German New Hampshire

[Chris Herzog]

Well I'd be no help, I'm greener than you are Chris. But if mine look that good at that age I'll be happy as a pig in slop.

Hey Ben....how are the little ones doing?

Chris

 

[TimG]

Quote:

For a serious breeding program, how many roosters of each generation do you aim to produce? I understand that this is subjective and everyone's idea of "serious" will be a little different. I also understand that one can be serious by producing more boys over more generations. I also understand that perfection will never be achieved -- the process is never ending -- and that the quality of the original stock greatly affects the answers to these questions. But, it seems to me that when you only have a few (three to eight or ten) roosters to choose from, you're not going to make much progress each generation.

I'm not being critical of any small scale breeder. I am micro-scale. I would like to think I can select a breed and make improvements on the ones that I keep. I think this means that at some point I am going to have to go through quantity. My quantity will probably be over longer time because I am limited in how many chickens I can house. I read that someone is selecting from three roosters and think that it must be hard to make progress with such small numbers.

Anyway, to those that are "working on the breed": how many chickens do you go through in order to make substantial progress? Again, I understand there is no right or exact answer. I guess I'm just looking for some discussion of what people are doing and what their goals are.

 

[DMRippy]

Quote:

My understanding is that 1 out of 10 is a breeder quality. So how many breeders you need x 10 and that is what you should grow out to have the best choices. If you need 4 roos you need to grow 40 roos. I don't have the space to do that. I will hatch what I can and pick only a hand full for breeders. My last Marans hatch, I sold 11 day old culls for leg feathering and only kept 5 or 6. That was just for one DQ... Out of my original Marans 12 chicks, 3 pullets were kept and only 1 roo made the cut. They are maybe more difficult to get a good quality bird because they are "new" and have patterns, but you need to grow a lot out and only pick the very best and go from there. Yes it will slow you don't if you don't many choices. More is better for breeding good birds. I have 14 of these NH to work from... I hope they are a little easier than Marans....

 

[Chris Herzog]

For a serious breeding program, how many roosters of each generation do you aim to produce? I understand that this is subjective and everyone's idea of "serious" will be a little different. I also understand that one can be serious by producing more boys over more generations. I also understand that perfection will never be achieved -- the process is never ending -- and that the quality of the original stock greatly affects the answers to these questions. But, it seems to me that when you only have a few (three to eight or ten) roosters to choose from, you're not going to make much progress each generation.

I'm not being critical of any small scale breeder. I am micro-scale. I would like to think I can select a breed and make improvements on the ones that I keep. I think this means that at some point I am going to have to go through quantity. My quantity will probably be over longer time because I am limited in how many chickens I can house. I read that someone is selecting from three roosters and think that it must be hard to make progress with such small numbers.

Anyway, to those that are "working on the breed": how many chickens do you go through in order to make substantial progress? Again, I understand there is no right or exact answer. I guess I'm just looking for some discussion of what people are doing and what their goals are.

In my mind, my operation will be a very small one. I’ve also decided that I would like to work with three different breeds, NH’s, BR’s and RIR’s, so of course that limits me as to how many animals of each breed I can keep. So anyway with the NH’s I had a hard time getting started. At first I bought shipped eggs and only had 2 hatch, 2 males. I bought shipped eggs again and again only two hatched, 2 males again. I then started to get a little aggravated about my success so far and bought a trio from that breeder. A few weeks later I bought 2 trios from a different breeder. Finally I bought 17 chicks from a third breeder. So then this is where I started with the NH’s, 30 birds. I kind of felt that for a small operation, a hobbyist at best, that’s a pretty good start.

So my breeding plan will largely be based on something I read that Bob B. wrote and that I have discussed with him through e-mails. I’ve made a few changes to it based on things I have read and suggestions from other people but basically this is the nuts and bolts to it…

Out of the 30 birds, I’m only going to keep 3 males and 6 hens. I’ll then have three breeding pens set up for them…pen 1, pen 2, and pen 3. Each male will go into one pen with two pullets ech. My pens will be built so that when I’m ready to start collecting eggs I will be able to separate the hens so that now I will actually have 6 pens total, labeled 1a, 1b, 2a,2b, 3a and 3b. The males will rotate between pens every other day meaning that the rooster in pen one will be in 1a on Monday then in 1b on Tuesday then back to 1a on Wednesday and so forth. Eggs will be collected and marked and chicks will be hatched and toe punched so that I will know exactly what two birds produced what offspring. I’m thinking that I will most likely hatch eggs for myself twice a year, once in January-February and once again in April-May. In the first hatch I will be looking to only keep males and in the second hatch I will be looking for pullets. I’ll then grow the males out and cull back down to three roos picking the best male offspring out of pen 1, then the best out of pen 2 and finally the best out of pen 3. I’ll do the same with the pullets but with a little bit of a twist. For the following years breeding, each male will move over to the next pen. The best male offspring out of pen one will be my breeder for pen 2 the best male offspring out of 2 will be my breeder for pen 3 and the best from 3 will go to pen 1. The pullets will all go back into the pen that they were hatched from but when I pick the pullets instead of picking the best looking pullet, I’ll pick the pullet that best complements the roo in the pen that they will be bread with. I’m guessing that I will only be hatching about 60 chicks each year to cull down to 9 breeders for the following year.

Anyway, I still have a few details to work out with all this but this is basically what I’m leaning towards going with. It will be a very controlled rotational line breading program that if managed correctly, will allow me to breed the NH’s that I already have for a number of years (maybe 12 or so) without ever having to add outside blood to them. I don’t think that my progress will be as fast as some of the other ways of doing this but I’m more interested in getting the consistency of my flock up rather than the occasional knock out bird.

Any thought or suggestions from anyone on my plan are always welcome….

So the short answer for me is 60 chicks per year.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Robert Blosl]

Chris your me message should be made into a article on how to breed a Heritage Breed.If I can find my old chart my wife designed for me 15 years ago I will post it. It illustrates just what you are planing. I am doing this with my Large Fowl White Rocks but with he only two family's. I have three other people using my line that i can go back to to get new blood. Well written now can others do the same thing. Breed small and breed smart. bob

 

[gjensen]

Chris, it seams that you have yourself a plan. I intend to work along similar lines. I have not, but will from here, use single matings only. I am seeing a problem pop up periodically this year. I have no idea who the contributor(s) are. I can't know who is, unless I use single matings. I want to eliminate some of the guess work. I want to know what is happening. And of course, I reserve the right to deviate from my plan at any time.

 

[Barred Rocker]

Hey Ben....how are the little ones doing?

Chris

They're doing great. Growning fast. I've got them in with the stukel line barred rocks and they're getting along good. I got 5 more from a hatch from John Horton so I've got 12 total now. I think that's a pretty good start.

 

[Chris Herzog]

Wow, It's been really quite on this thread....so what's going on guys? LOL, Everyone growing out chicks?

Well I'm happy to say that I have two hens laying now!!! These two hens are just over 7 months and in the last two weeks just started laying....is this about the norm for the rest of you who have this breed?

This is kind of an odd question but I have been wondering about this. I have a male about 6 months old that has two of his tail feathers that look like they are turned backwards and bend upwards. The rest of his tail feathers look normal. His two feathers have been like this for a while....maybe two months. My question is this....if he looses these two feathers will he regrow feathers that will do the same thing or is it a 50 / 50 thing? Meaning he might or he might not. He has other problems that scream cull so he is not a breeder but I was just wondering what new feathers would do.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[immyjay54]

Wow, It's been really quite on this thread....so what's going on guys? LOL, Everyone growing out chicks?

Well I'm happy to say that I have two hens laying now!!! These two hens are just over 7 months and in the last two weeks just started laying....is this about the norm for the rest of you who have this breed?

This is kind of an odd question but I have been wondering about this. I have a male about 6 months old that has two of his tail feathers that look like they are turned backwards and bend upwards. The rest of his tail feathers look normal. His two feathers have been like this for a while....maybe two months. My question is this....if he looses these two feathers will he regrow feathers that will do the same thing or is it a 50 / 50 thing? Meaning he might or he might not. He has other problems that scream cull so he is not a breeder but I was just wondering what new feathers would do.

Thanks,
Chris

Hi Chris,
Yep, growing out chicks. My first batch of the NH's from Luanne are coming along very nice. If I'm not mistaken I'm going to have 3 male, 7 female. The 12 from Banjo are doing just great also. Haven't lost any of these. I still have 22 so that should give me a pretty good start. I have a guy in W. Va. that is wanting a trio out of these. I have quite a while before thinking about eggs. My oldest ones were just 2 months on Mar. 26.
Hey Ben,
I have 3 of my Good Shepherd BR's in lockdown right now and 7 more in incubator that just started 5 days ago.
Jim

 

[har]

I have 6 pullets that are 6 months old. They are getting real close to laying, so I would say they will be laying by there 7th month. Five of the 6 are awesome to look at so I'm excited about breeding them and starting my next generation.