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

[Appalachian homestead]

Azog to Indo's sister to concentrate the liege size, and Indo to the American aseel to get bigger wings . That's probably what I would try, at least with the genetics you have on hand, but I'm far from an expert on genetics

 

[5 Points Wingfeather]

I love this thread, and am jealous of your birds. I really want some Liege and Liege crosses. I don’t have the smarts to tell you anything about genetics, but I do have a name suggestion for Indo’s sister. What about Isis? “I” for Indo” “sis” for sister. Plus Isis was a fertility goddess. You already say she is beautiful and you probably want her and her progeny to be super fruitful.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I love this thread, and am jealous of your birds. I really want some Liege and Liege crosses. I don’t have the smarts to tell you anything about genetics, but I do have a name suggestion for Indo’s sister. What about Isis? “I” for Indo” “sis” for sister. Plus Isis was a fertility goddess. You already say she is beautiful and you probably want her and her progeny to be super fruitful.

That would be a pretty name. I was thinking something after a female vampire, due to her semi-nocturnal ways. But the only name I can think of is “Carmella” and I don’t like the Carmella character in literature or video games. For my terrorfowl line I like references to movie or literary monsters. Azog was named after Azog the Defiler from Tolkien’s Middle Earth mythology. Indo was named after the indoraptor from the Jurassic movies. Yeager, the black aseel (who the next owner renamed Orion), was named after Erin Yeager from the anime series Attack on Titan (who if you watched the series to the end, it would be clear why an insane black attack rooster would fit Yeager).

Number 1 got his name not because he ended up being my best rooster, but because I once offered him and several stags for sale and he was the first stag on the list.

Hei Hei was named after the junglefowl in Moana.

Mongo was named after the character from Blazing Saddles.

Ragnar, Number 1’s excellent brother, was named after Ragnar the Fearless.

Raptor was of course was named after a velociraptor.

General Lee was named after Robert E., due to the rooster’s grey/blue breasts reminding me of the person’s historical uniform.

Tyrant was named because when I picked him off his free range walk by using his owner as bait, I realized he was the tyrant of the barnyard.

I will probably reuse Tyrant’s name at some point.

 

[raingarden]

I don't think you need to worry about in-breding depresion at this point. The gene pool is diverse enough to withstand it.

Getting better free-range survival is a tough one though. If they are being taken by predators then I think I'd just produce as many chicks as possible and floor the property with them. The ones that survive will have some predator savy. But that's a cultural issue so to enhance it you would need to find a way to let the older free-range birds raise the younger birds on the range and teach them a few tricks.

Lily, like Herman Munster's wife.

edit: No, I mean Morticia, Gomez Addams wife.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I don't think you need to worry about in-breding depresion at this point. The gene pool is diverse enough to withstand it.

Getting better free-range survival is a tough one though. If they are being taken by predators then I think I'd just produce as many chicks as possible and floor the property with them. The ones that survive will have some predator savy. But that's a cultural issue so to enhance it you would need to find a way to let the older free-range birds raise the younger birds on the range and teach them a few tricks.

Lily, like Herman Munster's wife.

Its not predators that causes them to fail. They fall over dead within the first week or two of free ranging, especially after getting wet. Its resilience they lack.

 

[raingarden]

Its not predators that causes them to fail. They fall over dead within the first week or two of free ranging, especially after getting wet. Its resilience they lack.

You can lace their water with Corid. When our free-range chicks get wet and sick it is usuallyr Coccidia that takes them out.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

I think he is trying to breed chickens that don't need that kind of pampering.

 

[Appalachian homestead]

Shadow? As a name suggestion for Indo's sister

 

[Appalachian homestead]

Shadow? As a name suggestion for Indo's sister

Not necessarily a vampire but it's night-ish

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Cocci has plagued my later gen Cracker chicks, as I learned because I found I could trigger cocci symptoms by feeding chicks in the brooder green grass and then clear it up with large doses of Corid.

I am definitely finding that certain pairings, whether it be across or within breeds, make more resilient offspring that other pairings, thus the reason I’m mostly ending flock breeding for these projects. I want to promote the strongest pairings that I can.

I keep Corid on hand and I don’t mind giving it as a pickmeup, just as I don’t mind giving dewormer or antibiotics. I’m for whatever is practical to make the birds thrive. To that end, I want the giving of meds to be the exception and not the norm, something that only supplements their immune systems.

Right now I feel dependent on Ivermectin due to the dramatic difference it made in almost all my birds. I would prefer my birds to be able to deal with whatever parasites without me. But to have a thriving flock where I am, I may have to let that notion go. And as where the ivermectin dosage is so small and infrequent (I’m going to follow a 6 month cycle), I don’t find its use impractical.

With Corid, most of my surviving adults haven’t needed it. Some juvies do, and some need multiple doses on multiple occasions while others just need one or two. I would prefer to weed out the ones that need constant doses of it.

I’m most liberal with wound treatment. If a bird can take a nasty wound but survive with just a little help from me, I like that. If a hawk grabs it but the chicken fights itself free, I favor its ability to get out of the situation as opposed to wanting to cull it because it got itself in it. So I’ll give all the antibiotics I reasonably can to fight off a post-wound infection.