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

[ElleEmie]

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On my Instagram feed I get lots of oriental gamefowl pics and videos from Asian posters. They have types that have little to no representation in the U.S.. If I wasn’t familiar with oriental gamefowl, I’d swear some of them were galliform hybrids with only a partial chicken background.

Totally with you on that!

 

[troyer]

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On my Instagram feed I get lots of oriental gamefowl pics and videos from Asian posters. They have types that have little to no representation in the U.S.. If I wasn’t familiar with oriental gamefowl, I’d swear some of them were galliform hybrids with only a partial chicken background.

Wow! That red one is solid!

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Looky what I got:

Big thanks to Bigtom Turkey for sending this beautiful Thai x aseel stag to me. Full writeup tonight.

 

[tlewis_2003]

Looky what I got:

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Big thanks to Bigtom Turkey for sending this beautiful Thai x aseel stag to me. Full writeup tonight.

Beautiful bird.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Introducing Sherman. Approximately 4.5 month old Thai x aseel, line bred, stag from Bigtom Turkey, that likes taking selfies.

Out of the box, he has more human-oriented personality that any chicken I’ve had to this point. My daughter and I had a lot of fun interacting with him this afternoon.

The long term plan is to pair him with Azog’s offspring to add another layer of oriental genetics, then cross back to Azog again. But he’a got a lot of growing to do, as do my Azog offspring.

It is not yet clear to me whether the terrorfowl chicks are going to come out looking more like Liege or true orientals. I have over 60 growing out and another 42 due in a week.

And for giggles…

This turkey hen’s eggs were infertile, so I switched them out with somewhere around 32 terrorfowl eggs. Let’s see what happens.

 

[troyer]

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Introducing Sherman. Approximately 4.5 month old Thai x aseel, line bred, stag from Bigtom Turkey, that likes taking selfies.

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Out of the box, he has more human-oriented personality that any chicken I’ve had to this point. My daughter and I had a lot of fun interacting with him this afternoon.

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The long term plan is to pair him with Azog’s offspring to add another layer of oriental genetics, then cross back to Azog again. But he’a got a lot of growing to do, as do my Azog offspring.

It is not yet clear to me whether the terrorfowl chicks are going to come out looking more like Liege or true orientals. I have over 60 growing out and another 42 due in a week.
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And for giggles…

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This turkey hen’s eggs were infertile, so I switched them out with somewhere around 32 terrorfowl eggs. Let’s see what happens.

Quite interesting to say the least!

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I’m getting ready to take the dozen away from the half-aseel hen and combine them with the henless brood of 24, and possibly go ahead and also combine with the younger brood of 25. I have a large, low, coop I currently use for the American game bantams, but where I’ve downsized that flock considerably I am going to move the brood cock and a select hen out to a smaller coop and otherwise empty that coop out so it can be a growout coop for the terrorfowl. Up to 42 more are due in a few days. I might get this accomplished by the end of the weekend.

 

[Adorae]

I’m getting ready to take the dozen away from the half-aseel hen and combine them with the henless brood of 24, and possibly go ahead and also combine with the younger brood of 25. I have a large, low, coop I currently use for the American game bantams, but where I’ve downsized that flock considerably I am going to move the brood cock and a select hen out to a smaller coop and otherwise empty that coop out so it can be a growout coop for the terrorfowl. Up to 42 more are due in a few days. I might get this accomplished by the end of the weekend.

So many chicks! How big of a grow out area are you using? I’m gonna need something like that next year for all my mixes.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

So many chicks! How big of a grow out area are you using? I’m gonna need something like that next year for all my mixes.

The AGB coop is about 140 square feet give or take. The terrorfowl won’t spend their entire growout period there. I only want them to mature enough that they can take being in a heavy downpour of rain at night. Once they hit that point, they’ll have to run the gauntlet.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Here’s what 61 terrorfowl bitties in a dog house looks like, in case you were wondering. Tomorrow will be their first day in the large coop and as a combined flock. There is a heater just out of view to the left. I’ll keep them in the coop until I adjudge they’re large enough not to get hypothermia from a thunderstorm, or until their fighting gets too bad.

Azog starts free range tomorrow with his three terrorfowl pullets and one of the fayoumi crosses. The second fayoumi cross went broody and is sitting on a clutch. Indo is back in a coop with some laying hens. I don’t immediately plan to breed him again anytime soon.

I’m a little nervous about Azog being out for the first time since chickhood. I think he’s got the right stuff for it. I’m most concerned about the eagles. They’re roosting in a big swamp to the south of me and they fly over every evening at dark. They like big red roosters for some reason about the age Azog is.

BTW, I culled the guineafowl cocks over the weekend. I got tired of them hogging the feed thrown out for the free rangers and not being productive to justify it. That was one of the prerequisites for letting Azog free range. I didn’t want the guineas to teach him to submit.