H M A

 

[HenHacienda]

I use ROO sometimes. Its just shorter to type when you're typing alot. And for the record, just because I'm a "newbie" to BYC doesn't mean I'm new to chickens, hahaha

 

[brahmabreeder]

So far I'm up to best Jr Asiatic at the ohio national!

 

[big medicine]

Thank you both. That's what i thought you were talking about, but I call it a Cro-Magnon brow, like a caveman. lol My Gold Laced definitely are good on that one. I know my Blue Partridge isn't perfect by any means but i haven't seen many that were. I am going to try to work toward bettering them though.

Working to improve our birds is a worthy, and lifelong mission for most of us.

 

[Tim63]

Money well spent buying adult birds. I think two pairs are better than one trio as it gives a broader genetic foundation. Go to shows, talk to breeders, learn their reputation. Instant gratification and breeding quality birds do not go together. Buy a standard. Learn what a good Brahma truly is. Type is paramount. A lot of the crap marketed as "Brahmas" are just pretty birds,........about as close to "Brahmas" as many OEGBs. Kim tells the truth, listen to her.

 

[bumpercarr]

Money well spent buying adult birds. I think two pairs are better than one trio as it gives a broader genetic foundation. Go to shows, talk to breeders, learn their reputation. Instant gratification and breeding quality birds do not go together. Buy a standard. Learn what a good Brahma truly is. Type is paramount. A lot of the crap marketed as "Brahmas" are just pretty birds,........about as close to "Brahmas" as many OEGBs. Kim tells the truth, listen to her.

And I should have listened to you and Gary....but I guess we all learn from experience. I like having genetic diversity as well. No matter what variety you are breeding, you need to know what you are looking for and what "goes" well with it. For instance, I'm all about gold partridge. My goal is to get a really nice line of gold partridge. But to do that, I need some really nice darks as well. So happens that it works out that I can show the darks as a recognized variety. So, I win on two fronts. I work on darks for show and work on partridge to try to get to type (and hopefully show sometime in the future...almost there!). If you are breeding a laced variety, what other laced variety or Columbian or penciled will help to improve your type? The best advice that I ever got was from Gary who said, build the house and then paint it....don't do it the other way around. So build the type and then worry about perfecting the paint. There was a great article written by Aaron Hamilton in the APA yearbook (2013 I think?) about pretty feathers not making the bird.

One thing that I have to say (and for those that are members of the American Brahma Club I apologize...I know you read this in my article) the members of the ABC are amazing! They have a wealth of valuable information and will help you in any way that they can. I haven't met a single person that scoffed or treated me as if I didn't know anything (which I don't). If you have the extra $20 to join, and have the ability to go to some shows to meet some of them, you will be impressed with how open and helpful they all are. Gary walked up and down rows of Brahmas with me and explained to me EXACTLY what was great, good, not so good, or bad about the birds that we were looking at. Tim and Gary both have a wealth of information about breeding, genetics and flock management. Both encouraged me to buy the standard from the APA, which I refer to all of the time. Many other members of the club have been just as helpful and encouraging, from getting me birds that meet the standard to talking to me about breeding practices.

So, enough of the lecture from me. I just want to say that all of these guys (and myself) only have one thing in mind when we offer you advice....we want the best representations of the breed to be the ones that are out there for sale as hatching eggs, chicks, juveniles....whatever it is you are buying, try to buy the best. You won't be disappointed and you won't go through the days and months of heartache and dissatisfaction that the rest of us have. We're only trying to help you avoid the problems that we already went through.

 

[bumpercarr]

Got a Sportsman 1502 for Christmas and....

I put a dark cockerel over partridge pullets this spring. Set 21 eggs, 16 were fertile, 14 hatched (guessing 6 pullets, 8 cockerels - 3 weeks old). The 5 that were not fertile I suspect came from the same pullet. She would tuck her tail every time he mounted her, so I don't think anything was happening there. She's since been rehomed.

I also put a dark cockerel over dark pullets, but I haven't seen him do the dirty yet and haven't checked any of those eggs for fertility. He's really nice and big (from Diana Delaney) so I hope that he starts getting active before fall...LOL.

I have a broody hen that I've put 7 dark x partridge eggs (all developing) under and 3 darks that were developing in the incubator. Story on the darks in a minute. Due on Saturday.

I bought some eggs from Florida, they sent 18. Of the 18, 4 started. 3 were developing so I put them under the broody...I can explain in a PM if you really want to know.

Got some partridge eggs from a really nice line in Ohio, they are on day 8. Candled yesterday, 10/12 started. Fingers crossed that I'll get a good hatch.

And....not hatching related but got some really nice partridge chicks shipped to me from Michigan.

After this last batch of partridge eggs, the incubator is getting shut down for a while. I'm overloaded with chicks right now and need to let some of them grow up so that I can see what I've got to work with.