Dominique or barred rock?

[cstephens1987]

The only rooster I'm attached to is kept separate. He's the barnyard mix I have in my avatar with my EE hen. And I don't mind culling all that I have to, I have plenty of relatives that will be happy to accept whatever i can't resale live as long as I process it lol

So just continue to rebreed whatever I end up with each generation that is the closer to the standards. How can I prevent the genetics from watering down too much? Or will they just continue to get stronger?

I would suggest cruising a different forum for this. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-plymouth-rock-breeders-thread-part-deux.1296652/

 

[ColtHandorf]

I was just about to summon @Mosey2003 to help him out.

 

[Mosey2003]

Why would you want to use RIR hens if you want to breed Barred Rocks? This makes ZERO sense whatsoever. You have a hatchery quality Barred Rock male there. There is no reason you can't pick up some hatchery female Barred Rocks for a couple bucks a pop.

In some places, many folks will call any barred bird a Dominique, or a "Dominecker," regardless as to whether it is or not. But the bird pictured has a single comb. Honestly, if it's not from SOP lines, there is extraordinarily little difference.

That link for breeding Barred Rocks is how they do it in England, not the US. We don't have sports and try to breed the males and females to have exactly the same width of bars here. If you're trying to breed the way that article says to, you'd need to use black birds anyway, not RIR.

 

[cstephens1987]

Why would you want to use RIR hens if you want to breed Barred Rocks? This makes ZERO sense whatsoever. You have a hatchery quality Barred Rock male there. There is no reason you can't pick up some hatchery female Barred Rocks for a couple bucks a pop.

In some places, many folks will call any barred bird a Dominique, or a "Dominecker," regardless as to whether it is or not. But the bird pictured has a single comb. Honestly, if it's not from SOP lines, there is extraordinarily little difference.

That link for breeding Barred Rocks is how they do it in England, not the US. We don't have sports and try to breed the males and females to have exactly the same width of bars here. If you're trying to breed the way that article says to, you'd need to use black birds anyway, not RIR.

Yeah I think I already set him on the right path lol. Agreed though

 

[cstephens1987]

We {...} try to breed the males and females to have exactly the same width of bars here.

Out of curiosity, why would you want to make a breed less easily sexable?

 

[Mosey2003]

Out of curiosity, why would you want to make a breed less easily sexable?

Striving for perfection. The males and females should be identical. We (Americans) choose not to breed separate male and female lines like that, there's enough to worry about with type and quality, honestly.

 

[cstephens1987]

I'm American too, but as far as I knew the double barring and easy sexing was desirable. At least in my eyes it was. It's not something you have to breed for as it is a natural biproduct of their genetics. Why would you purposefully want to strive for sexual ambiguity and androgynous features. That would seem to be the opposite of perfection and usefulness to me.

Striving for perfection. The males and females should be identical. We (Americans) choose not to breed separate male and female lines like that, there's enough to worry about with type and quality, honestly.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

So get 10-20 pullets at tsc and try my luck breeding next year if he looks close to SOP when he fully matures or at least doesn't possess disqualifing faults?

I know this is gonna take years to get a proper flock but then I'd know exactly what's in them genetically when I go to sell them. I guess I wanna breed up from hatchery quality to one day SOP quality? At least that would be the goal anyway

You can't breed show quality birds from hatchery quality. Though, you could breed production barred rocks.

 

[Muncy89]

You can't breed show quality birds from hatchery quality. Though, you could breed production barred rocks.

And what's the different in hatchery quality and production quality? Sounds like pretty much the same thing to me lol and I never said I wanted to breed show birds just decent rocks that doesn't look ratchet

 

[Muncy89]

Close to the standards of perfection. Not perfection itself.