Hi Barb--
I am not Mr C, but if I may...the ideal tail angle for roosters is 45 degrees. Most of the tails we've seen in 2012-2013 have been held very high, some even past 90 degrees above horizontal (which is called a squirrel tail/not good). To determine your rooster's natural angle, either place them in a cage or standing position if they are trained for show, and measure it then.
Nope hatching eggs. Id say its definitely fair to judge them from hatching eggs. Its one of the best indicators you can get IMO. you should get some good ones and some nice ones maybe some bad ones. but from the person who's supposed to win all the shows over there you wouldn't expect all bad ones. And after looking at her site and seeing all the ones hatched you would think they come from totally different flocks. They still had the too short kinda dumpy looking legs and they were the willow color so that stayed the same. I really do prefer the longer leghorn style legs and they are supposed to be yellow(or no). I could understand buying culls and not getting good ones. but if i wanted to be a respectable breeder and I'm selling hatching eggs i would definitely make sure at least half of them came from my best pairings. And would understand if the other half got maid up from some test pairings. But from the pics on the website to the ones i seen hatched and grown out shes not legit in my mind, or shes so competitive she purposely sells lower quality to stay the best around. either way i would have been very disappointed if that's what i had got from her. If GFF gets the same type of quality there will be allot of disappointed people running out to spend allot of money on what they think will be refined. Who knows maybe my friend just got extremely unlucky but i seriously doubt it .
yes i have a really young one like that also with the black tips. The way i breed them i got examples of all that's in this blood of mine. The hens and my one roo is like that pleasant personalities. But i was just PM ing someone else where we were talking about our human aggressive roos. None of his offspring have his trait but hes a gem that's for sure.
Neither agreeing nor disagreeing here -- I haven't seen the pictures or actual birds and don't have enough experience to judge them if I did! -- but would add that Jill Rees' CLBs have (rightly or wrongly) almost mythic status in the States so there is bound to be some let-down when comparing a wide sampling of her birds to her show-winning specimens.
I see the point you are making. From my emails with Jill I very seriously doubt that there would be any ulterior motive of any sort. Again - I think that the advances I have seen in the breed in the past 2-years are remarkable here in the USA....but I think that the internal genetics of CLs are v-e-r-y tricky....JMO.
Yes, like Kpenley said the correct angle of the tails is a 45 deg set. In my 2nd generation I got 2/3 high tails (60 deg plus) and 1/3 low tails (closer to the 45 deg). I have paired low with high and am hoping that the 45 deg tails will come through in 50% of more of the offspring. I am making baby steps to better birds. Eventually I would like all the tail angle to be fixed in the line, but know that will take a few generation to accomplish. I am just hoping that next year i can pair low tails to low tails so that I can offset other deficencies that had to be passed over this year.
