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

[5 Points Wingfeather]

No worries. I don’t expect someone to have read every post of 89 pages. I just posted the quote show you that you were right.

I do actually reflect hard on animal names. Every one has a meaning to me. For example, my bulldog Brunson was names after a distant grandfather of mine from the early-mid 1800s. Brunson Lewis was a Second Seminole War veteran who settled in north central Florida after that war. He was a scoundrel early in life but lost his ill-gotten fortune after he survived a panther attack, the only documented human to have been attacked by a Florida panther to my knowledge. Our family legend was that he was big man who strangled the cat with his hands. In reality he was a short man who beat the cat to death with a fence post, then was bed ridden for months as his body healed of the slicing wounds the panther gave him. Later in life he changed and became a preacher. Surviving the battle with the panther seemed like a fitting name for a tough farm bulldog who’s job is to guard against animal and human threats.

View attachment 3481195

Great looking dog!

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Azog November 2022 and April 2023.

 

[Molpet]

View attachment 3486401View attachment 3486402

Azog November 2022 and April 2023.

Big difference

 

[Red Mangrove]

Based on the results of your project and experience so far, do you believe that your large survival gamefowl will be able to meet or exceed the evolutionary success of the American Game Bantam?

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Based on the results of your project and experience so far, do you believe that your large survival gamefowl will be able to meet or exceed the evolutionary success of the American Game Bantam?

Do you mean whether I think they’ll be better survival fowl than my junglefowl hybrids?

 

[Red Mangrove]

Do you mean whether I think they’ll be better survival fowl than my junglefowl hybrids?

That's basically what I'm asking. Whenever I see truly feral chickens that have existed in relative isolation for decades or centuries, they're always very small and lightning fast bantams

Will a large bird be able to replicate this success?

I suppose this is also asking, is the survival in your Large Survival Gamefowl for you or the chicken? I think small birds will always have the edge in true wilderness, but if it's about your survival and feeding your family then large gamefowl are far superior

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

That's basically what I'm asking. Whenever I see truly feral chickens that have existed in relative isolation for decades or centuries, they're always very small and lightning fast bantams

Will a large bird be able to replicate this success?

I suppose this is also asking, is the survival in your Large Survival Gamefowl for you or the chicken? I think small birds will always have the edge in true wilderness, but if it's about your survival and feeding your family then large gamefowl are far superior

I consider turkeys, peafowl, and many lessor known wild galliformes of similar size as being wild chickens of other varieties. Anything they can do, chickens can theoretically do, and those other galliformes survive well in larger sizes than red junglefowl or domestic bantams.

Larger chickens have a tendency to only survive feral on predator free-islands, while bantams and junglefowl are favored in typical forest situations. I believe this is because on the current chicken genetic continuum, the larger a chicken is, the more likely it is to have underdeveloped wings. It isn’t that large galliformes cannot fly, as wild turkey, peafowl, and others are good flyers. Its just so that currently there aren’t large chickens that have the same wing proportions as other large galliformes, nor are their flightless chickens that reach the same weights and swiftness as ratites so as to outclass many small predators directly on the ground.

I have found that in Florida, small bantams are subject to predation by smaller accipiters that normal sized chickens are immune to. My little Cracker hens are very susceptible to sharp shinned hawks. Sharp shinned hawks are adapted to catching song birds and no bantam will out class a song bird in swiftness of wing.

My terrorfowl can fly well enough to roost in trees and can glide short distances, but they prefer to run a lot more than my bankivoid gamefowl do. My goal for them is to be superior homestead free-rangers. I do not intend for them to be deep woods chickens that live like wild turkeys. That may be subject to change as I cross in more oriental gamefowl of turkey-like build.

I intend the Cracker improvement project to be the woods chickens that live like junglefowl. I believe the best survivors of those will be the largest birds that fly well and frequently. Somewhere will be a proper intersection between size and flight ability that will be the best of both worlds.

 

[Red Mangrove]

Thank you for the knowledge and insight. It's nice to see a clear summary of where a project both aims and currently stands. I hope your project is successful because the idealized chicken you speak of would be the apex chicken breed for free-ranging mutualism

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

There are reasons why Red Junglefowl did not take very well or persist in most habitats after stocking 2,000 of them around Fritzgerald,Georgia in the 1960's. From what I know of the situation, they only persist in town where they then interbreed with modern chickens. Slightly urbanized habitat seems to be just what they need.

Around here, you will seldom come across chickens in the large forest reserves. They are forest reserves because they are essentially un-developable due to the steep terraine. But, they're everywhere in the green fringe habitat around housing and commercial development.

And yet, red junglefowl are one of the most predator resistant animals on earth throughout their native Asia, where Asia has carnivores that fill all the same niches as North America. I am aware of studies that show wild red junglefowl are rarely found in stomach or waste contents of Asian predators, attesting to their wariness. One naturalist called them one of the most elusive animals in existence.

There was about 10k RJF stocked in the SE U.S. during the same project that the Fitzgerald hatchery was used for. All disappeared a short time after release. I am convinced the reason was disease, the same reason RJF are so fickle in captivity. Many of those same project RJF died of disease or mysterious unknown causes during the hatching phases of the project, and they all came from a bottleneck of just a few wild individuals that were live trapped out of India. The interbreeding with domestic chickens that happened at Fitzgerald likely gave them immunities to common North American avian diseases that they lacked in their pure state from that small starting gene pool.

Florida has lots of feral flocks both urban and rural. The more rural the flock is, the more likely they retain an overall bankivoid gamefowl build. The more urban it is, the more they display domestic body plans.

Another factor is that RJF don’t disperse like wild turkeys. Wild turkeys will live in territories that it takes several days for the bird to cross with multiple alternate roost cites. They’ll also pick up and leave habitat that becomes unfavorable to them and seek new areas. RJF in their pure, wild, state spend all of their lives within a few hundred yards of one roost site. They will not travel for miles and miles to seek new lands to spread to. This was a positive trait for domestication, but is also the primary reason why I believe feral gamefowl have not obtained broad distribution in the SE.

 

[Red Mangrove]

RJF in their pure, wild, state spend all of their lives within a few hundred yards of one roost site.

This is exactly what my RJF and all of my other breeds do. I have protected state forest directly touching my land but they don't go more than 50 feet into it

My semi-feral flock is actually slowly spreading towards other human establishments instead of the true wilderness in the opposite direction. Easier calories and less predators I'm sure