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

[Florida Bullfrog]

Have you tried breeding the F1 offspring together? Should get a mix of sizes, & traits.

I have not. I have only bred Indo back to his mother and aunt on the Liege side.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I have not. I have only bred Indo back to his mother and aunt on the Liege side.

Okay.
I think it's worth a try.

 

[SunflowerKing]

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Indo still isn’t ready for his closeup yet with my better camera. He still has another week or two before his tail is fully filled out. These pics are current as of today. I am posting them to show how solid his build is. Because…

… I am learning a lesson I did not expect to learn. Its good to worm your chickens. Even if they’re supposed to be free-range, Mad Max super survival chickens. I have believed these last few years its better to let nature take its course with parasites and let the most parasite resistant chickens breed. I no longer lean that way as of this past month.

I recently lost a milk cow I didn’t worm. She wasted away even though she ate like a hog. She didn’t have Johne’s disease (which is a waisting disease of the guts cows can get). My other cows are fat as can be. But they’ve been wormed.

Once cool mornings hit here last few weeks several of Indo’s half-layer chicks died. Three of the 3/4 Liege chicks also died. I cut them open and saw no sign of Mareks. But they all had virtually no breast meat. Even though I special fed several of them by hand to make sure each got a good handful of feed a day on top of what they foraged. So I started inspecting the survivors and the story was the same. Emaciated breasts. Then I checked all of the free range chickens I could reach. All were the same, very scant breast tissue, except for the pure Crackers, Indo, and Indo’s half-Cracker daughters. And the daughters weren’t fantastic. Just better than the layers and the chicks. Then I checked the coop birds and even some of the coop birds with full feeders had somewhat emaciated breasts.

But not free range Indo. He’s as thick as a body builder. Indo is the only chicken I have that’s been heavily dewormed. I dewormed him about a year ago with Ivermectin just for the heck of trying it when he started struggling with the free range sickness his brothers and sisters all succumbed to except for the one sister. But I never thought about connecting his deworming with his subsequent thriving.

So a week ago I gave a dose of ivermectin to one of my American hens (the one that lays blue eggs) and my new American aseel cross pullet. They were fine actually, both in coops. But I wanted to see if I subjectively noticed a difference. Then two days ago my orange 3/4 Liege stag (Azog the Defiler) was at the point of an emaciated death (no breast meat, ruffled feathers, stumbling around) and I dosed him up.

The two American hens look exceptionally vibrant a week later. I weighed the new pullet before and after and she actually gained half an ounce. Azog is pepped up and already putting some tissue back on his breast. His feathers now look neat and not ruffled. His countenance overall seems healthy.

So I have now wormed most of my chickens with ivermectin as of last night and today. There are but a few left I have to catch. Over the next few weeks I’ll feel their breasts and keep track of how well they fill out.

All pics are as of today.

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Azog.

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One of the Americans I dewormed last week. Her comb has never been bigger. She was already of good build but now she’s more like a laying hen.

I only just wormed these today. They are Indo’s daughters and of all of my chickens they had the most plump breasts. They do forage far away from the farmyard.
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Indo x Cracker pullet 1.

View attachment 3299760View attachment 3299761Indo x Cracker pullet 2. Look at those wild eyes.

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Indo x Cracker pullet 3 (she’s tiny).

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Indo x Cracker pullet 4.

I just sent off this Indo x Cracker stag to live on a other free range farm.

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The half Cracker birds off of Indo are good, tough, birds. They’re not very big. Pullet 1 is the biggest. She’s about the size of a normal American game pullet. The rest are Cracker sized.

I have Indo birds in the hands of a few others. They’re reporting stags topping out at 6lb. About what Indo is. His stags end up looking a lot like him. Here is an example:
View attachment 3299779I am disappointed that the genetics are not producing Liege-sized roosters even when bred back to Liege. I am wondering if the large size of the Liege rooster comes from the father’s side. My brother has several 3/4 Liege birds bred by a Liege cock that might tell the tale.

If worming my chickens seems to dramatically increase the free range survival odds of the Indo crosses, I will make some more 3/4 Liege next year. If all of my birds with skinny breasts get plump, then I’ll know that parasites were having a major impact on my flock.

Perhaps, you could experiment with growing some wormwood and allowing your chickens to nibble on it occasionally? or feed it directly?

 

[AGeese]

I’m taking the view that all of the chickens I have have exhibited better parasite resistance by virtue of the fact they’re still alive. Whatever sort of nasty gut parasite I have out here, it killed a grown cow and several dozens of my young chickens. Now yes, in the future it will begin to aide new chickens that might not survive otherwise. But I’m willing to take that risk. I deworm my dogs. I’ve dewormed my other cows. Heck I deworm myself sometimes. So why not my chickens? Its so easy and cheap to do that if it has the major benefit that I’m predicting it is going to have, I adjudge it to be worth it.

The milk cow had a 4 week old calf when I put her down. That calf has now survived a month on its own with no help from me. I can’t worm it yet because it won’t let me get close enough and I don’t have a chute to run it in. I thought it was a bull calve until recently. I now see its a heifer. So she may become my new milk cow, being half zebu and half Jersey.

I'm so glad I read this, although been lucky with early frosts followed by nice thaws that allow the birds to get back out and forage. This I think inhibits some of the parasites. But had some areas I need to address on the property that need drainage so not to contribute to the microbials/parasites/bacteria/pathogens etc. that could be built up with bird waste.

Hope yours recover. I am thinking of now worming one of my Buckeyes.

Florida Bullfrog: They are Indo’s daughters and of all of my chickens

These are great looking birds. Your top black one there is my fave.

 

[R.J.]

Hey Bull frog I saw one of your videos for the 1st time yesterday. Gamefowl look awesome. I never knew the main cock would actually kill young stags. I always thought if they had enough room they would all get along. I remember as a young teenager back in the 80s we visited the SanDiego Zoo and they had jungle fowl that looked like grey gamefowl. dozens of them through out the park ran around together cocks, stags, pullets, hens of various ages. Keep up the good work

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Generally

Hey Bull frog I saw one of your videos for the 1st time yesterday. Gamefowl look awesome. I never knew the main cock would actually kill young stags. I always thought if they had enough room they would all get along. I remember as a young teenager back in the 80s we visited the SanDiego Zoo and they had jungle fowl that looked like grey gamefowl. dozens of them through out the park ran around together cocks, stags, pullets, hens of various ages. Keep up the good work

The brood cock generally won’t kill young stags when they haven’t developed far but things get iffy as soon as the stags start having full plumage and points on their spurs. My experience with my own Crackers is that any time after 1 year old they might kill each other, and they definitely will after 2 years old. Seems like 2 years old is the time they’re truly adults.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

Nice Birds! I have been gone for a while and they have only gotten better.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I'm so glad I read this, although been lucky with early frosts followed by nice thaws that allow the birds to get back out and forage. This I think inhibits some of the parasites. But had some areas I need to address on the property that need drainage so not to contribute to the microbials/parasites/bacteria/pathogens etc. that could be built up with bird waste.

Hope yours recover. I am thinking of now worming one of my Buckeyes.



These are great looking birds. Your top black one there is my fave.

Hey, @AGeese, I wanted to start a conversation you maybe interested in, but the thing in the conversation Maker says I can't.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Update: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Bad first. I am out of pure Liege hens. I only ever had 3. One died of sickness last year. One got caught by the bobcat early summer (she was the best one). And finally my smoke colored Liege just up and died a couple of weeks ago. I found her dead under her roost. My brother has plenty of pure Liege and I have local contacts who have Liege, so I can get more if I want. But for now I can’t make more 3/4 or half-Liege. Also, only two of the 3/4 Liege made it: Azog and his brother that I sent off farm. The rest succumbed to the hazards of free ranging.

The good:

Azog is thriving.

Compared to a grown RIR hen for scale.

He’s amazing. He is good natured to me like his father Indo is. But he’s even more of an aggressive scavenger. He does something the other chickens don’t do; he rips and tears meat like a hawk and swallows it in bite sized chunks. My other chickens just peck straight on meat and get a small bill’s worth. Azog deliberately turns his head sideways and rips off the meat. His bite is strong. Stronger than any chicken I’ve seen. He’ll hold on to food while I hold the food in my hand and I can pick him up like a bulldog holding a rope. In fact I’ll try it right now.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I couldn’t quite capture it. The steak I was using was too tender.

The ugly:

And here’s the beautiful: