European Fibro Meat Bird Project

[Skyeknight]

This is a side project I have been wanting to do for a few months. I got an Ayam Cemani rooster back in October from friends, because he was aggressive. This rooster kinda kicked off the whole rabbit hole of chicken genetics for me. Since I am going to breed chickens anyways I might as well breed some from meat. Then I won't have to buy from the store either. For this reason I got 2 Hubbard JA757 pullets and plan to get some Ross 308 pullets too. To add more of an exotic look I would like the meat to be fibro, besides the cross of dominant white feathers with fibromelanistic skin(AKA zombies) looks really cool! Since the colour of the meat is basically impossible to tell without processing the bird I will be outbreeding fibro first and kinda see after how many generations it needs to be bred into my line of meat birds again. I will be outbreeding both the Ayam Cemani as well as the Cornish Rocks with Brahma and Malay. I mainly want to keep the size of the birds up while inheriting the meat gain to a degree of the Cornish Rocks. This projects is mostly to try out fun genetic stuff.

Picture 1: This is the Ayam Cemani rooster I have. He is one year old.

Picture 2: These are the 2 Hubbard JA757 pullets I got. They are around 2 months old so it will be a while before they start laying. I am limiting the feed they get so they don't get too big. The Hubbard JA757 is a slower growing broiler breed.

Picture 3: This picture shows all the important information like which strains are the parents and the expected weight per week of this strain of broiler. I am very interested in how their offspring will compare with the Hubbard JA757 and differ from each other because of the different inherited genetics.

Picture 4: I thing I found interesting is that the one that has buff leakage is also barred. So I will assume that M77 males are all barred as well. Guess my F1's will tell.

I would love to hear if others (within the EU) are interested in fibro meat birds and just general thoughts about this project.

 

[Skyeknight]

One thing I am wondering is how well Cornish Rocks free range close to water sources like rivers or ponds. I know their survival instincts are very questionable. In the Netherlands where I live a lot of the pastures/grasslands have a "sloot" as barrier. Google translates it to ditch but that doesn't sound right. They are like very small canals ranging from widths of 1m to 20m. The 1m ones are often pretty steep, while from a few meters width onwards on they generally are not.

This is an extreme example that shows a lot of the different widths. The "canals" near me are 4m wide max.

Anyways I was wondering how well either Cornish rocks or their offspring do with big water sources like this. So if anyone has any experience with keeping them near lakes, ponds or rivers then I would love to hear it!

 

[Molpet]

I have a creek that is about 600 ft from where I had a broody raising a few CX. They didn't get more than a 100ft from the coop. I kept one pullet in 2016. Most of my flock are out of her sons. They go along the edge and as far as I know they haven't had any problems. But it does widen and has an area with a gentle slope. They don't cross it.

 

[Skyeknight]

So I managed to get the Ross 308 pullets. Unlike the in Europe used Hubbards these are the Cornish Cross Americans are familiar with.

Picture 1: The Ross pullets. One normal dominant white and the other has partial barred leakage. Unlike with the Hubbards I didn't know this type of leakage even existed!

Picture 2: The Hubbards and Ross together. When seeing them side by side the difference supprised me. The Ross pullets are 3 weeks younger and have a smaller but broader build than the Hubbards. They are were also slightly heavier at arrival, being around 2.5 KG. They kinda make the Hubbards look like "normal" chickens.

Over the last week I have noticed a big difference in behaviour. The Ross pullets tend to lay around a lot and occasionaly preen their feathers. Meanwhile the Hubbards play with each other, run around, scratch, "dust" bathe and explore.

The Hubbards are also more dominant and peck the combs of the Ross occasionaly, which has for the barred Ross caused a few scabs. I had assumed the lazy stereotype of Cornish Cross and thought given the amount of space they would do alright together. It wasn't severe enough to warrant separation, so I haven't and instead opted to make the coop darker instead. This seems to have resolved the issue almost entirely.

It is incredibly interesting to learn and truly understand what is being sold in the supermarkets and why in the Netherlands we changed from eating Ross 308 to Hubbard JA757.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be good weather so that will probably be their first day outside.

 

[Skyeknight]

They kinda make the Hubbards look like "normal" chickens.

Just want to add to this. Since their adult voices are starting to come in it's incredibly easy to forget they are only 2.5 months old. The Hubbards already look like adults but are still growing. Compared to actual normal chickens they are still "freaks" so to speak. They also don't seem to roost at night. They have the option but choose to lay on the bedding with the Ross. Perching is something they will do in farms when given the option, lots of research papers on that available.

They have been able to go outside for the last few days. Inside the coop there is a big difference in behaviour, but outside all of them seem to be equally active!

 

[Skyeknight]

I do want to discuss the genetic side of things, especially concerning their feathers colours and patterns. I want to understand this so that I will already know what their offspring will look like/carry. This post will be about the Ross 308 pullets. I will discuss the Hubbard JA757 in a few days, since there is more information on their genetics available.

First it's important to understand what strain the parents are. This wasn't easy to find and I am still pretty confused on if they are Ross 308 on feed restriction or different parent strains also named Ross 308. There are sources that seem to be conflicting on this, which I will list at the end.

All sources seem to agree that both parents are dominant white, dominant white inhibits black feather colour but not the red/brown colour. As far as I am aware there has never been a Ross 308 broiler with red leakage, this means that they can still carry a lot of other colours and patterns beside red/brown.

As I have recently learned very very rarely a Ross 308 will be fully grey (I assume they mean blue with barring). This in itself is already incredibly interesting to me, since as far as I am aware dominant white parents cannot get offspring like that. Although with literal millions of offspring there are bound to be some exceptions/mutations. What is even weirder is the specific Ross 308 I got. She isn't fully blue barred, towards her tail and on her wings the dominant white seems to showing. There are different angles on her in my previous posts.

@Amer I would love to hear your input on this! I always enjoy reading your posts and threads about genetics as I learn so much from those.

Sources:
I have read the Ross parent stock management handbook a few months ago, so it's possible I haven't found every single bit of important information. But it seems to suggest on page 65, 72 and 135 that feed is being "reduced". While page 29 and 32 suggest unrestricted access to feed. It's probably also safe to assume they get different nutrients from their feed than the broiler Ross 308, but I am not welversed in that. Furthermore a male reduction plan is mentioned on page 82 - 89. While on page 52 - 55 both separate housing as well as housing males and females together is mentioned.

This article from the Dutch Animal Protection Agency mentions in the table on page 57 that both the father as well as the mother line are called Ross 308. It also says that the paper behind a paywell "Effects of low dietary protein and different allocations of food during rearing and restricted feeding after peak rate of lay on egg production, fertility and hatchability in female broiler breeders." says the following:
In the Netherlands, the majority of regular broilers and broiler parent stock are of the Ross 308 type. These broilers grow on average 60-65 g/d and reach their slaughter weight of 2-2.5 kg in 35-42 days. The parent stock have approximately the same growth potential as their offspring broilers, but live much longer (60-65 weeks). Because they live longer, they would like to become too heavy if they were to be carried out without restriction, which would have a negative effect on their health and reproductive capacity.

And finally a paper from Wageningen University and Research states on page 14: For the regular broilers mainly Ross 308 was used (95%), the remaining 5% consisted of Cobb and by-products (= Cobb and Ross 308 cockerels from the hen line and Cobb and Ross 308 hens from the cock line of broiler parent stock).