Breed Stewards Thread

[Lofty Dreams]

I have heard that if you medicate a bird you shouldn't breed them that year.

 

[Gresh]

Wow! Great thread, Ducks-n-Bannies! (Should I just call you "Banny" or something?

) These are some really good topics that I hope other people will be reading and learning from. I know I am and I will.

~Gresh~

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

Quote:
Thank you, Gresh. Yes you can call me Banny or something. And I hope that other people read this stuff and post there helpfull hints and there projects, 'cause I'm starting to run out of things to say

! (If anyone knowledgeable or with any ideas or projects you'd like to share, this is your cue.

) (And this is the thread).

 

[Gresh]

Quote:
So very true! We once considered a heated coop for our chickens, but after I did a little research on it, we turned the idea down. Of course, our birds are hatchery birds (I'm getting my first breeding bird this month), so we may run into a few deaths, but we are expecting it.

Wow, I didn't know lighting a coop could mess with fertility! I wasn't ever seriously considering it in the first place, but now I'll be sure to dump any idea of it entirely.

I agree about chicken lifespans from inferior stock. Chickens aren't supposed to produce for 1 year before fizzling out: they should be able to go on for at least 3 years, at a good rate. Oriental chickens are some of the longest lived chickens on the planet because they are closer to wild chickens and have been bred for hardiness. I believe I heard about a Malay or Saipan living for nearly 30 years. This long-lifespan holds true for many breeds with Oriental ancestry as well. Russian Orloffs, which have a good deal of Malay blood in them, are said to live past 20 years old.

Now that's a hardy chicken

 

[Gresh]

Quote:
I must agree with you again

Very good points re: intelligence. It's my philosophy that the closer a chicken is to its natural environment and natural behavior, the better it will be. I think some chickens should only be "partly-domesticated", i.e. tame enough to not be aggressive around people so they can still be put in coops and used for egg-meat production, but wild enough to find about 80% of their own food on the range and to raise their own young independent of human intervention. This will result in the "ideal chicken," the self-sufficient livestock. Like you said, chicks raised by chickens and not people will be far more ready for the range than any brooder-raised chick, though I understand that the brooder is sometimes a necessary route in certain cases. But, if it can be helped at all, chicks should have a chicken-mother and chicken-father to teach them the chicken way of life

We do the same thing you do with our chickens when they free-range. We let them out of the coop at about 7:30 AM and put them up at about 6:30 PM (this alternates with seasons: we will sometimes leave them out until 9:00 PM in the summer when the sun is still high enough in the sky). Miraculously (for hatchery birds), none of them have been taken by predators yet of any kind. We had a coon problem, but this was wiped out when a lumber company cut down about 75% of the trees on our 28 acres. Hawks can be a menace, but we have a goat that wanders with the chickens and she seems to have dissuaded the birds-of-prey enough.

~Gresh~

 

[sjarvis00]

Quote:
Ducks and banny
Lighting in a breed pen.
I will agree with you to a degree on some of this, I have had LF wyandotte and OEGB both as well as other birds that we show heavily, I keep a very select trio inside on lights and a timer for winter breeding to get the next years show Cocks hatched in Nov. and Dec. and cockrells in Jan-March. I have never had fertility or longevity issues with these birds.
I always test mate from the years offspring in teh first year raise to see how they produce (Progeny test) if teh resulting young are acctable I keep the cockrell set asside and use the pullets after the age of 1 year. I have OE hens producing viable showable offspring in thier 4th and 5th years of laying and males repoducing at 7 years of age.
I have done the same with my LF breeding from sept-Feb only as they have fertility issues in teh heat of summer here. I also have LF hens laying 5 days a week at age 5. They are never super producers like the production bred birds and start laying around 9-10 months of age fully mature and reach full size at 18 months.
I find it worth while to wait the extra time for production to set in and keep the bird at a constant laying rate for years rather than the production birds that have to replaced every year.

Patients: I agree fully.

 

[sjarvis00]

Quote:
You are quite right in your last statement, but, strange as it sounds, there is no actual reason that you are right. Let me explain. In each batch of chicks, there seems to be alot that are average, some that are horrible, and some that excel. Unfortunately, we are generally unable to influence how these chickens excel. In theory, chicks that are near-pefect in all of these fields could appear in any given hatch, but these dream birds would be incredibly rare. And also, sometimes as we select for traits, if we select for another trait before we are finished the first one, say, if we want hardy birds and then select an egg-bird, that egg-bird bird may lack hardiness. This will take a long time, but is worth it. And besides, I have never had a chicken which I disliked the looks of.

Once you have a line of birds that you have bred and raised for several years and at least two generations you will now and understand culling better, it varies a bit from line to line. some color culls can be caught at hatch, such examples are Birchen based Black, Birchen, brown Red and even Blue. The chick down color is solid one color Black or Blue, I cull these at hatch for teh presence of a white toe, light leg color, teh appearance of white or yellow down color antwhere on teh body. The result over a few generations was simple I no longer hatch those birds, these traits lead to color faults in the adults and can be caught at hatch and removed from teh reproductive pool before any real investment begins. It then becomes a matter of breeder isolation to determine which bird is producing teh fault and dealing with that in it's own way.
Culling for growth rate is not an uncommon practice either. Birds should grow at a good rate not so fast as to cause them health problems and longevity problems and not so slow as to deter someonelse from wanting to keep them. Some birds just do not thrive and teh small birds need to be removed so to prevent feed waste as they will likely not make it to adult hood anyway.
Those that grow too quickly die a young death regardless of what you do as can be seen in teh fast growing 7 week old 7 lb broilers that can not walk, or do anything that is not natural nor healthy for teh bird. Culling the real fast growing birds if done too early you will notice you have no cockrells.
each individual can cull a line that they have come to know fom experience with that line nothing can replace that. The first year or two with a new breed, variety or line is a learning curve and should be treated as such. Culling should be kept to a minimum until the breeder has learned the growth patterns and other details of teh birds they have.

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

Quote:
Ducks and banny
Lighting in a breed pen.
I will agree with you to a degree on some of this, I have had LF wyandotte and OEGB both as well as other birds that we show heavily, I keep a very select trio inside on lights and a timer for winter breeding to get the next years show Cocks hatched in Nov. and Dec. and cockrells in Jan-March. I have never had fertility or longevity issues with these birds.
I always test mate from the years offspring in teh first year raise to see how they produce (Progeny test) if teh resulting young are acctable I keep the cockrell set asside and use the pullets after the age of 1 year. I have OE hens producing viable showable offspring in thier 4th and 5th years of laying and males repoducing at 7 years of age.
I have done the same with my LF breeding from sept-Feb only as they have fertility issues in teh heat of summer here. I also have LF hens laying 5 days a week at age 5. They are never super producers like the production bred birds and start laying around 9-10 months of age fully mature and reach full size at 18 months.
I find it worth while to wait the extra time for production to set in and keep the bird at a constant laying rate for years rather than the production birds that have to replaced every year.

Patients: I agree fully.

What I meant by fertility problems was that the fertility of the hens was stretched as the light was set to mimic breeding season, thereby triggering the release of more of the hens' precious few ova, shortening the span of fertility.
'

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

What makes a good Cock?
Well, first, please remember that since their is alot of climatic variation over the world, even in north america, I can't tell you how to raise birds, but can only suggest ways to raise them and tell what I've found with my birds. But also remember, stewardship is less universal than breeding/dealing/showing. It is picking the birds that are right for you. But not just the right birds, but a profound correct that most people neglet to the unassumed detriment of their flock. And since so far I've told you all how I set up my situation to pick birds, now I tell you who I pick:
I think the following sums up the perfect rooster (and I already have one!

):
- He takes good care of his ladies, always watching for predators, always herding them around to a good foraging spot etc., keeps the ladies, well, um, 'serviced', and is willing to fight anything threat at the drop of a hat.
- He has good social skill and proper 'Rooster ettiquite'. He teaches the cockerels how to watch the flock, he performs dances for the ladies, he is easy for ME to handle, is friendly enough to know me as the farmer, but suspicious enough not to do anything stupid like roost in the business end of a dangerous human tool, like say, a snowblower...

- And of course he has to match the criteria I told about in the Stewardshio posts...

 

[Gresh]

Quote:
Now that's what I call a true cock-standard

That seems to be very close to the standard for most gamecocks. The gamefowl agility aids the gamecocks in protecting their hens, and the game in them makes them furious when their hens are attacked. They will fight almost anything for the sake of their flock.