Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[cbnovick]

LOL! Bee, I am going to give you some advice that I got from your old-timers thread (and others) way back when. It goes for all of us. Especially me.

Don't get all wrapped around the axle about this stuff. Breed chickens. The birds will tell you if you are improving things or not. If you have a specific breed, breed toward the standard. If you are raising your own backyard mixed-breed flock, breed toward whatever standard is in your head. Most of us want healthy productive chickens. So breed from the healthiest, most productive, best-looking chickens you've got. If the next generation is better, great. If the next generation is worse, change what you are doing. In Bob's words, KISS. Keep it simple!

If you get birds from somewhere else, know that they may react differently at your place. Be prepared to hatch and cull a lot until they have stabilized and are back on track, having adapted to the new location.

Kicking the can down the road...

Sarah

P.S. Most of what I know about raising chickens has come from Beekissed and Bob Blosl and Walt and from many of the other folks on this thread. For which I am hugely grateful. Without you all I wouldn't have had a clue. Thank you.

X 2 --Agreed!!

 

[Beekissed]

Thank you, Sarah!

My mind just wanders off alone sometimes and gets lost in theory out of sheer curiosity of the topic...it just caught my imagination that we have people who are worlds apart trying to breed many different breeds to one breed standard in the SOP and arriving at that point from all points, so advice given on the birds would have to be like scatter shot when talking of genetics if this epigenetics thing holds water. Thank you for taking my mind by the hand and telling it not to cross the street alone..it's a dangerous world out there if you let your mind wander off the sidewalk.

Curiosity killed the cat, they say.

 

[catdaddyfro]

THis has happened in humans and other animals too, though most people don't recognize the adaptations. It becomes part of the genetic footprint. In colder regions extremities get smaller. For example, THe artic fox has much smaller ears than all other fox. ANother example: In the Inuits the ears are smaller and the fingers shorter and the body thicker. Environment has a way of applying pressure to the genetics it is presented with. Survival of the fittest has many levels of meaning.

Yes you described Natural Selection there but those big combs on the Fla. birds won't necessarily produce offspring with like big combs in MN that is an adaptability trait not a set one as would an Inuit people having a baby in Tx will produce like offspring in every way. So your post I would consider "the same, but different"

what is set here is the type of comb, it is a single comb which is designed to radiate/regulate heat in whatever environment it is in, therefore it is designed to grow larger or not grow so large.

Jeff

 

[ronott1]

THis has happened in humans and other animals too, though most people don't recognize the adaptations. It becomes part of the genetic footprint. In colder regions extremities get smaller. For example, THe artic fox has much smaller ears than all other fox. ANother example: In the Inuits the ears are smaller and the fingers shorter and the body thicker. Environment has a way of applying pressure to the genetics it is presented with. Survival of the fittest has many levels of meaning.

The example quoted in my College genetics class was about moth color in England. During the industrial revolution, 98% of the moths were gray. Gray ash was on the white Birch trees, so the white moths were eaten by the birds. When coal was swapped with gas, the Birch trees were white again and the moth color switched to 98% white.

Yes, that is natural selection.

 

[3riverschick]

THs was a point that BOb BLosl often mentioned. A change in location effected the phenotype of the bird. I'm sure I can't describe it like he does, so I will leave that to others.

"It is the varied opinion of breeders as to what constitutes the ideal representative of the
breed, and their selection of breeding stock that maintains breed diversity."
Jerold S. Bell, DVM
Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, N. Grafton, MA
( Karen: he is a noted Assoc. Prof. of Genetics)

Bob wrote that if one separated a strain or flock of poultry by 500 miles and for 5-6 years, the individual
methods and beliefs and environment between the 2 places would create fowl which could be used as
a partial outcross to each other even tho they had originally come from the same strain or even flock.
Best,
Karen

 

[Apdeb]

So if I got my breeding trio from 640 miles away they will acclimate to ct
then if I run up against a stumbling block I could get more ky birds as outcross?

 

[Apdeb]

What would you guys do if you werent crazy about your foundation k?
With my roo dq for white wing tip im down to one k for the Barnevelders
in this situation what would you guys do????

 

[ronott1]

So if I got my breeding trio from 640 miles away they will acclimate to ct
then if I run up against a stumbling block I could get more ky birds as outcross?

As long as they are from the same line.

Some Breeders are setting up Work Groups and sharing chickens from their flocks every couple of years. Some have had great success improving the Breed that they are working on by doing this.

 

[ocap]

What would you guys do if you werent crazy about your foundation k?
With my roo dq for white wing tip im down to one k for the Barnevelders
in this situation what would you guys do????

I have a similar problem with only one pullet. I am going to incubate every egg she lays for two months next spring and see what happens.

 

[BGMatt]

What would you guys do if you werent crazy about your foundation k?
With my roo dq for white wing tip im down to one k for the Barnevelders
in this situation what would you guys do????

Only three things to do, hatch like crazy and just cull hard against his faults (in this situation only use that male for the first year, replace him with his best son. Or hatch from the better bird even though he has a DQ (white wing tip is still just color) and cull hard against that. Third option would be to find a replacement cockerel from another breeder that you do like. It's getting late in year but someone should have a few they're still looking to sell.