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

[AGeese]

I had come across this thread with some similar ideas in mind although I'm not looking to totally free range, but free range by day. Incidentally I came across your flock on youtube Bullfrog and was highly impressed! I think this is a very sustainable idea regardless of anyone's personal opinion is towards survivalism. I'm somewhere in the crossroads of developing my personal way of permaculture. Lower maintenance, self sustaining, independant types of chickens are best suited to my situation.

I was immediately sold on Leige Fighters as soon as I saw and read about them and have been interested Jungle Fowl for a while as I'm looking for primitive characteristics that are predisposed to self reliance.

Not that I don't like the Ornamentals, as I do, but maybe this is a crazy I idea, (and not to derail your thread), but I was considering Leige / Black Jersey Giant cross to provide me a bit of that domestic dual purpose with a bit of game type disposition as I do have big Hawks, Bald Eagles, Falcons, and Owls in these parts of the rural Midwest.

Good luck on this project, I'll be keepin an eye on it!

 

[cubalaya]

Instead of all the crossbreeding why not just get some Brazilians. They are smart enough and big enough and would destroy liege in quick time

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Instead of all the crossbreeding why not just get some Brazilians. They are smart enough and big enough and would destroy liege in quick time

If you’re asking me, I think the Brazilians are ugly. I don’t like hyper tight and sparse feathering on a chicken. Even on orientals I want them to have fuller, healthier looking, feathers. I don’t like excessively upright stances either. I like the head and breast to be high but the body and tail to be forward leaning. The bird should look like a long necked and long tailed T.Rex capable of flight, not a flightless, tailless, penguin.

Besides, I don’t want someone else’s bird. I want my own built to my own specifications. I would be interested in making a line of giant orientals but the end result wouldn’t look like a Brazilian in most details.

 

[cubalaya]

If you’re asking me, I think the Brazilians are ugly. I don’t like hyper tight and sparse feathering on a chicken. Even on orientals I want them to have fuller, healthier looking, feathers. I don’t like excessively upright stances either. I like the head and breast to be high but the body and tail to be forward leaning. The bird should look like a long necked and long tailed T.Rex capable of flight, not a flightless, tailless, penguin.

Besides, I don’t want someone else’s bird. I want my own built to my own specifications. I would be interested in making a line of giant orientals but the end result wouldn’t look like a Brazilian in most details.

I think Brazilians are beautiful. I also think you are wasting your time and in a few generations you will realize it. Its your money and time though but plenty of good breeds already that need breeders

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I think Brazilians are beautiful. I also think you are wasting your time and in a few generations you will realize it. Its your money and time though but plenty of good breeds already that need breeders

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You asked so I answered. I have nothing against the Brazilians or any other breed someone else would prefer. But as it relates to this specific project I’m only interested in creating new birds based upon my own ideas as to what I want to see in a large gamefowl-type free-ranger.

I have several ideas, my genetics are diverse enough, and my land spacious enough, I can probably do three projects concurrently. One to make my Crackers larger, one to make a hawk/turkey looking oriental shaped by free ranging woods away from human habitation, and one as a recreation of the Carolina bantam experiment just with larger fowl.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I think Brazilians are beautiful. I also think you are wasting your time and in a few generations you will realize it. Its your money and time though but plenty of good breeds already that need breeders

Let me take a step back. I apologize for sounding rude.

I have my particular opinions on what I do and don’t like in a bird. All I can say is 1) the Brazilians don’t appeal to me for the stated reasons and 2) even if they did, I’m not interested in a bird I haven’t created. Not for this specific project. If I was going to go with a specific existing breed of bird, I would select a larger strain of American gamefowl simply because they’re already tried and true free range survivors that are large enough to be practical duel purpose birds.

But where’s the fun in that? One of the great joys of chicken keeping is how malleable chicken genetics are. I can shape them into whatever I want within reason. Only my imagination and the available genetics limit me.

And I do believe existing things can be improved upon and it’s a good attitude to have.

 

[cubalaya]

Let me take a step back. I apologize for sounding rude.

I have my particular opinions on what I do and don’t like in a bird. All I can say is 1) the Brazilians don’t appeal to me for the stated reasons and 2) even if they did, I’m not interested in a bird I haven’t created. Not for this specific project. If I was going to go with a specific existing breed of bird, I would select a larger strain of American gamefowl simply because they’re already tried and true free range survivors that are large enough to be practical duel purpose birds.

But where’s the fun in that? One of the great joys of chicken keeping is how malleable chicken genetics are. I can shape them into whatever I want within reason. Only my imagination and the available genetics limit me.

And I do believe existing things can be improved upon and it’s a good attitude to have.

Well good luck with your project. How many generations until your goal is achieved? Lots of variables involved in the genetics of it. If you were simply grading, adding a breed one time and then breeding to the other breed year after year, F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 thats at least 5 years to breed up to 31/32 pure. Grading didnt work for me as the faults eventually came back after F6 generation. With crossbreeding you would have to raise hundreds of offspring year after year to deal with all the variables in both breeds. To truly make a family or strain within a specific breed you would need to inbreed, linebreed, or family breed to set the traits. I am very interested in the Hmong breeding techniques and trying it in a limited basis on one line of my orientals

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Well good luck with your project. How many generations until your goal is achieved? Lots of variables involved in the genetics of it. If you were simply grading, adding a breed one time and then breeding to the other breed year after year, F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 thats at least 5 years to breed up to 31/32 pure. Grading didnt work for me as the faults eventually came back after F6 generation. With crossbreeding you would have to raise hundreds of offspring year after year to deal with all the variables in both breeds. To truly make a family or strain within a specific breed you would need to inbreed, linebreed, or family breed to set the traits. I am very interested in the Hmong breeding techniques and trying it in a limited basis on one line of my orientals

First I have to find a F1 cross that I like. I have three breeding plans, two of which have commenced the this week and the third having its foundation laid tonight. I’m going to hold off a few months before I cross my Crackers to the Liege. I had another opportunity present itself I wasn’t anticipating that I’ll discuss below.

Plan 1: Outcrossing Blueface into my Crackers. This plan will be the most straight forward. I am going to cross Blueface American gamefowl into my Crackers. If I like the results I’m going to infuse the Blueface into my entire Cracker flock. The foundational Blueface are hatching tonight. I found a Florida breeder with a Blueface flock with strong RJF traits (including near full eclipsing) and we did an egg trade. His birds are almost identical to mine except that his are over twice as big. Here’s the brood cock who’s eggs are hatching now:

Compared to my Cracker broodcock Number 1,
this bird is massive. Around 6lbs I think to Number 1’s 3lbs. My plan is to cross Number 1 to any pullets I get out of this hatch. I don’t anticipate having to do much to lock any traits down. All I’m doing is adding blood from a very similar bird that I anticipate will raise the size of my Crackers. My Crackers will still otherwise look and act like Crackers. I think my Crackers and Blueface American games are at the least close cousins in terms of breed and I am all the more convinced the Blueface is actually a junglefowl hybrid.

Plan 2: Black Wahl sonatol aseel to Liege. Yesterday I moved my aseel and my Liege into a coop. I want to see if the F1s will be larger like the Liege and retain the Liege’s longer flight feathers. It seems like a natural match where the Liege have strong oriental gamefowl traits. I am predicting the F1 result will look a lot like a large black aseel and retain the forward posture and full feathers that I like to see on an oriental. How much fire the crossing will inherit will remain to be seen. In my American game bantams the F1s and F2s came out with a lot of fire even though they were crossed with OEGBs. So it’s not going to be impossible for these F1s to inherit the aseel’s drive.

Plan 3: Mongo to Cracker. Mongo is an American oriental mix that has stronger American traits. I have some of his crosses in the incubator and several more under a hen. I have no predictions as to what to expect where Mongo already has mixed genetics. I would think the F1s are likely to retain a more bankavoid build as the foundational parents have. Mongo is pushing 5lbs and still has room to mature.

The Cracker x Bluefaces will be raised free range around my homestead as the Crackers are currently. The others will be raised in the woods. I just received a Premier 1 electric fence set that I’m going to use to establish flocks in the wooded parts of my farm around deer feeders. Once the birds bond with the areas I’m going to remove the fences and let them free range those patches of woods. What I haven’t yet decided is whether I’m going to keep the two groups separate or whether I’m going to establish them in the same area and let them mix at will, with natural election choosing the winners and setting the traits. If I go that route, it will basically be a recreation of the Carolina bantam experiment except with large gamefowl instead of bantams.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

As far as brother/sister and line breeding, I’m prepared to do it. I’m doing it heavily and deliberately in my American game bantam line. The difference is those AGBs are being raised as coop birds and I’m breeding them to set show standards. I’m not finding it hard. Just time consuming. The key seems to be spamming lots of birds and then aggressively culling once I get the pair I’m looking for.

As for the large fowl, my main goal has been to make my Crackers larger. I’d prefer much larger. But for now I think I’m going to significantly increase their size with the infusion of the fresh Blueface genes. It makes more sense to go that route first. If I get the Crackers to 5lbs but otherwise retaining their traits I’d probably consider that a victory as it relates to the Crackers.I’m still going to cross the Crackers to the Liege this summer. But it would take aggressive culling in/line breeding to weed out the oriental traits I wouldn’t want, and by the time I do that I may also inadvertently breed out the large size I was going for. I most think about what it will take to get the pea comb off of them.

I’m prepared to invest about 5 years to create the bird I want. Or longer if I’m close. Probably 2 years to hit the picture in my mind then the rest of the time just weeding out the genetics I don’t want.

On the AseelxLiege and MongoxCracker I just want a big, feral, woods fowl. I’m liking the idea of raising them like Carolina bantams. It might be fun to make predictions as to which traits will normalize and which will wash out. I can probably do 50-60 birds in the woods by Summer’s end.

 

[NatJ]

But it would take aggressive culling in/line breeding to weed out the oriental traits I wouldn’t want, and by the time I do that I may also inadvertently breed out the large size I was going for. I most think about what it will take to get the pea comb off of them.

Pea comb is caused by one dominant gene, and you can probably tell which birds have one copy vs. two copies of the gene, so it's not too hard to get rid of. The birds who are pure for pea comb will have a smaller comb and smaller wattles than the ones split pea/single. So it shouldn't be too hard to know which birds have how many copies of the gene, and breed/cull accordingly.

The F1s will be split for pea comb, so crossing them back to single comb should get 50% single combs, 50% split for pea.

Or cross the F1s together to get F2s with 25% single combs, 50% split pea/single, 25% pure for pea comb. So you would cull all the pure pea comb birds, hope to find good ones with single combs, and possibly work with split pea/single birds if any are much better than the single comb birds.