Crossbreeding dual purpose breeds for sustainable flock

[CNJ]

I just read a step by step article on breeding broiler chickens and the main point was to control how much they eat to prevent the hens from developing to much fat around their ovary ducts. They recommend once a day feeding. I have a hard time doing this because feeding makes my chicken happy and seeing them happy makes me happy.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

I just read a step by step article on breeding broiler chickens and the main point was to control how much they eat to prevent the hens from developing to much fat around their ovary ducts. They recommend once a day feeding. I have a hard time doing this because feeding makes my chicken happy and seeing them happy makes me happy.

I don't think I could raise them more strict on feeding them unless I had them in a building somewhat climate controlled, and only the rangers.
I only feed once a day. Ya they just are bred to put on weight and they do it.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Weather is being up and down spring weather again. It's about 45* but nice and sunny thankfully. The chicks are spending time in the sun. I've been moving the pen every other day. I fill the feeder and move it to the front edge of the pen then pull it about half to three quarters up. Then move the feeder to the front again and pull the rest of the way forward.

I've been looking at two of the cockerels and was pretty sure they were showing barring. Sure enough they are! Neither are ones that were banded. I was a little fuzzy on why the primary wing feathers weren't barred? Interaction with the other pattern genetics?
So I'm curious if any of the pullets will be barred. I was looking at videos of Bielefelders as chicks of different ages to see how the pullets looked. They are kind of laced looking. Have to wait and see.

006 is the pullet that was faint chipmunk. 007 is the cockerel that was chipmunk striped. Each the heaviest of the colors. The rest of the banded biggest ones were blonde chicks.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Brought the chicks in. Lost 4. Not sure if it was rats or mink. Really annoying... Not sure if I'm going to try to put them out during the day and bring them in at night.
I didn't get weights on Tuesday. It was raining or threatening to, and windy. I couldn't figure out how to do it. I'm also thinking they probably lost or didn't gain with dealing with the cold.
I gotta build a brooder...

Down to 30 eggs in the incubator. Quitters. Not sure if it's problems with the FR hens or what. I'm curious what the rate is on hatching the FR broilers.

 

[CNJ]

Not sure if it was rats or mink.

I had a mongoose problem, they were eating my 1 month old chicks, so I bought this trap and got rid of them. I have also caught a lot of rats with this trap, but they still around. At least I got rid of the mongoose in my area.

I use raw chicken meat for the mongoose and chicken feed for the rats. After I catch them, I drop the trap in my fish pond to drown them.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133414970276

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Lockdown for the eggs. Left with 5 Bielefelder x FR eggs so it'll be interesting to see what down colors they are. And the rest NH x FR down colors.
Thursday/Friday hatching so we shall see!

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Last year 4wk weights (grams)
FR- avg 437. Low 371. High 525.
NH- low 368. High 539.
Brahma- low 99. High 539.

March batch weights
Chick/ wk2/ wk3/ wk4/ wk5
1- 225, 352, 470, 589
2- 205, 322, 421, 520
3- 198, 311, 411, 510
4- 219, 346, 473, 600
5- 190, 303, 415, 528
6- 200, 314, 402, 490
7- 195, 295, 395, 495

Barred 438 and 485. Smallest chick is a feather leg at 202. The other two feather legs aren't that much behind. Weirdly they have lost the feathers on their legs! They did have remnants I thought they would grow in big feathers but haven't. Is this a thing with heterozygous for feathers on the legs?
Wk 4 weights are estimated based on today's and wk 3 weights and I extrapolated it out.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

The two barred chicks. Pretty sure cockerels. Interesting barring and Columbian going on.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

I was just thinking about something I read about with pigs... A bunch of people were breeding small homestead breeds to the big modern breeds. Like AGH x Hamp.. or kunekune x duroc.. etc.. anyways over years of forum posts and fb groups posts, across many years, I repeatedly read that the cross offspring were intended to be trying to achieve the lower feed requirements and some more frame/bulk from the modern breed. But what happened most of the time is that people said "heck no, never again" because the predominant offspring in reality was a slightly bigger boned small breed pig that needed to eat the same as the modern breed parent.

Obviously it's too early to say anything yet if that relates to this project and to chickens. But I thought it was interesting.
These chicks will eat until there is nothing left. I space out giving them more feed because some of the big ones can be bossy and shove the smaller ones out of the way to hork down food. And their crops get just absolutely huge. I've seriously wondered if they would eat themselves so full they could burst the crop.
I have even a couple times pulled the smaller ones and gave just them feed in between feedings of the whole group.

Part of that is just hey I'm breeding from hybrids and the offspring are going to be varied in size and growth. That's just how it works.
From my research I'd need to keep breeding from only the current stock out for at least 5 generations to see for sure this is the growth genetics of these chickens and not hybrid vigor skewing the results.

I don't know where this will go but it's food for thought.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

The first chick to pip (last night) was not progressing. I kept an eye on it and ended up assisting it. It has membrane dried to it's back and I'm wondering if it managed to dry up that much to cause problems last night when I topped up water. I can't see anything else. Dunno. That was from an "extra" egg. Chick is blonde, wondering if it may end up white? Hm..
The first one to hatch was this morning. I just realized it's the other "extra" egg. So the only of the two to make it through were the first hatched. And neither have feathered legs! So assuming white orp is the mom. Maybe the comb will be different? Not sure. This one is blonde and striped.

Then just a little while ago a third hatched. NH roo over FR hens. Another is pipped.

Only 5 Bielefelder roo over FR hen eggs made it to lockdown out of 12. No pips from them. Really hoping for pullets from them! I could start the auto sexing line then.