Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[catdaddyfro]

I tend to extend the light past sunset but I have neighbors close by. During the early sunset months no one wants to hear a rooster at 3 am. And it is so much easier for me not to have to change the timer every two weeks. My lighting plan is to turn the lights on in the morning for a few hours and in the afternoon to evening for the longer time period. But now that my chickens are staying in their coop all day I had to extend the morning lights to make sure they had plenty of light.

I use rope lighting in my new coop in case you were asking more about the placement of lights.

LOL funny thing here(I have neighbors too they built their house next to my chicken yard) I don't have electric anywhere near any of my pens and barns and still yet (not every morning but most mornings) at any where from 3 to 4:30-5o'clock it sounds like the Morman tabernacle choir (maybe not so much on key or harmonious as they are) but nonetheless its pretty exciting, loud, and moving to say the least. I hope they thought to purchase the good windows(sound blocking type) when they laid out their house building plans.

LOL

Jeff

 

[BGMatt]

With all due respect to everyone involved....can we please keep in mind that Bob Blosl (God rest his sole), originator of this thread, focused a lot of attention to the "newbies" that frequent this thread. He taught several things that a lot of new folks still need to hear (in my opinion)

KISS (keep it simple)
Build the barn first (not meaning that feather or pattern is completely ignore, but that TYPE does come first with MOST breeds)
Go slow, and go down the middle of the road

I think these basic precepts helped a lot of people, including myself

There are certainly more detailed aspects of breeding once one is established in the hobby and several "breed/breeder specific" threads have spun off of this one.

But out of respect for Bob, who did so much for so many, I think we owe him the respect of continuing his philosophy, at least on this thread

It's a good philosophy too. If you want to have continued success. You can't ignore serious color flaws, but breed from a bird with lesser conformation because of color? Never.

Bob always mentioned using birds that scored 90+, you can't get there without both. That's why you hatch a bunch (as many as you can raise!), and cull hard. Look at your scale of points again. White Bird 73/100 on SHAPE, 27/100 on Color. Everything else 63/100 on shape, 37/100 on color. It's simple, so keep it that way.

 

[Extra Java]

Quote: Carefoot goes over The E-Series Wheaten Down and mentions the light Sussex is in fact a wheaten with the addition of columbian Co and silver S but you probably know that.

Good book - hard to find!

 

[RiddleMe]

 

 

Hi Snowbird,
 Did you ever have Light Sussex? I am trying to figure out how to move their lovely
black hackle further up the necks on mine. Am not sure eb based Columbian advice
will help my eWh based LS. Any advice is greatly appreciated as I have not been able
to find any online or in books, other than "just put pressure n it". Which is good advice,
I just wondered if your experience had  shown you a specific strategy.
 Thank

Have you checked out Dr. Carefoot's work Creative Poultry Breeding ? He does a petit article on eWH Columbian, but I don't remember whether or not it addreses the specific concerns you're reading.  Snowbird's reply implies that it is quantitative, which would make sense.

Thoughts on the old "Build the barn 1st" idea. :

I think it's a great way to begin to keep beginners from fixating on the minutiae of color.   Having said that, there are color faults that, if ignored for the sake of the barn, can become permanent in not so many generations.  Shafting can make itself a formidable presence, difficult to remove, e.g. Silver Grey Dorkings  I just saw "SQ" Speckled Sussex with shafting, and that's a pretty big tragedy.  Color can be lost in hackle and saddle.  Mottling can be either too randomized, or even worse--and commoner, overly concentrated such that the birds become more patchwork black and white than truly mottled. Barring can lose it's distinctness.  On the other hand, so many lines of Barred Rock are abysmally thin feathered now with weak tails...sorry tails.  The list could go on and on.  Regardless, one will eventually, in my opinion, arrive at the conclusion, that much comes down to numbers.  If you want to select for this and this and this and this, there is, after all of the precautions one can take, a certain level of dumb luck that arises.  Only so many out of so many are going to statistically be able to carry such and such a combo.  Thus when one proclaims that they're going to work with six breeds of large fowl most of us just smile and walk on.  The trick is to avoid--as much as is possible, because it's not always possible--the need to make hugely desperate calls in the favor of one trait against another simply because one doesn't have a wide enough hatch from which to choose.

Carefoot goes over The E-Series Wheaten Down and mentions the light Sussex is in fact a wheaten with the addition of columbian Co and silver S but you probably know that.

Good book - hard to find!

Someone posted on BYC just a couple months ago that they found a UK supplier with permission to reprint and had ordered a copy...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/831509/carefoots-creative-poultry-breeding-supplier-found

 

[Zanna]

Someone posted on BYC just a couple months ago that they found a UK supplier with permission to reprint and had ordered a copy...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/831509/carefoots-creative-poultry-breeding-supplier-found

I ordered it last year from the lady who writes the forward in the book, Veronica Mayhew. Her e-mail is [email protected] Don't remember how much it cost but it came pretty quickly from England. Very interesting book!

 

[finnfur]

With all due respect to everyone involved....can we please keep in mind that Bob Blosl (God rest his sole), originator of this thread, focused a lot of attention to the "newbies" that frequent this thread. He taught several things that a lot of new folks still need to hear (in my opinion)

KISS (keep it simple)
Build the barn first (not meaning that feather or pattern is completely ignore, but that TYPE does come first with MOST breeds)
Go slow, and go down the middle of the road

I think these basic precepts helped a lot of people, including myself

There are certainly more detailed aspects of breeding once one is established in the hobby and several "breed/breeder specific" threads have spun off of this one.

But out of respect for Bob, who did so much for so many, I think we owe him the respect of continuing his philosophy, at least on this thread

Yes - We need to keep "kicking the can down the middle of the road " for Bob and all the newbies like me he inspired to go heritage. THANKS BOB !

 

[gjensen]

With all due respect to everyone involved....can we please keep in mind that Bob Blosl (God rest his soul), originator of this thread, focused a lot of attention to the "newbies" that frequent this thread. He taught several things that a lot of new folks still need to hear (in my opinion)

KISS (keep it simple)
Build the barn first (not meaning that feather or pattern is completely ignored, but that TYPE does come first with MOST breeds)
Go slow, and go down the middle of the road

I think these basic precepts helped a lot of people, including myself

There are certainly more detailed aspects of breeding once one is established in the hobby and several "breed/breeder specific" threads have spun off of this one.

But out of respect for Bob, who did so much for so many, I think we owe him the respect of continuing his philosophy, at least on this thread

With all due respect to everyone involved....can we please keep in mind that Bob Blosl (God rest his sole), originator of this thread, focused a lot of attention to the "newbies" that frequent this thread. He taught several things that a lot of new folks still need to hear (in my opinion)

KISS (keep it simple)
Build the barn first (not meaning that feather or pattern is completely ignore, but that TYPE does come first with MOST breeds)
Go slow, and go down the middle of the road

I think these basic precepts helped a lot of people, including myself

There are certainly more detailed aspects of breeding once one is established in the hobby and several "breed/breeder specific" threads have spun off of this one.

But out of respect for Bob, who did so much for so many, I think we owe him the respect of continuing his philosophy, at least on this thread

The sum of what I was saying and still is, if you have color problems and since type is most important, you should be prepared to hatch in quantity. Otherwise you can go backwards in the first year.
This why Bob recommended newbies to stay clear of difficult colors and breeds that were not in good shape. That is still good advice.

For those of us that are not in that situation we have to do a little extra, and be mindful of additional things. He understood that.

It is good for everyone to hear some different perspectives and idea. Newbies like myself figure out what to hear and not listen to.

I do agree that this thread should stick to Bob's main tenants, and they are a good foundation to be grounded in. It really does help to be grounded every now and then.

I do hope that the conversation does not get so rigid that there is no conversation at all.

 

[catdaddyfro]

Breeding/or learning to breed is definitely a graduation/step program thing, as it starts out being hard and gets harder but too it gets easier (or should in time due to knowledge and learning experiences) from my dealings and studying.

Jeff

 

[snowbird]

With all due respect to everyone involved....can we please keep in mind that Bob Blosl (God rest his soul), originator of this thread, focused a lot of attention to the "newbies" that frequent this thread. He taught several things that a lot of new folks still need to hear (in my opinion)

KISS (keep it simple)
Build the barn first (not meaning that feather or pattern is completely ignored, but that TYPE does come first with MOST breeds)
Go slow, and go down the middle of the road

I think these basic precepts helped a lot of people, including myself

There are certainly more detailed aspects of breeding once one is established in the hobby and several "breed/breeder specific" threads have spun off of this one.

But out of respect for Bob, who did so much for so many, I think we owe him the respect of continuing his philosophy, at least on this thread

Scott, I believe that if this thread is dedicated to the beginner and the young people , then the whole story should be told for everyone to learn the basics of breeding to the APA SOP. I will not post in this thread in the future.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

I certainly espouse the KISS idea, especially when it comes down to not confounding the situation with multiple breeds, etc... However, there are things that if you do them, they will doom you to failure or to years of repair, and it's worth understanding what those are.

Type is certainly more important that color, but that does not mean that all color flaws are equal and can be overlooked in view of type. The amount of black in a columbian color hackle, within reason, we subordinated to type, but some color issues. Mottled birds that are just a bit too white can be paired with darker birds because their type is so strong. There are things one can get away with. However, there are some things that if they enter your gene pool in an intentional fashion will undermine your whole project. If one selects for type, while ignoring these other points, one will develop a strain of birds that will, regardless of type quality, need to be completely reworked to fix major color issues. Going down the middle of the road, implies maintaining a certain balance. One has to maintain the obligations, if not necessarily the minutiae, of color with type if one is going to enjoy long-term success.