Hahaha, okay, James, watch it, buddy! I can't afford to be hooked on too many more breeds and sounds like Buckeyes are something I'll like alot.
Buckeye Breed Thread
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Cynthia. I just set the eggs I got from Roy and James a few hours ago. While I intend to keep all the pullets, I might just sneek over to your place and turn a few of the extra roos loose. That should be enought to get you started.
Intrepid creatures! They even do well in snow.
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Quote:
ROFL!!!
ROFL!!!
Bill...
A few months ago, I was planning my 2010 plans and Buckeyes were on the top of my list. I just re-read Laura's article on spiral breeding http://www.pathfindersfarm.com/Spiral.html and would like to have some of the Buckeye breeders explain their breeding operation.
What is the minimum numbers needed to get going? What size pens do you use and how many hens per roo for good fertility without "over use"?? Anyone care to share their breeding setup pictures???
Basically, I need a dozen eggs a day and a meat chicken each week (averages). How does one calculate this? I think I read that each hen will lay up to 200 eggs a year. So just doing math in my head each hen will give up to 16.6 dozen eggs a year. Alright, I need a calculator
. A dozen a day, 365 dozen divided by 16.6 dozen that each hen can lay means I need 22 good laying hens just to keep up my egg production. That is similar to my existing mixed flock so I think my math is right.
How do you add in 50+ meat birds (hens v/s roo hatching ratio) and the "lazy" layers? Then figure in that I will need to separate some breeding stock... wont I??
Alot goes into breeding doesn't it
(or maybe I am just over thinking everything)
What is the minimum numbers needed to get going? What size pens do you use and how many hens per roo for good fertility without "over use"?? Anyone care to share their breeding setup pictures???
Basically, I need a dozen eggs a day and a meat chicken each week (averages). How does one calculate this? I think I read that each hen will lay up to 200 eggs a year. So just doing math in my head each hen will give up to 16.6 dozen eggs a year. Alright, I need a calculator
How do you add in 50+ meat birds (hens v/s roo hatching ratio) and the "lazy" layers? Then figure in that I will need to separate some breeding stock... wont I??
Alot goes into breeding doesn't it
No, you're not overthinking it. It takes planning if you want it to work right. In planning the meat chickens, remember, you can eat hens too. Once you have your flock and pens established, there is no way you can keep all the hens you hatch. If you are doing a spiral breeding program, you are obviously interested in the quality of your birds, so there will be hens you don't want to use for breeding. They are a smaller bird, but make a nice meal. Or you can see if you can sell the hens.
CARS: A few months ago, I was planning my 2010 plans and Buckeyes were on the top of my list. I just re-read Laura's article on spiral breeding http://www.pathfindersfarm.com/Spiral.html and would like to have some of the Buckeye breeders explain their breeding operation.
What is the minimum numbers needed to get going? What size pens do you use and how many hens per roo for good fertility without "over use"?? Anyone care to share their breeding setup pictures???
Basically, I need a dozen eggs a day and a meat chicken each week (averages). How does one calculate this? I think I read that each hen will lay up to 200 eggs a year. So just doing math in my head each hen will give up to 16.6 dozen eggs a year. Alright, I need a calculator . A dozen a day, 365 dozen divided by 16.6 dozen that each hen can lay means I need 22 good laying hens just to keep up my egg production. That is similar to my existing mixed flock so I think my math is right.
How do you add in 50+ meat birds (hens v/s roo hatching ratio) and the "lazy" layers? Then figure in that I will need to separate some breeding stock... wont I??
Alot goes into breeding doesn't it (or maybe I am just over thinking everything)
When I first started, I had never seen a Buckeye, only read about them (the only picture I had ever seen was a couple I found online but nothing like the many posted here).
I started with only a pair to see if I liked them. The first time I had ever seen a Buckeye live was when I opened a shipping box from Duane Urch and there was a cockerel & pullet (7-8 months old). A shipping delay sent the pullet into a pre-mature molt, and she didn't lay an egg for a couple of months. When she did start laying, I saved the first 7 eggs, one every other day so it took 14 days to collect that little group of eggs. I put the 7 saved eggs in the incubator and all of them hatched. Remarkably, all of them turned out to be pullets. I was asking everyone, "how and when can you tell a Buckeye cockerel from a pullet?" well because these all looked alike (well yeah, they were all the same sex). This gave me 1 male & 8 females to go forward. I did not get a son out of them until the next year.
I guess what I would convey with any breeding program is two things: FIRST, make sure you love the breed and are dedicated to it. SECOND, PATIENCE. We live in a society where everyone wants instant gratification. It should take you some work & time in a breeding program. If it doesn't, then what is the use? For myself, I like the journey of getting there. I see all the time where someone wants the best of the best right away and they want eggs as soon as possible & they want them laying a lot. It takes a lot of time and patience to get what you want out of any breeding program. Patience is what I see as the key ingredient along with a lot of work.
Initially, you do not necessarily need to set up a spiral breeding program. A spiral breeding program is one you intend on keeping past your lifetime, leaving a legacy if you will. After breeding for about ten (10) years, if you decide, you have created something great that you want to pass on, then start a spiral breeding program at that time.
To get started, I suggest a more humble approach. Get you a couple of cockerels to 6-12 or so pullets or like JamesA did, he purchased 3 trios. If good stock, you can successfully linebreed them for years without having to outsource. After the initial breeding year, then breed Father to daughters, grandaughters, great-granddaughters, great-great grand-daughters & then separately, breed Mothers to Son, grandson, great-grandson & great- great grand son. Then take a great-great-great grandson from the Father's line and breed it back to the all the females in the Mother line. Take a great- great-great grandson from the Mother's line and breed to the females in the Father's line. Never breed brother to sister unless they are perfect specimens (seldom). Take the females from these matings and breed back to Father. Take a male and breed back to Mothers. Begin all anew. OR breed Father back to Mother's line's last pullets and vice versa. This will keep you going for the next 5-8 years with no additions. I like to hang on to some hens from each generation and keep great males for as long as possible wanting to slow genetic drift. Things happen and circumstances change so this is not always possible.
For the eggs, you will eventually want to keep pullets & hens of different ages. Pullets/hens lay best their first and second years & the start and end times of laying depends upon their hatch dates/ the time of year, etc. I would suggest keeping more than 22 Buckeye hens if you want a dozen eggs a day (perhaps 30-40). Mine are all on different laying schedules. Remember, a Buckeye is a dual purpose bird (eggs and meat). If one increases egg production too much at the expense of body type (i.e. improving the 150-200 a year egg range), then you do so at the peril of the superb meat bird sought & they begin to look like some of the more prolific laying breeds. Buckeyes are not laying machines but they are not poor layers either. Buckeyes from their creation have been and remain a breed that goes broody. They are capable of hatching and rearing their own young. Be prepared to deal with the broodiness.
You will cull your extra males for meat (and there will be plenty of them, about half) and you can probably easily sell all your extra pullets (since they are in such high demand). I always tried to keep an extra male or two as well & in the event of a catastrophe. With 22-30 hens, you need at least 3 males. BTW, one of the "extra" two males I kept instead of eating won the Best of Breed at the Ohio Nationals, so you never know what may happen (that particular male was very slow, initially, to develop & was not an initial "keeper" for me but he had good type).
If you are not interested in breeding for leaving a legacy or showing birds but simply putting eggs & meat on the table, then simply start with a couple of cockerels, a dozen pullets, build your flock the first year, then hatch and raise replacement hens each year, cull (eat) old hens when they get out of production, breed your replacement cockerels every 3-4 years OR obtain a cockerel from a breeder (by trade or purchase) whose birds are somewhat related to yours every 3-5 years. You can go on indefinitely this way for years & years, keeping 22-30, 1-3 yr old hens, this way, should be enough for the purpose you state. You can also breed uncles to nieces, to grand-nieces, etc. & you can breed aunts to nephews and to grand-nephews, so forth, etc.
It all comes down to what YOUR breeding purpose is. By talking about spiral breeding, then in my mind, I think, "showing, breeding for the good of improving and cultivating the breed, leaving a legacy for my children & their children "VS. breeding for eggs & meat (which you seem to indicate by your post). This breed, the Buckeye, needs more Breeders of the former kind, for sure. There are lots of so- called "Buckeye Breeders," who have been "breeding" for many years & who are nothing more than the later (BUT who claim, rant & rave, to be the former).
Most flattering to me was that Duane Urch got a cockerel from me at the Ohio Nationals last month to put back into his breeding program. I consider Mr. Urch to be a savior of the Buckeye breed as he has had them more than 50 years, and one of the most knowledgeable & humble poultrymen I know. By obtaining a male from me, Mr. Urch can successfully cross back into his line without having the adverse effects of a total outcross. Mine are several years removed from Urch's line and also, I obtained a male from the ALBC strain in 2007 which I bred into my Urch offspring (which with the new ALBC strain, the Urch strain was used to create anyway). The cockerel Mr. Urch obtained is a sibling to the BB cockerel, also to (on this thread) JamesA's birds, to Jensscott male, to Sekinkead's male to rnau's birds (he, rnau, has my males I used in the breeding to get all mine. JamesA is using the same males in his breeding program).
Very sorry for the long post (& rant). I hope I didn't confuse everyone.
Christopher McCary
President, American Buckeye Poultry Club
What is the minimum numbers needed to get going? What size pens do you use and how many hens per roo for good fertility without "over use"?? Anyone care to share their breeding setup pictures???
Basically, I need a dozen eggs a day and a meat chicken each week (averages). How does one calculate this? I think I read that each hen will lay up to 200 eggs a year. So just doing math in my head each hen will give up to 16.6 dozen eggs a year. Alright, I need a calculator . A dozen a day, 365 dozen divided by 16.6 dozen that each hen can lay means I need 22 good laying hens just to keep up my egg production. That is similar to my existing mixed flock so I think my math is right.
How do you add in 50+ meat birds (hens v/s roo hatching ratio) and the "lazy" layers? Then figure in that I will need to separate some breeding stock... wont I??
Alot goes into breeding doesn't it (or maybe I am just over thinking everything)
When I first started, I had never seen a Buckeye, only read about them (the only picture I had ever seen was a couple I found online but nothing like the many posted here).
I started with only a pair to see if I liked them. The first time I had ever seen a Buckeye live was when I opened a shipping box from Duane Urch and there was a cockerel & pullet (7-8 months old). A shipping delay sent the pullet into a pre-mature molt, and she didn't lay an egg for a couple of months. When she did start laying, I saved the first 7 eggs, one every other day so it took 14 days to collect that little group of eggs. I put the 7 saved eggs in the incubator and all of them hatched. Remarkably, all of them turned out to be pullets. I was asking everyone, "how and when can you tell a Buckeye cockerel from a pullet?" well because these all looked alike (well yeah, they were all the same sex). This gave me 1 male & 8 females to go forward. I did not get a son out of them until the next year.
I guess what I would convey with any breeding program is two things: FIRST, make sure you love the breed and are dedicated to it. SECOND, PATIENCE. We live in a society where everyone wants instant gratification. It should take you some work & time in a breeding program. If it doesn't, then what is the use? For myself, I like the journey of getting there. I see all the time where someone wants the best of the best right away and they want eggs as soon as possible & they want them laying a lot. It takes a lot of time and patience to get what you want out of any breeding program. Patience is what I see as the key ingredient along with a lot of work.
Initially, you do not necessarily need to set up a spiral breeding program. A spiral breeding program is one you intend on keeping past your lifetime, leaving a legacy if you will. After breeding for about ten (10) years, if you decide, you have created something great that you want to pass on, then start a spiral breeding program at that time.
To get started, I suggest a more humble approach. Get you a couple of cockerels to 6-12 or so pullets or like JamesA did, he purchased 3 trios. If good stock, you can successfully linebreed them for years without having to outsource. After the initial breeding year, then breed Father to daughters, grandaughters, great-granddaughters, great-great grand-daughters & then separately, breed Mothers to Son, grandson, great-grandson & great- great grand son. Then take a great-great-great grandson from the Father's line and breed it back to the all the females in the Mother line. Take a great- great-great grandson from the Mother's line and breed to the females in the Father's line. Never breed brother to sister unless they are perfect specimens (seldom). Take the females from these matings and breed back to Father. Take a male and breed back to Mothers. Begin all anew. OR breed Father back to Mother's line's last pullets and vice versa. This will keep you going for the next 5-8 years with no additions. I like to hang on to some hens from each generation and keep great males for as long as possible wanting to slow genetic drift. Things happen and circumstances change so this is not always possible.
For the eggs, you will eventually want to keep pullets & hens of different ages. Pullets/hens lay best their first and second years & the start and end times of laying depends upon their hatch dates/ the time of year, etc. I would suggest keeping more than 22 Buckeye hens if you want a dozen eggs a day (perhaps 30-40). Mine are all on different laying schedules. Remember, a Buckeye is a dual purpose bird (eggs and meat). If one increases egg production too much at the expense of body type (i.e. improving the 150-200 a year egg range), then you do so at the peril of the superb meat bird sought & they begin to look like some of the more prolific laying breeds. Buckeyes are not laying machines but they are not poor layers either. Buckeyes from their creation have been and remain a breed that goes broody. They are capable of hatching and rearing their own young. Be prepared to deal with the broodiness.
You will cull your extra males for meat (and there will be plenty of them, about half) and you can probably easily sell all your extra pullets (since they are in such high demand). I always tried to keep an extra male or two as well & in the event of a catastrophe. With 22-30 hens, you need at least 3 males. BTW, one of the "extra" two males I kept instead of eating won the Best of Breed at the Ohio Nationals, so you never know what may happen (that particular male was very slow, initially, to develop & was not an initial "keeper" for me but he had good type).
If you are not interested in breeding for leaving a legacy or showing birds but simply putting eggs & meat on the table, then simply start with a couple of cockerels, a dozen pullets, build your flock the first year, then hatch and raise replacement hens each year, cull (eat) old hens when they get out of production, breed your replacement cockerels every 3-4 years OR obtain a cockerel from a breeder (by trade or purchase) whose birds are somewhat related to yours every 3-5 years. You can go on indefinitely this way for years & years, keeping 22-30, 1-3 yr old hens, this way, should be enough for the purpose you state. You can also breed uncles to nieces, to grand-nieces, etc. & you can breed aunts to nephews and to grand-nephews, so forth, etc.
It all comes down to what YOUR breeding purpose is. By talking about spiral breeding, then in my mind, I think, "showing, breeding for the good of improving and cultivating the breed, leaving a legacy for my children & their children "VS. breeding for eggs & meat (which you seem to indicate by your post). This breed, the Buckeye, needs more Breeders of the former kind, for sure. There are lots of so- called "Buckeye Breeders," who have been "breeding" for many years & who are nothing more than the later (BUT who claim, rant & rave, to be the former).
Most flattering to me was that Duane Urch got a cockerel from me at the Ohio Nationals last month to put back into his breeding program. I consider Mr. Urch to be a savior of the Buckeye breed as he has had them more than 50 years, and one of the most knowledgeable & humble poultrymen I know. By obtaining a male from me, Mr. Urch can successfully cross back into his line without having the adverse effects of a total outcross. Mine are several years removed from Urch's line and also, I obtained a male from the ALBC strain in 2007 which I bred into my Urch offspring (which with the new ALBC strain, the Urch strain was used to create anyway). The cockerel Mr. Urch obtained is a sibling to the BB cockerel, also to (on this thread) JamesA's birds, to Jensscott male, to Sekinkead's male to rnau's birds (he, rnau, has my males I used in the breeding to get all mine. JamesA is using the same males in his breeding program).
Very sorry for the long post (& rant). I hope I didn't confuse everyone.
Christopher McCary
President, American Buckeye Poultry Club
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Thanks for that well written reply. Exactly the information I need!!!
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Chris always posts the best info.
What he said...
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