Breeding Delawares to the Standard of Perfection

[newmanmichael]

Everyone comes to a different place. That is just where I ended up. When you have three generations on the yard, there is some distance between the first and third. Also you know what you are getting from the older birds. I can see getting rid of a bird, and wish that I would have tried to get a few more from. I do not know a lot, but I have decided that I want to get what I can from something that works. Too often something does not work, even though logically, it should have.

I have a particular bird on my mind right now that I wish I would of held on to. I thought that I had what he brought to the table, but now I am wondering. I think that I made a mistake.

More and more I am learning to be patient.

Often I see this person or that speaking well of this cross or this breeding. I always wonder if they will think so highly of it in a couple years. It might be that we wish we had one of the originals back. They can act as a control, giving us a second chance. Or just a resource. I feel safer moving forward when I can reach back. Maybe that is my inexperience speaking.

I'm only 4 years into this and Lord knows I have a lot to learn! thankfully I have become friends with a great breeder/APA judge who's been doing this for a long long time. I've learned more in the past 6 months than I did the first 3 years.

I'm changing my breeding program up a little bit by going to family line breeding. So all the females in one pen will be related, mother, daughter, granddaughter, etc. It will be slow going in the beginning but my goal is to build consistency in my flock.

 

[caychris]

I'm only 4 years into this and Lord knows I have a lot to learn! thankfully I have become friends with a great breeder/APA judge who's been doing this for a long long time. I've learned more in the past 6 months than I did the first 3 years.

I'm changing my breeding program up a little bit by going to family line breeding. So all the females in one pen will be related, mother, daughter, granddaughter, etc. It will be slow going in the beginning but my goal is to build consistency in my flock.

I'm not actually at the stage where I'm starting yet. I'm just trying to learn and plan well. I think I'm in agreement about hanging on to birds because aggressive culling doesn't bode well for mistakes which I'm sure I will make.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

This will by my first year "picking" birds to breed. I'm going to take it slowly.

At first, I'll leave all the females with the "father" male, then I'll cull the ones I don't want to breed into my laying coop, leaving just the "nicest" in to breed with him. Meanwhile, I'll pick the nicest new male to put with the two original mothers & IF I can set up a decent cockerel colony, then I can keep a few extra "new" males to evaluate later.

By nicest I was kinda thinking to breed the females based on three things ... 1) First to reach POL; 2) Best type (as far as I can tell; 3) Biggest.

For the males, I was hoping to keep at least two to work with ... 1) Best type; 2) Biggest.

I need a sustainable, dual-purpose, high-performance flock, so by selecting partially based on precociousness & size (very simple things to evaluate) I should make progress towards simple goals of economy. But that doesn't necessarily help the breed move closer to the SOP for type.

Picking out the "Best Type" breeders will be my challenge. I've got a lot to learn in evaluating a bird, and will have to come up with some point system or something to evaluate them ... weighing the importance of each attribute ...

 

[gjensen]

I'm not actually at the stage where I'm starting yet. I'm just trying to learn and plan well. I think I'm in agreement about hanging on to birds because aggressive culling doesn't bode well for mistakes which I'm sure I will make.

Aggressive culling is absolutely necessary. You will get rid of a lot of birds. Just start small and work your way into it.

I am convinced that for those of us that are new at this, it takes a couple generations to get a feel for where we are and where we need to go. Then we can really start thinking about how to get there. Initially it is a bunch of speculation. I swear the birds tell us what to do. What I mean is, we begin to see what we need to do.

You cannot be scared of it though. The worse thing that will happen, is that you will mess them all up and have to start over. So what. You could be ready the next go round. BUT, if you have some of your original birds after a couple generations, you will have become no worse off than your start.

 

[caychris]

This will by my first year "picking" birds to breed. I'm going to take it slowly.

At first, I'll leave all the females with the "father" male, then I'll cull the ones I don't want to breed into my laying coop, leaving just the "nicest" in to breed with him. Meanwhile, I'll pick the nicest new male to put with the two original mothers & IF I can set up a decent cockerel colony, then I can keep a few extra "new" males to evaluate later.

By nicest I was kinda thinking to breed the females based on three things ... 1) First to reach POL; 2) Best type (as far as I can tell; 3) Biggest.

For the males, I was hoping to keep at least two to work with ... 1) Best type; 2) Biggest.

I need a sustainable, dual-purpose, high-performance flock, so by selecting partially based on precociousness & size (very simple things to evaluate) I should make progress towards simple goals of economy. But that doesn't necessarily help the breed move closer to the SOP for type.

Picking out the "Best Type" breeders will be my challenge. I've got a lot to learn in evaluating a bird, and will have to come up with some point system or something to evaluate them ... weighing the importance of each attribute ...

This is why I wanted to do something fairly large so I could get quite a bit of data in one go. I have this crazy idea of creating an new line and thus was trying to determine some data about the silver sports in the first cross and if crossing the F1 males back to the NH yields a better ability to paint the birds or would yield more workable stock since they are supposed to hold to the delaware pattern. The lack of data on how this breed actually came about makes me want to try from scratch. And like you since he was breeding for a purpose other than an APA SOP recognition it may be very easy to make "modern" breeding mistakes because the building blocks are not what we might expect.

 

[gjensen]

I'm only 4 years into this and Lord knows I have a lot to learn! thankfully I have become friends with a great breeder/APA judge who's been doing this for a long long time. I've learned more in the past 6 months than I did the first 3 years.

I'm changing my breeding program up a little bit by going to family line breeding. So all the females in one pen will be related, mother, daughter, granddaughter, etc. It will be slow going in the beginning but my goal is to build consistency in my flock.

I do not think that we will ever quit learning. There is too much. You could spend a lifetime working on a single breed, and never get there.

I do not have any "mentors". I guess I have to learn the hard way. I a probably too hard headed to listen anyways. There are some people that have birds and ability that I have come to respect. I listen to everything they say. I do not take it all in as the gospel, but I certainly shut up for a little bit.

 

[desertmarcy]

Everyone comes to a different place. That is just where I ended up. When you have three generations on the yard, there is some distance between the first and third. Also you know what you are getting from the older birds. I can see getting rid of a bird, and wish that I would have tried to get a few more from. I do not know a lot, but I have decided that I want to get what I can from something that works. Too often something does not work, even though logically, it should have.

I have a particular bird on my mind right now that I wish I would of held on to. I thought that I had what he brought to the table, but now I am wondering. I think that I made a mistake.

More and more I am learning to be patient.

Often I see this person or that speaking well of this cross or this breeding. I always wonder if they will think so highly of it in a couple years. It might be that we wish we had one of the originals back. They can act as a control, giving us a second chance. Or just a resource. I feel safer moving forward when I can reach back. Maybe that is my inexperience speaking.

This is an interesting discussion and plays right into a dilemma I am having right now. Not Delawares, but Rhode Island Reds. I have kept my original cock and still have 5 of my original hens, from 2012. I am going to hang onto them. This year I hatched out quite a few, hoping to improve on what I have, esp. in the males. They are still young, about 4 months, but so far I am not liking their width as much as my original birds, and the original birds were at least 1/2 of each---that is, I used the cock over some younger pullets, and a younger cockerel over the original hens. Maybe this is just bad luck or chance since I don't have as many cockerels to pick from as pullets. Just 9 left now. Some people say you have to hatch in numbers to pick a few good ones, even from established show lines.

 

[desertmarcy]

Maybe some more experienced breeders came chime in but for me I consider January to May breeding season but I'm in Northwest Florida where our winters are mild. Also depends on egg production of the birds. You can put lights on them to trigger their little chicken brains to start laying if your daylight isn't long but some folks don't recommend that. That being said, I like to keep at least 3 weeks between cocks on my hens. So in December I put my matings together (if they aren't already) and then start collecting 3 weeks later if they are laying. Once I have a sufficient enough birds on the ground from that matting (depends on what project I'm working on) I'll then switch, wait at least 3 weeks and then start collecting eggs again. Some have told me to wait long but in a pinch I think you're safe at 3 weeks. So really probably only 2 different matings per season for me.

Once June hits a lot of my birds, especially my older breeders shut down. Some of them are even molting.

That's just my 2 cents I'm sure others have different experiences/opinions.

Your season sounds a lot like mine here in S. Arizona. I wanted to hatch earlier this year, but I was still dealing with birds from the previous year, taking up my breeding space. I did end up putting lights on the birds, and that took me some time to accomplish. I didn't actually start setting eggs until beginning of Feb. I don't really see anything wrong with putting them on a winter light cycle, it's not like they don't get their laying break. Like you, when the heat hits in June, a lot of them quit laying and lay poorly for a long time because it is so hot here. So they get a long summer laying break here. I have a lot of them molting right now, there are feathers all over the place. In the future, I want to be done hatching in April. Now I have the lights set up and know I need to turn them on several weeks prior to when I want to start collecting eggs.

 

[newmanmichael]

Your season sounds a lot like mine here in S. Arizona. I wanted to hatch earlier this year, but I was still dealing with birds from the previous year, taking up my breeding space. I did end up putting lights on the birds, and that took me some time to accomplish. I didn't actually start setting eggs until beginning of Feb. I don't really see anything wrong with putting them on a winter light cycle, it's not like they don't get their laying break. Like you, when the heat hits in June, a lot of them quit laying and lay poorly for a long time because it is so hot here. So they get a long summer laying break here. I have a lot of them molting right now, there are feathers all over the place. In the future, I want to be done hatching in April. Now I have the lights set up and know I need to turn them on several weeks prior to when I want to start collecting eggs.

We have a general laying flock and we put lights with a small solar panel on those but my breeding birds are in hoop houses and are moved all over the farm and it would be a mess/expensive trying to get lights on them so I generally don't do it out of laziness... haha...

I find it interesting that our seasons are similar. How much rainfall do you get between January and May? We usually get 4-6 inches each month although this past April we got a surprising 24 inches and most of that was in one day! (not sure if you saw all the flooding that happened in Pensacola on national news)

 

[newmanmichael]

I do not think that we will ever quit learning. There is too much. You could spend a lifetime working on a single breed, and never get there.

I do not have any "mentors". I guess I have to learn the hard way. I a probably too hard headed to listen anyways. There are some people that have birds and ability that I have come to respect. I listen to everything they say. I do not take it all in as the gospel, but I certainly shut up for a little bit.

Even my mentor says he's still learning.. after about 50 years of being in the poultry world that tells you something. I just happened to meet some great folks through a great club and it just clicked with him and I am thankful. And I'm happy to pass along what I'm picking up although there's always something else to learn about the same subject and different ways to look at it.