European Fibro Meat Bird Project

[Molpet]

Are you restricting feed and lots of exercise?
The CX I kept for breeding laid a few eggs before she quit for the winter. She died before she started laying again at around a year old

 

[Skyeknight]

Are you restricting feed and lots of exercise?
The CX I kept for breeding laid a few eggs before she quit for the winter. She died before she started laying again at around a year old

Yes I am. I am giving the four of them 375ml layer pellets each morning and evening. And they go outside every day as long as it isn't raining. All four of them prefer the outsides and scratch around and eat grass. They do also lay a decent amount underneath the coop, but their legs are looking healthy and strong! The Ross pullets have also started doing playful behaviour back when the Hubbards approach them playfully.

Things I am a bit concerned about is the very watery poop (although they drink alot and ofcourse get very limited feed), somtimes a bloodclot thingy in their poop (so maybe should treat them for coccidiosis or soemthing) and that at the backside of their actual ankles some have a little bulb with fluid while others seem to lack the fluid and have "loose" skin. But they do act very healthy and active

 

[NatJ]

I only started last October with learning about genetics, so this far it's all only been theoretical stuff for me. I am mostly trying to inform both others and myself with these posts and make an hypothesis on what the chicks will look like. That way I can learn if I understand the genetics correctly or learn where I went wrong if it differs.

So far, it looks like your understanding matches mine, so hopefully that means we are both getting it right.

if I breed the Hubbards to an Ayam Cemani rooster will columbian be visible? I did assume half of this offspring would be black, but I didn't take into account the fact that the Hubbard JA57 also carries dominant white. I assume for chickens like them and ISA brown they look the same with both 1 or copies of dominant white?

Yes, I would expect them to look pretty much the same with either 1 or 2 copies of dominant white.

And yes, with the Ayam Cemani rooster, I expect all the chicks to have E (Extended Black), which would hide any Columbian pattern in the chicks of that generation. Then any chick that inherits Dominant White will have the black turned to white, while any chick that does not inherit Dominant White will show the black.

I did think the same thing although I though she might have carried a single splash gene, making her blue barred. But I guess the barring is making her "paint" look grey. I will 100% test breed her (to my Ayam Cemani), which should either produce all dominant white/paint offspring or 50% dominant white, 25% normal barred boys and 25% extended black girls. The obvious obstacle is keeping her alive for that long.

Hmm, I completely forgot to consider blue. Good point.

Test breeding should answer that.
If the chicks are as you predicted, she's got one dominant white gene.
But if she has a blue gene, the chicks should be 25% blue females, 25% black females, 25% blue barred males, 25% black barred males.

As for the single dominant white gene, if that turns out to be true then that's actually huge! Cause if 100 years of breeding by a company breeding billions of chickens per year can't get all their stock to have 2 copies of dominant white. That would just show immense proof of how difficult it can be to breed out "recessive" genes.

I think they could get all their stock to have 2 copies of dominant white, but may have decided that it isn't worth their time.

It is conceptually pretty easy: test-mate each potential breeding bird to one of another color (such as black), hatch a dozen or so chicks, check for any black chicks among that clutch.

For a rooster, once you have the results of the test, you can immediately use him to breed any females you want.

For the hens, you need to separate them from the "wrong" rooster (the black one) for some weeks before using them for breeding. But you can put the hens in a female-only pen as soon as their test eggs are incubating, and by the time the chicks hatch it will be about long enough.

That was interesting to read. Now I know what to call her colour/pattern. Hope I can provide the answers to that! If my hypothesis in the previous alinea is right than all dominant white male offspring should have ghost barring.

If you do get sons with ghost barring, you could update that thread with pictures of parents & offspring, which would be useful for anyone still following it, and for anyone finding that thread later.

Thank you for reading and summarizing those pages! There is a lot of info in there and it can be difficult to stay focused enough to find the important points.

Yes, it definitely can be difficult!

I had hoped people would be able to use auto-translation on it.

Good point. I realized I could mostly read the names in the chart, which seemed like it was probably the main point, so I didn't bother trying to have it translated.

If there were internal names I would have assumed they were leaked by now. The problem with them not having any distinctive name is that it can cause confusion, especially if it needs to be translated for another country. Because all those parent stocks or grandparent stocks need to have at least a few locations breeding them true so the parent stock doesn't get lost. But if you each time have to say you need to get females of the male used to produce the Ross 308 it's just inconvenient. But I don't work there so what would I know.

Good point about names being leaked-- unless there are so very many internal names that it's always easier to talk to the public with the more generic name.

For the exact example you gave, I would say "male-line female" or "a female for the male parent line."

I've read that when raising chickens for showing, sometimes breeders keep one line to breed show-quality roosters and a different line to breed show-quality females, because the genes for the best birds aren't actually the same for the two sexes. They seem to mostly manage to keep straight when they are talking about which sex of bird and which breeding line it is.

Honestly no idea if my pullets are the slow (Ross 308) or fast (Ross 308 FF) feathering kind. If I understand feathering sexability correctly then I can't find out either as in both cases pullets should be normal fast feathering.

It would depend on how the breeding is set up.
Pullets with slow feathering would be produced from fathers with slow feathering.

Ross 308 FF seem to not be feather sexable and it seems to mainly be for their parent stock, while the Ross 308 broilers do seem to be feather sexable. They do call the Ross 308 slow feathering which should be (K^S) and not delayed feathering which is (K). Fast feathering is (k+) and the most recessive. But yeah that does seem to confirm the Ross 308 broiler is in fact different than their parent stock!

Yes, I would expect the slow feathering or fast feathering lines to have both sexes with one feathering speed, but that gives the option of crossing lines to get feather-sexable chicks for some of the parent stock.

 

[Skyeknight]

And yes, with the Ayam Cemani rooster, I expect all the chicks to have E (Extended Black), which would hide any Columbian pattern in the chicks of that generation. Then any chick that inherits Dominant White will have the black turned to white, while any chick that does not inherit Dominant White will show the black.

That's kinda dissappointing. I am planning to use a Ayam Cemani Brahma crossbred as a rooster for them either fall next year or 2026. But my Current Brahma is buff columbian so I won't be able to find out. I could outbreed with non-meat breeds but I am not going to hatch chicks purely to try to find this out.

Hmm, I completely forgot to consider blue. Good point.

Test breeding should answer that.
If the chicks are as you predicted, she's got one dominant white gene.
But if she has a blue gene, the chicks should be 25% blue females, 25% black females, 25% blue barred males, 25% black barred males.

This prediction would be wrong as you are not considering the single dominant white gene.

Let me put 2 hypotheses here:
1. Ghost barring is caused by an interaction with a single dominant white gene, extended black and a single barring gene.
2. Ghost barring is caused by the interaction of a single dominant white gen, a single splash gene and a single barring gene.

If hypothesis 2 is true then offspring with an Ayam Cemani should be: 25% dominant white females, 12,5% black females, 12,5% blue females, 12,5% dominant white barred males, 12,5 ghost barred males, 12,5% black barred males and 12,5% blue barred males.

In case of hypothesis 2 the difference between dominant white barred males and ghost barred males is if they have the blue/splash gene or not.

If you do get sons with ghost barring, you could update that thread with pictures of parents & offspring, which would be useful for anyone still following it, and for anyone finding that thread later.

I will once the chicks are old enough! Even if i don't get sons with ghost barring it might be interesting to see why not.

Good point. I realized I could mostly read the names in the chart, which seemed like it was probably the main point, so I didn't bother trying to have it translated.

Yeah that was the main point. It doesn't need to be translated as long as people realise vaderdier means father animal, moederdier means mother animal and finally dwergmoederdier means dwarf mother animal.

Yes, I would expect the slow feathering or fast feathering lines to have both sexes with one feathering speed, but that gives the option of crossing lines to get feather-sexable chicks for some of the parent stock.

Yes I assume this to be the case, would make sense financially at least. Going to break this down for myself as I only dived into this a few days ago, feel free to correct me if I am wrong. Sources for Ross are the same as the earlier post.

Wikipedia says: "When fast normal-feathering k+k+ cocks are mated to delayed-feathering K hens, the sex of all the descendants can be easily recognized at hatch: resulting female chicks k+ have fast normal-feathering while male chicks Kk+ have delayed-feathering.

Ross 308 FF:
"The Ross® 308 FF is a fast-feathering Ross breeder that has been selected to have longer upper layer feathers (primaries) and shorter lower layer feathers (coverts) on the outer wing (Figure 1). This distinction means that parent stock chicks are feather sexable and their broiler progeny, although not feather sexable, will have males and females feathering at the same rate as each other."

So if I understand correctly how feathering works then this proves that for this broiler there is a grandparent line present. On both the male and female grandparent side is the male fast feathering and the female slow feathering. This makes the male parent stock slow feathering and the female parent stock fast feathering. This means that both male and female broilers can be fast or slow feathering.

Ross 308:
"The Ross® 308 broiler is available in two types, a slow-feathering bird which produces sexable broilers (308) and one which produces all fast-feathering broilers (308 FF). The sexable-type produces fast-feathering female broilers and slow-feathering male broilers."

These 2 sources completely contradict each other!
They say broiler and not breeder in the first sentence. So they suggest a broiler is producing another broiler, which could be true but is confusing.

It would depend on how the breeding is set up.
Pullets with slow feathering would be produced from fathers with slow feathering.

Moving on to what I think I can take away from those Ross sources. An Ayam Cemani is normal fast feathering and if my pullets are Ross 308 then they are fast feathering too, but if they are Ross 308 FF there might be a 50% chance they are slow feathering instead. Meaning I might get chicks that could be feather sexable, which I can easily confirm with both the fibro and barring if they are.

 

[NatJ]

This prediction would be wrong as you are not considering the single dominant white gene.

Let me put 2 hypotheses here:
1. Ghost barring is caused by an interaction with a single dominant white gene, extended black and a single barring gene.
2. Ghost barring is caused by the interaction of a single dominant white gen, a single splash gene and a single barring gene.

If hypothesis 2 is true then offspring with an Ayam Cemani should be: 25% dominant white females, 12,5% black females, 12,5% blue females, 12,5% dominant white barred males, 12,5 ghost barred males, 12,5% black barred males and 12,5% blue barred males.

Actually, I was considering that she might have blue (one splash gene) and barring, but no dominant white at all.

If she has an interaction of blue and dominant white, then I agree with what you say.

I will once the chicks are old enough! Even if i don't get sons with ghost barring it might be interesting to see why not.

I agree!

So if I understand correctly how feathering works then this proves that for this broiler there is a grandparent line present. On both the male and female grandparent side is the male fast feathering and the female slow feathering. This makes the male parent stock slow feathering and the female parent stock fast feathering. This means that both male and female broilers can be fast or slow feathering.

Yes, I agree with your reading of that.

These 2 sources completely contradict each other!
They say broiler and not breeder in the first sentence. So they suggest a broiler is producing another broiler, which could be true but is confusing.

Definitely frustrating!

Moving on to what I think I can take away from those Ross sources. An Ayam Cemani is normal fast feathering and if my pullets are Ross 308 then they are fast feathering too, but if they are Ross 308 FF there might be a 50% chance they are slow feathering instead. Meaning I might get chicks that could be feather sexable, which I can easily confirm with both the fibro and barring if they are.

Yes, I think you are correct there.

That's kinda dissappointing. I am planning to use a Ayam Cemani Brahma crossbred as a rooster for them either fall next year or 2026. But my Current Brahma is buff columbian so I won't be able to find out. I could outbreed with non-meat breeds but I am not going to hatch chicks purely to try to find this out.

I'm not sure what to say here.

Ayam Cemani x Buff Brahma should give black chicks (possibly with some leakage). A son from that pairing will give E (Extended Black) to half of his chicks, while the other half will be able to show Columbian or other patterns, depending on what genes they inherit from their mother.

 

[Skyeknight]

In my normal chicken coop I use sand with various stone sizes as bedding. They can dust bathe even when it rains and find the right gizzard stone size for them. Also act like cat litter with containing poop. I am now using straw in my meat chicken coop, because I am worried they might eat too many stones because of their strict diet. They do go outside every day now. I do still lock them up at night and also they don't go outside when it rains. I would prefer to switch over to the sand, but I don't know if I can trust them not to eat the stones when locked up.

Any advice or sources on this?

 

[Skyeknight]

Wanted to do a little update today as I got the first leg problem. But it is now a big update, because today one of the Hubbards layed their first egg! Now I understand why they were inside all day, since normally they always are outside foraging.

As for the leg problem. The red leakage Hubbard has a swelling on her outer toe on the right foot. I assume it's the very beginning stage of bumble foot. I do regularly check their feet, since they are incredible active and some of them have almost managed to scale a 1 meter high fence.

 

[Molpet]

Wanted to do a little update today as I got the first leg problem. But it is now a big update, because today one of the Hubbards layed their first egg! Now I understand why they were inside all day, since normally they always are outside foraging.View attachment 4177636

As for the leg problem. The red leakage Hubbard has a swelling on her outer toe on the right foot. I assume it's the very beginning stage of bumble foot. I do regularly check their feet, since they are incredible active and some of them have almost managed to scale a 1 meter high fence.
View attachment 4177638

Glad for the egg, but sad for the foot. How old?

I had a standard Cornish that thought pine bedding pellets was food. But I didn't have an issue with anyone else. So I guess I am saying it depends on the birds.

 

[Skyeknight]

Glad for the egg, but sad for the foot. How old?

I had a standard Cornish that thought pine bedding pellets was food. But I didn't have an issue with anyone else. So I guess I am saying it depends on the birds.

The Hubbard's are 17 weeks and the Ross are 14 weeks old. Have washed and disinfected the cut on her foot for now. Still have to read up a bit more on bumble foot. At this moment in time it's not at all noticeable in her behaviour.

 

[Skyeknight]

I have mentioned this in another thread but thought I should mention it here too. On 22 July the buff leakage Hubbard kinda had a misfire with her eggs, which worried me.

Her first 2 eggs were fairy eggs, then she had a shell less egg and after that this misfire. Now almost a week later she has had a shell less egg, egg with a hole in it and an egg that was crushed. So she luckily does seem to lay normal eggs again. For some reason she lays them on top of a 85 cm high table in their coop. This is the same table both Hubbards have roosted on since the one started laying. She laid her first eggs on the floor of the coop with hay as litter. So I find it interesting she literally decides to lay them on the only hard surface available. I have tried to get her to lay in a ""nestbox" with having an egg there from my other chickens, but it's just ignored.

Sometimes the Hubbard that lays goes inside the coop onto the table and just kinda lays and twists and turns, sometimes panting. Even if there seemingly has been no egg laid. I do think this her going to lay an egg, but maybe the egg gets destroyed because of the laying place and being shell less. She is otherwise still incredibly active! So no difference in outside behaviour at all.

Her toe swelling also seems to be less swelled, so that's good. I did do a thorough feet inspection on all of them. Normally I just get them to stand with a foot on my handpalm and feel if anything is wrong, since I don't want to stress them out with looking at the underside. Both Ross pullets seem to have a spot where the uppermost layer of skin cells is gone, no actual wound or anything.

I did give them a run expansion. Their run is now just under half the size of what they will get eventually. As is visible in the picture they be grazing! They also dig holes. In post 5 I had a picture with a chicory "hill", so yeah that's all completely gone. Honestly at this point I am kinda in disbelief people call them lazy. The Ross were "lazy" at first, but I believe that's because they just did not have the option to display their natural behaviours before. Ofcourse I don't feed them 24/7, but only 2 times a day. So even if they would normally lay in front of a feeder all day I wouldn't be able to notice that. But I do think that it's mainly a management problem if your CX are "lazy".