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

[TexasBlues]

They are expensive and hard to find but any big poultry project will cost you a ton of money.

Do you know of anybody crossing grey jungle fowl with domestic chickens? I’d like to see the results.
I hear greys are easier to keep than the Red JF and the Ceylon. The ceylons need a steady diet of live food from what I’ve read.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

My 2 cents would be focus heavily on the oriental gamefowl side of the genetics then. I haven’t an an oriental yet that didn’t prefer to roost on something man-made when given the chance. When Indo is out, he never roosts in a tree. He always roosts up on the tallest chicken coop that’s under tree cover. Same with Azog and any other bird I’ve had that was at least half aseel.

Edit: one exception, the half aseel x half American hen I have in my Cracker improvement project will roost as high as she can in a tree. Usually starting at 20 feet.

Every bird in my breeding program has some O Shamo in them now. That was to bring up the size of the birds and their eggs and it absolutely helps to keep them closer to the ground. The only pure O Shamo that I have is one hen and she took the longest to even be able to fly up to the top of the half-door to get in and out of the barn stall that I use as a coop (about 5’ high). I’m also trying to put a long tail on the birds so I’ve recently started crossing in some birds that have Tomaru in them. All of this will also reduce their wildness.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

Do you know of anybody crossing grey jungle fowl with domestic chickens? I’d like to see the results.
I hear greys are easier to keep than the Red JF and the Ceylon. The ceylons need a steady diet of live food from what I’ve read.

Reds are by far the easiest followed by Greys, then Ceylons and by far the hardest are Greens. That’s also pretty much the order of how much cold they can take. The Greens need a special diet but not the others.
Here’s a 50% Grey:

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

Hey bullfrog, have you got any little mini Shermans yet?

 

[Mossy Dell]

Yet they are known to whip hawks, if for no other reason than they have the size to do it with little consequence. That’s all I’m looking for something that can and sometimes will.

I wonder what kind of hawks. I gave a young gamecock to my daughter, and it killed a hawk that had just killed one of his hens. The hawk was a northern sharp shinned, about the size of a big crow. A red tailed hawk, for example, is so much bigger I wonder how that would have gone. But a hawk on the ground also would seem awkward and vulnerable compared to a gamecock intent on hitting hard with spurs.

 

[Mossy Dell]

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I've run into a couple of unexpected snags.

First, the Liege are not vigorous eaters of processed grain food. At least these three pullets aren't. They greedily devour table scraps, bacon fat, raw eggs, and pumpkins. But they barely eat laying crumbles. I can see that they're starting to lose weight and look a little emaciated. Therefore I turned them out to free range today. I'll monitor them over the next couple of weeks to see if they put weight back on.

Second, Number 1, my chosen stag to breed them too, just can't stand them. He's constantly harassing them. That's a quirk of my jungle fowl hybrids. They're very hen picky and many of them won't breed a non-JF hybrid hen at all. Therefore I'm going to have to let their suitor choose them from the free range flock. Which I'm not excited about because I have several roosters that don't have the build I'm looking for. For example:

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This guy is all bloodied up from fighting one of his stag brothers this evening. 20 minutes they went on until the fight finally got broken up. This little guy has a very gamey disposition, as I've watched him dominate his brothers before in free range spars. But, he's under 2lbs. I have JF hybrid roosters near twice his size. But he likes the Liege hens. He's already tried to breed them today. So although his attitude is nice for what I'm looking for, his little body size is not.

I haven't read the whole thread, so this may now be irrelevant. But my experience is a big hen often produces big offspring out of a small rooster. The hen sets the size more than the male.

 

[Mossy Dell]

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.

What is, or was, the Carolina bantam experiment?

 

[Mossy Dell]

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

Can you explain the Hmong breeding techniques or refer me to a link or thread on this?

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Hey bullfrog, have you got any little mini Shermans yet?

None yet. The Liege hens only laid for a spat early fall then stopped. We ate most of those eggs. If they start again, I’m going to set a batch.

As for the Marek’s, I am hoping that all chickens that are going to manifest it have done so by now. We’ve had several mornings at or below freezing and many day’s worth of torrential rains. The remaining chickens have held up well. Seems like those chickens with the Marek’s percolating inside manifest it after cold snap or a drenching rain.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

None yet. The Liege hens only laid for a spat early fall then stopped. We ate most of those eggs. If they start again, I’m going to set a batch.

As for the Marek’s, I am hoping that all chickens that are going to manifest it have done so by now. We’ve had several mornings at or below freezing and many day’s worth of torrential rains. The remaining chickens have held up well. Seems like those chickens with the Marek’s percolating inside manifest it after cold snap or a drenching rain.

I missed the details of the Marek’s outbreak but I was wondering if certain breeds were more susceptible or unaffected? I know some people have reported having multiple breeds and only having one of their breeds affected. They say basically all backyard flocks carry Marek’s.