Developing My Own Breed Of Large Gamefowl For Free Range Survival (Junglefowl x Liege)

[Bigtom Turkey]

Yeah, Asils are almost bantam sized.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

And how big are your cracker roosters? Sorry for all the questions.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Hei Hei is about to molt. He’s about 2.5lbs. His frame size is about like a game hen.

The biggest pure Cracker I produced was pushing 3lbs before he got killed by his brother.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

Any idea how tall?

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Around a foot in a normal pose I would guess for a cock. A hen is significantly smaller in stature but long in body. They are larger than bantams in frame but bantam sized in weight, giving the impression that they are intermediary between bantam and normal-sized chickens.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I moved the 3/4 Liege 1/4 aseel to the growout coop today. They’re several days shy of being 60 days old. I can tell two are cockerels for sure. Not sure about the others. There are seven total.

 

[Dogmanphil]

Really awesome project bullfrog I love your little cracker birds.

I haven’t had time to go through the entire thread yet but I had a couple questions

I know from watching your videos that lack of gameness and small size were 2 issues you came across in your cracker line, I’m curious as to why you decided to cross the liege to asil and then lean into the liege. I get that you want big birds but the liege don’t seem particularly game from what I’ve read and seen. Then when you add the asil I understand that for adding in hardiness but in my experience they’re a more intelligent gamefowl…. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but what I mean by intelligent is that they don’t like to be hurt,they think before they act, watch a couple stags how they play spar it’s very tactical. I’ve never heard of an asil attacking hawks or even other animals really they’re pretty chill.

Edit: I just saw your asil they look like they got some American blood in them (tails up) should be pretty good to add aggression then.

I would think something like a sweater or a roundhead or a radio or a more American type fowl would produce birds like your after. American fowl are more hot headed and pretty much just run head first into threats, shoot first ask questions later.

I’m a falconer too so I can tell you with certainty a chicken CAN and will kill hawks. A good size female adult red tail hawk only weighs maybe 2 pounds, very fragile bones and when they clamp down onto prey they can sometimes get locked into that position and if a 5 pound American game with untrimmed spurs comes blazing in to save his hen… you better believe that’ll be a dead hawk

Just a thought but wouldn’t you think liegeXasil would make a really calm sort of fowl?

And when you say “survival chicken” do you mean a chicken that’s good at surviving or a chicken for survival minded people? Because if your goal is to have a survivor I think the liege might be a little too big to be an efficient forager don’t you think? I was thinking for my own free range flock to try and target a 4-6 pound harvest weight (8 month) so they aren’t too dependent on me but still a nice table bird

Sorry to unload on u like that but I’ve been lurking for a long time lmaooo

Once again man super cool projects you got goin can’t wait to see how they all turn out.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Really awesome project bullfrog I love your little cracker birds.

I haven’t had time to go through the entire thread yet but I had a couple questions

I know from watching your videos that lack of gameness and small size were 2 issues you came across in your cracker line, I’m curious as to why you decided to cross the liege to asil and then lean into the liege. I get that you want big birds but the liege don’t seem particularly game from what I’ve read and seen. Then when you add the asil I understand that for adding in hardiness but in my experience they’re a more intelligent gamefowl…. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but what I mean by intelligent is that they don’t like to be hurt,they think before they act, watch a couple stags how they play spar it’s very tactical. I’ve never heard of an asil attacking hawks or even other animals really they’re pretty chill.

Edit: I just saw your asil they look like they got some American blood in them (tails up) should be pretty good to add aggression then.

I would think something like a sweater or a roundhead or a radio or a more American type fowl would produce birds like your after. American fowl are more hot headed and pretty much just run head first into threats, shoot first ask questions later.

I’m a falconer too so I can tell you with certainty a chicken CAN and will kill hawks. A good size female adult red tail hawk only weighs maybe 2 pounds, very fragile bones and when they clamp down onto prey they can sometimes get locked into that position and if a 5 pound American game with untrimmed spurs comes blazing in to save his hen… you better believe that’ll be a dead hawk

Just a thought but wouldn’t you think liegeXasil would make a really calm sort of fowl?

And when you say “survival chicken” do you mean a chicken that’s good at surviving or a chicken for survival minded people? Because if your goal is to have a survivor I think the liege might be a little too big to be an efficient forager don’t you think? I was thinking for my own free range flock to try and target a 4-6 pound harvest weight (8 month) so they aren’t too dependent on me but still a nice table bird

Sorry to unload on u like that but I’ve been lurking for a long time lmaooo

Once again man super cool projects you got goin can’t wait to see how they all turn out.

At this point I don't think a lack of gaminess is an issue. I was judging my birds based upon the behavior of stags and stag relations to a mature brood cock. Based upon the bluster a lot of younger gamefowl guys put out there (especially in FB gamefowl groups), they'd make you think that any stag that isn't killing all other stags at 5 months old lacks game. I've learned that's hot air from guys trying to promote their own birds for sale.

What I've learned from old timer gamefowl breeders and what I've also observed in my Crackers is that:

1. Game drive is tied to maturity, and as such chicks and very young stags aren't that capable of exhibiting much of it. Many old-fashioned bankivoid gamefowl lines don't enter into maturity until the cocks are around 2 years old. The game drive coincides with the lengthening and sharpening of the spurs, which in a state of nature gives mature brood cocks the weapons they need to dominate and kill any rival for control of a flock. That's nature's way of making sure the strongest do most of the breeding. Its extremely similar to the maturation process a wild turkey gobbler goes through when transitioning from a jake to a tom. A gamefowl brood cock with a very high game drive may have been laid back as a stag and may also be laid back with future stags that submit to him in a free range setting.

2. My Crackers start killing each other after hitting a year-old and they kick into hard-core mode near 2 yo. My current 3 year-old brood cock is even more fierce than he was a 2. Lately he's taken to flogging my guineafowl cocks when they attack hens over food. That's the kind of drive I'm looking for. I believe there's a link between a strong drive for a mature rooster to kill a rival rooster and a willingness to flog a hawk. I've noticed that I haven't had a hawk raid the flock that I've known of since April. I think the 3 yo brood cock has probably laid into one or two outside of my view.

3. The onset of the game drive isn't entirely a result of genetics or age, but also due to how a bird is raised. A stag on a tie cord will develop a game drive earlier because he's never been whipped into submission by a brood cock free range. Therefore I can't measure my free range bird's gaminess by how they act when they're young on free range. I either have to pen them up early and let them develop in isolation so that they never learn what its means to submit or I have to let them mature out naturally so that they only develop the drive when their bodies can cash the check their mind wants to write.

I've talked about in this thread that "game drive" has multiple definitions. Some people define it as the simple desire to fight and kill rivals. Others define it as the willingness to fight even through extreme pain or injury. I have come to define it as a deep and abiding instinct between mature roosters to fight to the death over hens and territory. Then exactly how far its taken in light of two roosters going at it no matter the injury is a matter of degree of gaminess. My Crackers usually fight until one rooster has lost both his eyes, then the looser stumbles around blind and goes and dies somewhere.

The straight Greenfire Liege definitely aren't gamey. My brother has kept multiple pure Liege cocks together with to no major ill effect. But they do flog hawks. I know two separate people in a nearby city and one breeder active on the forum who lives near me (and who I got my birds from) who have each attested to their Liege cocks flogging a hawk. I do not believe they are lying. So what I'm hoping to harness is the size and anti-predator nature of the Liege with a more general fiery disposition of the aseel to further exaggerate the tendency to flog a hawk. Those viral videos I've seen on the internet of hens flogging hawks over their bitties are almost always aseel hens somewhere in Central Asia. I actually haven't found the aseel to be hardy in subtropical Florida. The impression I have is that the oriental gamefowl lines are supremely hardy in their native environments they've been adapted to but not so much out of those areas. I do fine the crosses to be very hardy.

I'm more generally finding that the crosses, either bankivoid or oriental, are superior to the pure-bred versions of themselves in terms of hardiness, likely due in many generations of inbreeding suppressing the immune systems of pure bred birds.

My aseel x Liege bull stag is hell on feathers in terms of aggression. His father was an 8-10 on game drive and he inherited most or all of that drive from him. I don't believe hot plus cold equals cold or that crossing a 10 to a 1 makes a 5. I believe hot plus cold can equal hot, cold, or lukewarm, or anything in between. A 10 bred to a 1 can make anything between 1 and 10. Game drive, aggression, whatever you want to call it, isn't a spiritual or character quality of the rooster. Its a physical trait determined by DNA and like any genetics it can pass on its offspring mostly unaltered if the genetic conditions are right. If you make enough chicks crossing the 10 to the 1, yes you'll make a lot of 5s. But you're also bound to make the occasional 9 or 10.

Breeding the aseel to the Liege doesn't lower the aseel, it raises the Liege. How much depends on the individual chick and which side it took more after for game drive.

Another way this project is evolved is that I'm keeping the bankivoids together and the orientals together. Although I am randomly crossing the two lines here and there to see what I get, I'm only working to setting the genetics of the aseel x Liege and the Cracker x American lines. I basically want an improved bankivoid and separately an improved oriental. I consider the Liege an oriental.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I am defining "survivor" towards the chicken. A superior free ranger.

Take the wild turkey. Its a huge species compared to the Liege. Yet they do well in the Eastern and Southern woods. What similarly built orientals lack are large wings to allow them to fly well like a wild turkey can. My domestic turkeys are excellent foragers and take virtually all of their nutrition free range except a few pecks worth of feed I throw out in the mornings. I don't think size is an impediment to foraging. What size does impede is flight unless there are corresponding long wings to go with it.

I would in fact consider domestic turkeys superior free range homestead birds if they simply wouldn't be all over the spectrum in terms of human aggression or wanderlust.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

No don't get me wrong, I think that 5lbs thereabouts is probably an ideal weight, especially on the bankivoid side. Especially 5lbs spread out over a large frame and long wings. But if I can get a chicken that mostly copies a wild turkey's body plan, I think heavier should work.