Bresse x Plymouth Barred Rock?

[dawsh2]

Blue, black, and splash are extended black based, not duckwing based. No autosexing abilities. You’d just get barred birds like Plymouth Rocks.
Bresse’s characteristics are unique. I’ve also heard Crevocouer’s have finer fleshing, but so few are raised and consumed that I don’t know if this is the true experience.

So there's no viable path to creating an autosexing Bresse? Breeding with Bielefelder wouldn't make any difference?

If so, I guess I'll just be selecting for larger eggs and good marbling in that case and keeping a pure bred flock going forward.

 

[Amer]

Fast growth is easy to acheive in breeds outside Rocks (to be honest, heritage Rocks can be pretty slow growing anyways, because of their large size and slow feathering gene. (I’m not sure if whites have this gene, but barreds do.) I’d consider Delawares or New Hampshires to be superior if you’re looking for a quick growing bird.)
I’m not sure if the fattier meat can be achieved in other breeds through selection. Possibly? How would you test it? When you eat the bird it is very dead. Maybe you can feel the finish with a hand on the breast, but I don’t know. I know how to tell if a bird is fat, but that would only be cutaneous fat below the vent and not necessarily marbling.) I.E. useless, who wants to eat pure butt fat.

 

[Amer]

So there's no viable path to creating an autosexing Bresse? Breeding with Bielefelder wouldn't make any difference?

If so, I guess I'll just be selecting for larger eggs and good marbling in that case and keeping a pure bred flock going forward.

Ok, so if you used the Bielefelder with Bresse you could create crele Bresse, but are they Bresse at that point? The few varieties that exist are struggling to have an established “type.”
IDK. I think you will find that autosexing is more useless in practice than in theory. At least in my case, I select and butcher birds long after they can be easily sexed, and that is with Buckeyes which are known to have ambiguous coloring and combs.

 

[dawsh2]

Fast growth is easy to acheive in breeds outside Rocks (to be honest, heritage Rocks can be pretty slow growing anyways, because of their large size and slow feathering gene. (I’m not sure if whites have this gene, but barreds do.) I’d consider Delawares or New Hampshires to be superior if you’re looking for a quick growing bird.)
I’m not sure if the fattier meat can be achieved in other breeds through selection. Possibly? How would you test it? When you eat the bird it is very dead. Maybe you can feel the finish with a hand on the breast, but I don’t know. I know how to tell if a bird is fat, but that would only be cutaneous fat below the vent and not necessarily marbling.) I.E. useless, who wants to eat pure butt fat.

Yes, you'd have to do something like breed it prior to slaughter, then make notes during preparation and consumption to evaluate whether the trait is present. Something similar is done a lot in plant/fungi breeding I've done so it's a familiar idea to kind of retroactively select while propogating a line. BTW, is the marbelling visible while butchering? That would make it a lot easier.

So overall, you don't see a viable path to autosexing?

 

[Amer]

Yes, you'd have to do something like breed it prior to slaughter, then make notes during preparation and consumption to evaluate whether the trait is present. Something similar is done a lot in plant/fungi breeding I've done so it's a familiar idea to kind of retroactively select while propogating a line. BTW, is the marbelling visible while butchering? That would make it a lot easier.

So overall, you don't see a viable path to autosexing?

Marbling? I think so…
I don’t see one, no. Is it possible? Theoretically, yes. With great difficulty. But it’s one of those things where you’d be so busy thinking about whether you could you never stopped to think about whether you should.

 

[dawsh2]

Marbling? I think so…
I don’t see one, no. Is it possible? Theoretically, yes. With great difficulty. But it’s one of those things where you’d be so busy thinking about whether you could you never stopped to think about whether you should.

Well, maybe it's time to switch to the Bresse x Black Copper Maran plan... Lol. Thanks for the advice thus far. I guess I just want a fun breeding project more than anything. I may still pursue this cross just in hopes of obtaining a Bresse with larger eggs and carcass. For some reason it's an attractive cross to me. Bresse x Cornish would be interesting too..

 

[Floof]

If you're just interested in trying it out and wanted to be able to sell off the extra females at hatch then you could get barred rock or bielefelder females and a blue Breese male. You'd get blue and black sex links

Sometimes it's just fun to see what you get. You can always eat them if you become disillusioned lol

 

[Feathers of Eden]

I think due to a phenomenal called Hybrid Vigor your Bresse/whatever cross may perform better than Bresse or whatever alone. It is known and tested method that offsprings would have better performance than parents when the parents come from two totally different Gene pool. like Bresse and Bared Rock.

But this hybrid vigor effect is obvious only for one generation . Your grandchickens ( eg grandchildren in chicken terms) will not perform like their parents. That is another fact about Hybrid vigor .

 

[dawsh2]

I think I may just be sticking to one breed for the foreseeable future. I'd like to dabble with selling eggs, meat and chicks and need to decide a breed to settle on. I can only comfortably accomodate 24 free range chickens at the moment so will just be sticking to one breed and a spiral breeding program.

I've been quite interested in the Bresse due to it's fast growth, excellent feed conversion rate for a non-hybrid/heritage, good meat and solid egg laying (200-250 large eggs per year) and enjoy its general appearance. One downside is non-autosexing, but if I'm raising the cockerels for meat that shouldn't be an issue, though it does mean I can't sell young chicks. Another downside is that it's not a 'popular' breed, so I worry I won't sell many chicks.

Along those lines, I've also been eyeing the Bielefelder and Black Copper Marans. It's going to be a multiyear project, ideally something that outlives me, so I'd like to choose the right breed..! Hah. Anyway, open to any advice regarding breeds but I think I'm going to get on some waitlists for Bresse.

 

[Amer]

I think I may just be sticking to one breed for the foreseeable future. I'd like to dabble with selling eggs, meat and chicks and need to decide a breed to settle on. I can only comfortably accomodate 24 free range chickens at the moment so will just be sticking to one breed and a spiral breeding program.

I've been quite interested in the Bresse due to it's fast growth, excellent feed conversion rate for a non-hybrid/heritage, good meat and solid egg laying (200-250 large eggs per year) and enjoy its general appearance. One downside is non-autosexing, but if I'm raising the cockerels for meat that shouldn't be an issue, though it does mean I can't sell young chicks. Another downside is that it's not a 'popular' breed, so I worry I won't sell many chicks.

Along those lines, I've also been eyeing the Bielefelder and Black Copper Marans. It's going to be a multiyear project, ideally something that outlives me, so I'd like to choose the right breed..! Hah. Anyway, open to any advice regarding breeds but I think I'm going to get on some waitlists for Bresse.

Just selling straight run is fine. Many people interested in raising a rare breed (especially a meat one) will want straight run anyways. It’s a more common practice than sexed chicks, which is a recent phenomenon.