Buckeye Breed Thread

[Chickielady]

I have found that even in the brooder, if they can have a little sand, it seems to help with the pasty butt. I'm going to try that quinoa too next time I have a problem. My latest batch are all nice and clean, no problems so far.

The Quinoa has a full grain, so has the roughage needed (fiber) and hydration qualities, so no pasty butt here !
I also use "Broiler Max", as it has FULL vitamins & minerals, and rooster booster does not.
Broiler MaX at 1/2 dosage for all my Buckeyes.
Awesome stuff for growing large framed fowl.

 

[Chickielady]

This is Tuscaloosa's brother, and he took BB & BV.
What I am interested in, is why my hens are all labeled as "light in colour" but the male wins repeatedly ?

I do NOT see a problem with leg length, NOR with sickle feather length, NOR with leg color (at least in the picture,the legs I see look yellow -- the pink you refer to appears to be simply the red veining-- nothing wrong with that). Like Janet, I like a little longer leg and I believe you have to beware of too short a leg. When a leg does get too long on occasion, it makes the bird appear thinner, rangy, too "game-like." It should be "medium" in length.

I would be interested in weighing the birds and knowing that. There is only so much you can tell without actually handling the bird -- basifically, you can only discern the superficial things which ANYONE can tell, experience or not, like color. Anyone can look at color. Both birds' overall color look good except the 3rd place bird has that greenish/ black smut on the outside of his wing. I usually do not see this in my cock birds until they are 3 or 4 years old (and have molted a number of times). I would not tolerate it any of the offspring's first adult feathers (unless the bird had something else I needed), but OK to breed from him one time. That being said, just from the picture (and the limitations), the 3rd place bird, to my eye, looks like he is better type with better body depth. It may just be the way the 2nd place bird is standing but he looks a little long in the back, a bit pinched in the tail and lacking body depth. I prefer a thicker skull too. Again, no way to actually tell all this without comparatively handling of the birds and seeing more than what I can see in these 3 pictures. When I have done my best comparing is when I have had 15-20 cockerels , all the same age, at the same time -- you can then really see the differences. I go back and forth between my birds too, four, five, six times even.

The next time you are at a show with the birds, if you are on friends terms with the 1st place bird (or with other birds' owners -- sometimes the #1 bird isn't necessarily the best bird -- depends upon what you are working on), ask the other exhibitors if you can handle their birds. Then, compare heart girth, pelvic spread, length of the body underneath the feathers. The body underneath is what really counts. I have felt a heart girth of a another's bird that I thought at first glance looked rangy, then to realize the body was actually quite superb underneath (and could see the bird weighing more than "what it looked"). The only way to know is to handle more Buckeyes so you can compare.

hen I wanted to take is oh so broody so I took this one:





Tailfeathers hen wins repeatedly, and my Cockerel wins repeatedly......................maybe we should get together !!!!!!!!!

 

[Chickielady]

He's gorgeous.

You have his grandbabies !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Chickielady]

I thought the Buckeye breeders on this site might enjoy a picture of a little bit different kind of Buckeye. This is a close up of a model 66 Buckeye Incubator manufactured in Springfield, Ohio. I saw it in a farmer's quonset hut last week, made a deal and brought it home with me.

COOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Tailfeathers]

Here are the two males I took to the last show. The one on the Left took 2nd and the one on the Right, 3rd. The one on the left if himself as well. Notice how pink his leg color is compared to the one on the right. But he has a little longer back and I think better tail set though I think both have pretty good Type. The judge just thought he was a bit too tall in the leg and his sickles were a bit too long.

He did say that he had to go back and forth about 3-4x before deciding though. So, I thought I'd post them here and get y'alls inputs. Critique away! Don't hold back.

In particular, what do y'all think about the sickles. SOP says "Medium long". I got the impression this judge didn't wanna see any sickles at all.

God Bless,

I've tried to attach all four birds together so a better comparison can perhaps be made. Hopefully I did thm all justice when resizing them to all fit here. And let me start off by saying that I in NO way wish to post this to brag on my birds, put down anyone else's birds, disagree with the judge's placing, or anything of such nature. I'm just asking questions to help me with my future picks.

So, that being said, thanks Chris for your critique. I'm inclined to agree with you but Robin is right too. This is the second time that this same cockerel of hers beat the one on the left of mine. Two different shows and two different judges. The last time the judge said my bird just wasn't fully developed enough. This time the judge wrote "Type +" on Robin's coop card and "Color +" on mine. So I'm trying to determine where my bird falls down in Type.

The Pink is the veining which you refer to and his legs are yellow but you can see that the other bird has MUCH better yellow legs. Of course the 3rd Place bird with the yellow legs also has the "greenish/ black smut on the outside of his wing" that you mentioned. But he also has the shorter back.

Which brings me to my next question. Chris you said you liked the 3rd Place Bird over the 2nd Place bird (I shall have to name them to make it easier) because he had a shorter. I'm confused by that as the SOP calls for a longer back angling slightly downward toward the tail. I was wondering if my 2nd Place bird wasn't angling down enough but when I look at all the others, they seem to angle "up" a bit?

As for weight, they are both wide, heavy, and stocky birds but you can see from the pics that neither of them have the protruding breast muscle yet that Tuscaloosa does.Though they are all about the same age I think - 11 months or so now. I am hoping to see some of that come in.

Btw Chris, as Robin mentioned her bird is a brother of Tuscaloosa from the eggs she got from you. I'd have to go back and check the emails I saved from you but I think my birds are 3rd Generation removed from Faux and his Brother? All I remember now is that my original males that I used were from the Daddy of the 2007 or 2009 Nat'l Buckeye Champ and the females I used were from the Brother of the same. So, you can see, proof positive that good blood only goes so far and it doesn't take long for somebody to mess it up!

Oh, and while my females have done well, I've got to do some real improvement there too as I think their Type is still pretty good but I'm getting a long of the blue/black/green in their neck and shoulder feathers too.

In closing, let me just say that I would really like to hear what you have to say regarding the "length of back" and "downward angling toward the base of tail" but for now, those two are the best I've got, and I'll be breeding them for the two lines I am keeping and staying with.

God Bless,

 

[cgmccary]

What do you think of this male? feel free to critique him. here, he is almost a year old:

 

[Chickielady]

This is response to McCary's picture: Hard to tell with his stance, but is his back short/slanted?
I also wonder about the long sickles/sickle color grey ?
Hard to tell.......
he seems very light in color also. Maybe just the light.......don't know ?

 

[Chickielady]

Tailfeathers, not that I am in anyway an expert, I like your cockerel above on the grass, but I also think his shanks seem very short compared to their thickness, but I must say the bird's body looks excellent to me, a very robust bird, well filled out.

 

[Tailfeathers]

Robin, that's Chris' Tuscaloosa on the grass. Mine are the ones above in the cages and on the fireplace.

Chris, I like what I can see on that bird. The back definitely angles down toward the tail there. His legs seem thick and set widely apart so I'm guessing he has good girth though the chest can't be seen. Leg color looks good. Tailset looks good.

I don't know if it's just the color on my monitor but he does appear to be much "redder" and lighter colored than the ones in the other four pics in my post. However, I must say that color is more of what I would call a "mahagony" than the others. The only downside I can see is that he may be a little too tall in the front and showing maybe too much of a slant downward toward the tail? Other than than, and again it could just be my monitor and/or my eyes, but he doesn't seem to have a uniform color for the whole body. His back appears to be a bit darker than his hackles and thighs.

Am I missing something?

God Bless,

 

[cgmccary]

Quote:
This is a picture of the first Buckeye cockerel I owned. This male is the great, great, great grandfather to Tuscaloosa & to Robin's cockerel, etc. I got him from Urch in 2005-2006 (when he was approximately 7 months old) so he is all early Urch strain. He only weighed 6.5 lbs at adult size (probably make 7 lbs if wet). The sunshine probably makes him look lighter than he was but he wasn't as dark as my birds now. He had a very small heart girth, very thin skull, no body depth, thin shanks, his feet were crooked, his breast is black splotched and he had some smudge on one of his wings. I thought he had good color in his legs and they were the correct length, a nice shaped comb, proper sized wattles. I was very, very pleased to have him & very proud to own a Buckeye. I am happy he is what I started with (though he could have NEVER been shown in ANY stretch of the imagination, NEVER). I also want to add that the Urch pullet I got at the same time was a superb specimen in body type -- she would have freaked out the color enthusiasts though as she was a light brown-red -- nothing like the pictures of these females you see today -- but her pelvic spread and pelvic/keel spread were great.

The couple of points I want to make by showing my first cockerel's picture and asking you for a critique is that (1) It is almost impossible to judge from a picture (especially from one angle only -- this is why I simply LOL when I read comments from people who said they saw a picture of this bird and then that bird and hands down, this bird was by far the better bird-- to this I say: then you do not know what you are doing because you need to handle the bird and feel them, compare them, weigh them, look at how they stand in a variety of stances, observe them -- I know that someone who says things like that does not know what they are talking about. I am not saying I know a whole lot but I sure know more than someone making such claims from a couple of pictures.) and (2) it is the bloodline that counts & not necessarily having a near perfect specimen or starting with birds with few flaws (and what would you enjoy about working with them if few flaws?)-- in other words, the genes are there in your birds, Royce. For me, I knew the Urch birds were pure Buckeye and that he had owned them since the late 1950s-- this was what mattered to me, not whether the male was black splotched or too light in color or too small & underweight or thin shanked. Also, probably every bird has something to offer and depending upon your goals or what you are setting out to work on first, then that should dictate what you breed to what.

Breeding is not about selecting the perfect matches. It is about maintaining diversity within YOUR bloodline and keeping the overall quality up. Irregardless of what some would have you believe, there are no perfect Buckeyes anywhere. All the different lines and strains have something to offer, have their strong and weak points. I wouldn't say one is better than another.

About the back: The SOP says the back of a Buckeye should be "rather long and broad throughout . . . slopes slightly downward toward the tail" -- I don't have my SOP in front of me (I am at work; SOP is at home so correct me if my words are not right) but contrastingly, I believe the RIR's back is "long and moderately broad throughout . . . horizontal" -- in other words, the Buckeye back is slightly shorter than a RIR back & this overall description presents a more "square" shape for the Buckeye than the more "rectangular" RIR shape (a picture depending on the stance of your bird can make this look all kinds of ways so can't just go by a picture) -- for me I noticed when the back gets too long, then the front of the Buckeye (breast) isn't what it should be (i.e. select the slightly shorter back individual over the longest backed individuals and the front improves and the back angles slightly down like it should). I don't want to give the impression I don't keep longer back individuals though -- the bird in front of the barn in the picture a few posts ago has a slightly longer back than Tuskaloosa. He is also a larger bird overall though (so I selected him because proportionately, I thought just as good in type). The three breeding birds I have pictured all have what I think are good type & all three are far superior to the bird I asked you to critique, my first Buckeye. I just don't believe you can get much of what I am describing from a picture NOR can I properly compare your birds.