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

[Mountain Momma]

I finally found some NuStock locally yesterday... Might try some on the hubby, if I've got half the luck of Bee, I'll wake up to Brad Pitt tomorrow morning!

I think it is the home made nu stock she just mixed, along with some free range roots she found in the woods.....If you do wake up to Brad Pitt I'm definitely gonna try some on mine. I'm hoping for George Clooney and a clean house!

 

[NikkiMiChickie]

A couple pages back, I think it was Fred that mentioned what great grandma would think of the CX... Made me remember a nagging question I've had since learning about the CX (freakishly) rapid growth. So CX is simply a result of a hybridization? No hormones, steroids, etc. Infused from the hatchery to make them grow so fast? I'm planning on a batch of meaties in the spring, but have also toyed with the idea of a batch of hatchery BR's (mine weighs at least 10# right now, at 8months old...). CX almost have a GMO-type feeling to them, to me. They're like Frankenchickens... Or am I completely wrong to feel this way, and the hybridization is the cause of the crazy growth?

Another question is about chick coloring. 2 roosters, one solid black, one barred in a free range flock - so either roo could have fertilized these eggs. 3 chicks hatched, 2 are barred (or working on it) and the third is solid black (he looks like a crow right now, lol). Anyways, my hens are assorted colors, but I wondered if there was anything to the chicks' colors that indicated which roo had sired them.

Thanks!
-Nikki

 

[Mountain Momma]

Well here it is Friday and I just cannot decide which of these roos need to go to soup pot, so here they are none showing aggression the game/bantam is pretty cocky but typical of the breed, the 2 cochin bantams don't even crow and hang out mostly with my 2 little bantam girls, Henry likes them all, the only hen off limits is Lydia, our oldest game hen no one can touch her but Rufus. None are going to give me meaty birds they are just too small being bantams. I can only keep one.

I know nothing about the qualities and I can see you have a tough choice. I lean to the colorful ones, probably because I already have a lot of barred chickens and they dont look unusual to me. What do you want the babies to look like? They are all good looking to me. Nice to have these kinds of problems huh?

 

[Kansas Prairie]

The flat back is merely a breed requirement. The purpose for avoiding pinched tails is obvious, I hope. A hen with a nice wide rear, and a "tent" of her tail feathers will be an easy layer and good breeder, in my experience. The front keel is vital for organ spacing and breast meat development. The high tail is merely unattractive and a fault. But, I believe, right or wrong, that a super high tail on the male leads to females without the nice wide rear and tent tail we all seek. A better feathered bird is warmer in winter and cooler in summer, that's my practical side coming through again. This isn't just about fussiness for fussiness sake. Got to look deeper for the wisdom behind such things.

The Uber large comb is not a good feature for cold hardiness. When the combs get too big and too spikey? I believe you're just going to be in a bad place come that bitter January cold snap. Those are my thoughts. Yes, my thinking is far more on the farmer side of things, but I do see the hows and whys and reasons of those originators of these breeds. I believe they were wise in much of what they wanted in a bird a century ago. That's just my point of view. I respect those old birds folks of long ago.

Thank you for explaining!

 

[Fred's Hens]

A couple pages back, I think it was Fred that mentioned what great grandma would think of the CX... Made me remember a nagging question I've had since learning about the CX (freakishly) rapid growth. So CX is simply a result of a hybridization? No hormones, steroids, etc. Infused from the hatchery to make them grow so fast? I'm planning on a batch of meaties in the spring, but have also toyed with the idea of a batch of hatchery BR's (mine weighs at least 10# right now, at 8months old...). CX almost have a GMO-type feeling to them, to me. They're like Frankenchickens... Or am I completely wrong to feel this way, and the hybridization is the cause of the crazy growth?
Yes, the creation of the CX was purely by natural means of selection and cross breeding. The CX is a 4 way cross of proprietary grandparent stock.

Another question is about chick coloring. 2 roosters, one solid black, one barred in a free range flock - so either roo could have fertilized these eggs. 3 chicks hatched, 2 are barred (or working on it) and the third is solid black (he looks like a crow right now, lol). Anyways, my hens are assorted colors, but I wondered if there was anything to the chicks' colors that indicated which roo had sired them.
Thanks!
-Nikki

Usually. But the ringer is how pure bred the parent stock is. If you put X rooster over Y hen, the result should have a basic formulation and be consistent. What throws all this is the underlying or masked colors you don't see, when the birds are not purebred. Hope that helps. A pure Barred Rooster will absolutely, always, pass on barring, as I understand it.

There is this thing on the web. You plug in the color of the cock and the color of the hen. This computes the outcome for you. Darnest thing I've ever seen and never did figure out how to use the fool thing.

 

[Beekissed]

I finally found some NuStock locally yesterday... Might try some on the hubby, if I've got half the luck of Bee, I'll wake up to Brad Pitt tomorrow morning!

I think it is the home made nu stock she just mixed, along with some free range roots she found in the woods.....If you do wake up to Brad Pitt I'm definitely gonna try some on mine. I'm hoping for George Clooney and a clean house!

You guys are too, too much!!!

Heck, if it was that good of stuff, I'd look like Salma Hayek right now and be investing in NuStock stock dividends.

 

[Mountain Momma]

You guys are too, too much!!!

Heck, if it was that good of stuff, I'd look like Salma Hayek right now and be investing in NuStock stock dividends.

you are giving NU Stock a whole new meaning!

 

[normanack]

There is this thing on the web. You plug in the color of the cock and the color of the hen. This computes the outcome for you. Darnest thing I've ever seen and never did figure out how to use the fool thing.

Oh Fred, it's easy.

First, choose the male and female colors. It's easiest to go to the little colored comic-book-style pictures, or more technically, a "basic representation of the phenotype." Disregard the fact that very few of the colors look like actual chickens.


I chose the black patterned silver transverse pencilled daddy and the black patterned silver duckwing momma comic-book chickens and got these results:

ERe+ co+co+ Dbdb+ Pgpg+ ml+ml+ Cha+Cha+ mh+mh+ di+di+ Ig+Ig+ cb+cb+ i+i+ bl+bl+ Lav+Lav+ C+C+ Mo+Mo+ b+b+ SS Choc+Choc+
Gender = Male, Ratio = 1/2 = 50%, minimum of animals to breed: 2
black patterned silver incomplete transverse pencilled

ERe+ co+co+ Dbdb+ Pgpg+ ml+ml+ Cha+Cha+ mh+mh+ di+di+ Ig+Ig+ cb+cb+ i+i+ bl+bl+ Lav+Lav+ C+C+ Mo+Mo+ b+- S- Choc+-
Gender = Female, Ratio = 1/2 = 50%, minimum of animals to breed: 2
black patterned silver incomplete transverse pencilled

I disagreed with the Dbdb+ but other than that was in agreement with the results.

Easy-peasy!

(Full disclosure: I chose two pretty colored comic-book chickens, clicked Calculate, and ran screaming from the room.)

 

[NikkiMiChickie]

[COLOR=B22222]Usually.  But the ringer is how pure bred the parent stock is.  If you put X rooster over Y hen, the result should have a basic formulation and be consistent.  What throws all this is the underlying or masked colors you don't see, when the birds are not purebred.  Hope that helps.  A pure Barred Rooster will absolutely, always, pass on barring, as I understand it.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=B22222]There is this thing on the web.  You plug in the color of the cock and the color of the hen.  This computes the outcome for you.  Darnest thing I've ever seen and never did figure out how to use the fool thing.  [/COLOR]

Thanks, Fred, for the reassurance about the CX and my rooster/color questions. It's been a few years since my last college level biology classes, and I'm a bit rusty on all the genotype/phenotype business. I've found a couple threads here on byc that I have abruptly left because my brain wants to chat about chickens, not decipher the scientific jargon! My flock are at least partially hatchery birds, and probably totally. I need to ask the little local shop where I bought the second half of my birds about their origin, although I'm sure, since I purchased them at a store and not directly from a breeder, that they are hatchery stock as well. At this point in my chickening, I'm ok with that

Thank you!
-Nikki

 

[NikkiMiChickie]

you are giving NU Stock a whole new meaning!

I think you mean "a whole NU meaning!" from retail hawks a few pages back to NU applications for Bee's favorite doctorin' supplies, we are creating a whole nu lingo here on BYC. Someone needs to create a dictionary thread for all the newbies to search when they don't know what we're talking about... When someone is talking about their BO on this website, they do NOT mean Body Odor.