Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[Fred's Hens]

With me, when I see "heritage" I think "old timey". The kind where you get up in the morning, open the hen house door, feed them once a day and get up the eggs. Every now and then, a hen would go missing and show up a while later with her babies. The kind where you don't worry about how long it takes them to lay because there's always some laying, since you have chickens ranging from a few months old to a few years old. The kind where you always have some extra roos to cull, or a hen that's not worth her food, or just plain nasty so you have a nice fresh chicken dinner once in a while. (The kind of chicken you can taste!) That's why I love this thread and am so thankful Bee has decided to keep it alive. I had began to think those chickens no longer existed until I found this thread. Now, I know the ball's in my court. As a result of this thread, I honestly believe I can experiment with hatchery chickens until I find the breeds I like best, practice good husbandry methods, cull for good genes and by the time I retire, I should be well on my way to having those old timey chicken, all thanks to you old timers!! Thanks again, Julie

There are a couple of approaches. One approach is simply to find a breeder of good birds, in the breed(s) you desire. This save oodles of wasted and often frustrating time, perhaps years and years. You start right out with great DNA, birds to type you desire and then go from there. Without careful selection and breeding, even a quality flock deteriorates into mediocrity in just a few generations. I would highly recommend this path for those who want good birds.

Or, get a box of 50 chicks from the best selected hatchery you can. Lots of research required. Then, choose only those top 3 or 4 hens and that very top rooster and go from there. If, and this is a big if, if the DNA is there, if there is something there you can work with, in a few generations you may have a flock of birds that you are quite pleased with. Sometimes, the faults and shortcomings just keep appearing and it is frustrating to breed out the junk and sometimes, the program will end in failure to achieve what you want. What you wanted simply was never there in the first place.

Whichever path one chooses, lots of patient research is required. Start with a trio or two trios of great birds and achieve your goals. That would be my simple 2 cents worth.

"All I want are chickens like the ones we had when I was growing up." The only way to get that, honestly, is to get them from breeders/keepers who have faithfully maintained those birds all these years. You may be talking 20 or 30 years, which is 20 or 30 chicken generations.

 

[fowlman01]

Walt (Fowlman01) would be of help in this discussion.

Heritage birds, true to breed type, SOP type, purely line bred for 75 years type birds are very, very hard to find. There may be less than a few hundred true New Hampshires in existence. Some of us Old Timers (including Robert Blosl) even doubt the true Delaware even exists. There may be less than a few thousand true bred Rhode Island Reds alive. The true to breed, rose combed Rhode Island White may number fewer than 200 even in existence. The true bred Columbian Rock is literally rarer than hen's teeth. One of the frequent posters here, Al, may know for sure, but how many true bred Cornish are there?

The hatcheries provide a service in producing literally millions of chicks each year, while the heritage breeders sometimes only produce hundreds of chicks, nationwide, depending on the specific breed. In a nutshell, there simply aren't the number of true heritage bred fowl even available to supply the number of people who might desire them.

But, even if these true heritage birds were more readily available, would most backyarders really want a chick that takes 10 weeks to even feather out? Would they really want birds that take 8 months to come to point of lay? Would they really want birds that may take forever and day to mature? Would they really want the slow growth rate and loooooooooong feeding period that it takes to grow out many of the true bred, heritage birds? What would most of these folks even do with such birds, beyond the first generation? It's not as if 99% of such folks would breed them faithfully and true to type anyhow.

These are sincere questions.

No doubt that there are less heritage birds available than hatchery type birds. There are more becoming available as some of the BYC people become more interested in them and are producing some fine specimens. These are some birds I indirectly got from kathyinmo. These New Hamps are 6mo in this picture, started laying at 5 mo's and are going to be huge as they are already giants this young. Not all heritage birds develop slowly. The Barred Rocks do but these look like adults at 4 mo's.




The males are developing slower, but overall these have grown very quickly. The pullets are already 7 lbs.

Walt

 

[JeffOeuf]

" With me, when I see "heritage" I think "old timey". All I want are chickens like the ones we had when I was growing up. The kind where you get up in the morning, open the hen house door, feed them once a day and get up the eggs. Every now and then, a hen would go missing and show up a while later with her babies. The kind where you don't worry about how long it takes them to lay because there's always some laying, since you have chickens ranging from a few months old to a few years old. The kind where you always have some extra roos to cull, or a hen that's not worth her food, or just plain nasty so you have a nice fresh chicken dinner once in a while. (The kind of chicken you can taste!)

I'm looking for much the same, with maybe just a little bit of extra work thrown in, and an effort to get the best of a couple of different worlds. I'm thinking of two heritage breeds, from quality lines. The two breeds would be ones that would produce a quality sex-link hybrid. Specifically, I'm thinking Buckeye and Silver Laced Wyandotte. In the short term, I'm planning on a Buckeye rooster and some nice SLW pullets. If I'm happy with the resulting crosses, I'll get a SLW rooster, and eventually a couple Buckeye pullets. This should give me a self-sustaining flock that should lay well. My wife is very resistant to the thought of processing the culls, but maybe she'll get over that when I have the yard full of birds, instead of just a handful.

 

[Beekissed]

Walt, those are beautiful birds! I think everyone wants to have the finest they can have, but you are most likely correct...most typical backyarders won't want to continue or develop the old lines. It takes work and long term commitment to turn out birds so fine and true.

 

[Kansas Prairie]

Yes, VERY!! I've got to run for now, maybe things will straignten themselves out!!

Several peope were having troubles with the site, most people have success if they
try a Disk clean up!

Go to All programs , accessories, system tools, and do a disc clean up.

 

[Gargoyle]

Go to All programs , accessories, system tools, and do a disc clean up.

Thanks for the reminder!

 

[Kansas Prairie]

Walt, beautiful birds!
It's wonderful to see huge birds. The little Silkies don't look like real chickens to me.

 

[vmdanielsen]

I'm looking for much the same, with maybe just a little bit of extra work thrown in, and an effort to get the best of a couple of different worlds. I'm thinking of two heritage breeds, from quality lines. The two breeds would be ones that would produce a quality sex-link hybrid. Specifically, I'm thinking Buckeye and Silver Laced Wyandotte. In the short term, I'm planning on a Buckeye rooster and some nice SLW pullets. If I'm happy with the resulting crosses, I'll get a SLW rooster, and eventually a couple Buckeye pullets. This should give me a self-sustaining flock that should lay well. My wife is very resistant to the thought of processing the culls, but maybe she'll get over that when I have the yard full of birds, instead of just a handful.

I really like my buckeyes. They are decent layers and yes they are delicious!! My husband was at first resistant. I find the more I hatch in the spring, the less he minds eating them.

 

[Maven]

Well, we had our first incident with a predator yesterday. It was very overcast and drizzling rain. The chickens all have very good instinct about always staying under cover of all the big trees but there is one section of ridge with a pretty big gap BETWEEN two trees - not overhead, but between them. Well, a big ol'redtailed hawk came flying right in skimming that ridge and nailed one of my Buff Orpington pullets before she could get to cover. I was watching as I just happened to step outside to go down and make sure the coop was ready for them as the storm was to pick up pretty fierce.

She saw the hawk the minute it crested the ridge - like one of those black ops helicopters you see pop up out of a canyon in the movies - and she tried to run, but it was too close and she is my biggest girl so even though she's pretty quick, she wasn't quite quick enough. I ran down and the hawk took off just to the edge of the ridge. I bent down to check her and I swear that SOB started to come at ME for 'taking its food!' But it thought better of it pretty quick and took off across the pasture.

I picked the pullet up and boy, if I'd been 30 seconds later it would have been all over. With surgical precision that hawk had already opened her up under her left wing and was one more beak full away from killing her. She had gashes on her face which told me she had been putting up a heck of a fight.

I kept repeating the mantra 'she's a chicken; we DON'T "save" chickens!' as I walked up to the house picturing BEE shaking a finger at me. The Mr. helped me hold and inspect her - she was bleeding pretty heavy and losing handfuls of feathers from the shock.

He said she fought so well that she deserved a chance - no extraneous effort, but we could make her comfortable and see how she did. Ok. So I cleaned her up, shot half a tube of antibiotic ointment into the gash under her wing, and puncture on her leg, and the cuts on her face, and put her in a pen narrow enough that she couldn't life and flap her wings - only stand up, eat and drink.

Came to the house, went to bed, and fully expected to find her dead this morning. I was a bit sad because she really is my biggest, prettiest Buff and I had really hoped to breed her for some good dual purpose birds. But other than that, 'We don't save chickens' followed me to bed.

This morning I went down and she is perky, no more blood, eating, drinking and wanting OUT with the rest of the birds. The one eye I thought she was surely blinded in is wide open and obviously seeing things, and she is clucking and purring to her posse, who sits gathered around her as if to say 'tell us again how you kicked that hawks azz, Beatrice!'

So, looks like my queen bee will get to reign a bit longer after all. No heroic efforts to save her, but by giving her a chance I found I do indeed have a gal worth breeding - she ran when she was surprised, she fought that hawk for all she was worth, and she has survived the attack and you would hardly know it happened today - my kind of gal!

I'm keeping her penned for another day to give the wing time to shed the rest of the dried blood so no one picks on her but then she will be back with the flock.

AND best news of all, I found her a Mr. and will be going to pick him up on Saturday - beautiful BO roo just 2 weeks older than her, and just as regal-looking as she is! Plus, from everything the owner tells me, he is already an excellent flock protector and very courteous with the ladies. A far cry from that sniveling twit of an Andalusian!

Sorry so long, but I just wanted to share the story. Thanks for 'listening'

 

[Beekissed]

Quote: