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What breed(s) are your project birds? I read that a few people are working on blue laced Dutchies (Andalusian blue, I assume), but I can't find the info again, and I can't find any info on buff laced in the breed. Of course, info on Dutchies is frustratingly hard to find anyway, at least in my experience. I know many people are resistant to crossing in other breeds, but unless the import rules change again, what chances exist of developing new color varieties? I'm fairly new to the breed, so I'm kind of ambivalent at the moment on the whole cross breeding issue ... if a project gets a bird back to good, stable type, is it doing "harm" to the breed? Aren't all breeds essentially successful "projects" at their roots? IDK, maybe I'm just jonesing for more color options in a breed that has me hooked. (I confess ... I'm a sucker for laced birds). I look at a breed like the little Sebrights, with their "project" history, and wonder how critical purity is. Does it outweigh all other considerations? What do all of you think?
yes you are right with all that.
It is well worth the effort in my opinion.
in the begining there was jungle fowl, pretty much everything out there came from working those till a breeder got what they were looking for, similar to how all domestic dogs, even chiwawahs (lol) came from wolves.
I am working on the in bantam phoenix and d'anver. Good thing with laced, if you cross it to the correct color, you get laced, or this incomplete laced right off the get go.
Now yes, you will need to spend several seasons back crossing these to the desired breed to get the type back, usually 3-5 years gets them pretty darn close, as long as the color is correct, it varies a lot from breed to breed too as to how quick they come back to correct type.
Some colors are easier to get too.
Then a lot of your stuff can be made without outcrossing as long as you have a few colors to play with inside the breed.
Like the d'anvers I work on. I started out with 8-10 colors (there are 14 recognised in the standard) but with those , I made ruffly 25 without the first outcross.
Now in their case, none have dominated white in them, so stuff like my goldnecks, red pyles, and buff laced which are all dominate white based colors, well you just have to bite the bullet and start working outcrosses for them. Good thing is, it only takes one outcrossing to get the color in these particular cases, same with gold laced if you breed it to a bb red, millie fluer or columbian. silver laced will come out bred to anything with the silver gene in it.
at this point you are 50% breed of choice.
your next season you'll be 75%
the following 7/8 ths
the following 15/16th (pretty darn close to pure in just 3 years of breeding after your initial outcross.
Now yes it is true, unfortunately many people start selling "project "birds too early, and some can take up to 8 years to get back right. By doing this, you have created a mess for the breed/color. New people dont know one from the other and will start selling them as pure and do no more work on them at all, then it trickles down and all your work is for nothing.
In my opinion, no one should sell "project phased" birds to anyone.
If you want to take on the project, by all means go for it, but do realise it takes years and lots of patients, money, time, marking, extra pens, great record keeping etc.
If it was easy, everyone would do it. But Lord, dont sell them to the public before they are as pure as can be.
If you have enough love to start a project for your favorite breed like I have, then see it threw before you open them up to the general public. All your money and work with them will be worth it then and you'll have something you can be prowd to put your name on then.
That was just a in general statment, not directed at any one in particular, but everyone with projects should go by it.
Spiritdance, if you have any questions or would like some tips. shoot me a PM with what you have in mind and I will be glad to give you what pointers I can.
By incomplete, do you mean the pattern is not uniform? Could this improve with age? She's only 4 1/2 months old and the lacing didn't start coming in until a couple months ago. Can someone point me to the standards for the color (and is it a recognized color)?
