Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[catdaddyfro]

I think this is as relevant today as it was then. Plowing up ground to allow more access to sun, heat, wind to dry out the ground and thus the coccidia is not a bad idea if feasible. Then there is the suggestion to use buttermilk to help introduce good bacteria into the gut (probiotics) to try to help the chicken's own body fight better. A lot of the old time way of doing things was correct. They didn't always know the rationale behind what they did, but they were able to observe which actions had a positive or negative effect on things.

LOL yeah they didn't have candy crush saga, facebook or twitter to kill all their time with LOL they actually sat and studied what was up or down at the time being. My Grandad's mindset always amazed me as a child, I remember he would say this when you didn't move fast enough: "come on son we're a'burning daylight" now that I'm older I appreciate his gestures more and realize the science behind them even more. He was born in the dark and a lot of his first memories of the world was without lights 24/7.

Jeff

And here I sit yackin on the computer myself huh? LOL

 

[Arielle]

Quote: I holler "you're buring daylight" to my boys when the chores need finishing ASAP because the sun is at the western horizon and setting FAST. . . .and they are fooling around!! I didn't know I was that old.

 

[Darkangael]

The Coccidosis paper was very informative. There were a couple others I found interesting also.
No More Leg Weakness (also mentions cocci)
http://www.agannex.com/research/no-more-leg-weakness-–-a-new-cure
The all Mash method for egg production
http://www.agannex.com/poultry-research/the-all-mash-method-of-feeding-for-egg-production


Both very interesting papers especially for new chicken herders =P interested in formulating their own feeds.

 

[Yard full o' rocks]

Hi
It is a happier day is Sussexland today. Yesterday, I was washing out a chicken water dish and decided to get the mail. Coming back, I ran into my neighbor at the corner where the school bus stops. She asked me how things were going and the topic eventually turned to poultry. She said she had had her cocks killed by coyotes last year. They live in the woods at the end of the lane and the varmints come out of the back meadows to get at their stock. They have a mini-farm, chickens , pigs , turkeys, and sometimes a beef.
Anyway, they had finally coyote proofed their poultry yard. So this Spring she went down to pick out her peeps ( white leghorns and brown sex links), thinking to be mostly pullets and a few cockerels/ Well she ended up with about 15 pullets! No cockerels. She looked at me and stated how she just wished she had 2 or 3 cocks to watch over her egg flock. No breeding, ( I believe her, we have known each other for almost 19 years). Just to watch the flock. "Well, it just so happens I have...."... Long story short, she now has three nice Light Sussex cockerels on duty. She, myself and the cockerels are all happy. They are huge compared to the production leghorns, smile. The only one who can't quite figure out what happened is my "keeper" cockerel who now has the cockerel grow out pen all to himself, LOL.
Best,
Karen

Karen

Another positive is that perhaps you could "borrow" him for a few days here and there to do some additional test matings!!??

 

[cbnovick]

I think this is as relevant today as it was then. Plowing up ground to allow more access to sun, heat, wind to dry out the ground and thus the coccidia is not a bad idea if feasible. Then there is the suggestion to use buttermilk to help introduce good bacteria into the gut (probiotics) to try to help the chicken's own body fight better. A lot of the old time way of doing things was correct. They didn't always know the rationale behind what they did, but they were able to observe which actions had a positive or negative effect on things.

Agreed....however I'd bet their buttermilk was not pasteurized...which can eliminate alot of the good probiotics...which is why I add some probiotic powder to some moist bread about once a week...sure they get some from the ground...I just do it for a little 'bonus'

action. Who knows how much is really in our soil today...especially since I am in dreadful 'suburbia'

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Prepotency is and excellent conversation and very appropriate to this thread!

Very broadly speaking, with all the dangers of generalization, a chick gets a gene from the dam and a gene from the sire for just about every part of the body. If the genes are sex-lined, they come from the sire or from the dam's sire.

Each parent has two genes for each part of the body, i.e. beak color, shank color, skin color, length of shank, length of wing, length of tail, skeletal set, tail angle, what have you--two genes, but the parent can only pass on one of the two to any given chick, because the chick gets one from each parent, which then form the chick's own pair of two genes. Now, when the chick gets its two genes for comb,one from sire and one from dam, one of two things happens, either the chick gets two of the same gene or the chick gets two differing genes--one for one thing, one for another thing. In other words, if the sire and the dam are both rose-combed, the chick has two genes for rose comb. It's a pair of same elements: (ROSE-ROSE). "homo" is Greek for same, and "zyg" is Greek for "pair"; so this chick is homozygous for Rosecomb, which means that when it's time for this chick to breed it only has rose combed comb genes to offer to any future pairing. No matter what happens, its progeny will get at least one gene for Rose comb; thus rose comb is in every single one of its chicks. It is prepotent for Rosecomb, because it offers nothing but rose comb to the equation.

In another scenario, if one parent bird is rosecombed (ROSE-ROSE) and another singlecombed (single-single), and we're assuming that the rosecombed parent is homozygous for rose comb, then the chicks from this pairing will get one gene for ROSE comb and one gene for single comb, getting one gene for comb from each parent. The resultant chick's comb equation will then be (ROSE-single). When you look at the bird (phenotype), you'll see a rose comb because rose comb is dominant to single comb, which means in the arm wrestling contest between the two genes as to which one will be the visible one, the rose comb wins (that's why it's written in capital letters), but underneath, in the bird's genetic code, there is a single comb presence. What this means, moving these chicks into the breeding pen, is that every chick to which a (ROSE-single) dam or sire contributes genetic material, remembering that only one element for comb can come from each parent, each chick has a 50/50 chance of getting a rose comb gene or a single comb gene from this parent because the parent has both to offer, and it's a toss up as to which of the two genes will be present in any given sperm or egg. Thus, from this parent, you're going to get, on average, only a 50% pass on rate for rose comb. In comparison to the first scenario of a (ROSE-ROSE) breeder, which was at 100% rose comb transference, this would be weak, i.e. not prepotent.

Now, genes are either dominant, which means you can see them with only one dosage from one parent, or they're recessive, which means that a chick needs the same gene from both parents for it to be visible, i.e. part of its phenotype. If a recessive gene is paired with a dominant gene, it's still present, it's just invisible.

So "prepotency" means having two genes of the same thing for each element, i.e. being homozygous: (ROSE-ROSE). Therefore, any bird that manifests visibly a recessive quality, e.g. a single combed bird (single-single) must have two genes for that quality to be visible, otherwise you couldn't see it in the first place, e.g. (ROSE-single) because the dominant gene would be the visible one.

So, a bird can be prepotent for dominant genes (ROSE-ROSE) or for recessive genes (single-single), which means that these birds have only one element for any one characteristic to offer in any given pairing--they are always giving the same gene for each characteristic. In the first scenario, it's prepotent and you can see the qualities for which it is prepotent in the offspring. In the second pairing, it's prepotent, meaning it's the only gene that the parent has to offer; so every one of its chicks gets it, but you can only see the prepotent quality if the other contributing parent offers the same recessive gene, i.e. if both parents offer up a single combed gene. No matter what, it will have at least one single-combed gene because the one parent was (single-single) and so gave "single" to the equation, but a single comb is only visible if a bird is (single-single).

Now, if we take the conversation away from combs, we can imagine a cock bird made up of multiple dominant qualities in a homozygous state:

Consider the potential recipe of a well-bred Cuckoo Dorking cock (not that any exist):

(ROSE-ROSE)
(BLACK-BLACK)
(SILVER-SILVER)
(BARRING-BARRING)
(WHITE-SKIN--WHITE-SKIN)
(5TH-TOE--5TH-TOE)
(BROAD FEATHER-BROAD-FEATHER)

This bird is practically unstoppable. In just about any out-cross, it will mask the vast majority of what it's paired with.

Now this is considering dominants vs. recessives and the possibility of outcross, but within a given strain, one has modifiers working on a pattern or on a body structure. Many, many qualities are had by modifiers which are called quantitative, meaning they are the product of a breeding program. The ROSE comb is a given but the length, shape and angle of the leader is the result of accumulating modifiers that point in this or that direction. Over time, with consistent selection for the same goal, always culling in the same direction, the gene pool starts to become uniform for one particular manifestation of the rosecomb: a specific balance, a specific texture, a leader that points a specific way. The quality of black, the quality of green sheen, the whiteness of lobes, the intensity of yellow in the shanks, the brightness of white in plumage, etc.., these things are had by accumulating modifiers over multiple generations.

Eventually one risks getting a cockerel that is homozygous for all of the necessary parts and that has a very high level of quantitative modifiers to pass around. His offspring are like BAM, because he is a genetic powerhouse. He can make up for the failings of his mates because of his homozygous prepotency and high volume of quantitative modifiers. Now, in theory, a hen can also be prepotent, but she will always be at the disadvantage when it comes to any sex-linked quality because a hen can only pass on a sex-linked quality to male offspring whereas a male can pass on a sex-linked quality to both male and female chicks. Also, the prepotent male is particularly valuable because it can be so easily spread about in the breeding pen(s).

The importance of modifier accumulation cannot be overstated, thus Dragonlady is always mentioning "Having a picture in your mind of what you're going for." One must continue to select in a specific direction in order to accumulate the various modifiers that are going to give that certain je ne sais quoi to your strain. If you keep changing your imagined ideal, your modifier accumulaton will be like a roller coaster ride, and your stock will lack consistency. Whenever you see a strain that's not simply, as Bob would say, a 92 point bird, what we refer to as being "representative of the breed", meaning, yeah, all the brids are rose combed, all white, all white skinned, etc..., but when you see a strain where each bird is consistent with the others and each quality just seems to stand out at you like a neon sign of "excellence", this happens because the modifiers have been uniformly accumulated throughout all the birds, and they are genetically very similar for the desired traits.

Now take this idea, and really chew on it. It takes a long time to pass these modifying alleles about. It takes strong numbers hatched, numerous enough to manage to get enough birds that manifest these genes from which to select. When you're carefully pairing, you're swapping modifiers; you're passing traits around the flock. This takes time. This is also why outcrossing to another strain can cause such a drop or variance in quality, because even though they're both Anconas, they possess vastly different sums of the quantitative genes that lead to excellence, and although all of the progeny will be Anconas, they'll look washed out, and it will take years to reaccumulate those intensifying modifiers throughout the flock in a uniform fashion. For this reason, it is desirable to maintain a number of birds sufficient to avoid having to bring in unrelated stock because of in-breeding depression. However it also illustrates why it is necessary to in-breed within a clan in order to accumulate a uniform intensity of equilibrated modifiers within a flock such that the progeny inherit each element in a balanced and predictable fashion.

A mating nicks when the exchange of modifiers is such that the resultant chicks are uniform and, hopefully, a bit superior to the parents. The breeding does not nick if the contributing alleles clash and create birds that, although "pure-bred", are out of balance and/or extreme. When bringing in unrelated stock, one is definitely crossing one's fingers because one is hoping that the accumulated modifiers from the unrelated birds are complementary and create offspring that maintain a balanced distribution of modifiers. For this reason, it is often recommended that one first cross the new bird to one member of the flock, and then take these 1/2 new-1/2 old bloodline birds (if the breeding nicked) and cross them into the established line because in this way one can be more certain that complementary modifiers exist on either side of the pairing, and one risks more assuredly hatching out at least some chicks that maintain the good qualities of the established line while importing the vigor or hoped-for qualities for which the new line was sought. If one doesn't take this precaution, one risks losing years of accumulated modifiers that can only then be rebuilt over multiple seasons and/or very large hatches with very tight culling.

Considering all of this, it, I hope, starts to become clear as to why mastery of breeding lies on the other side of breeding one variety of one breed over several years so that one can see the long-term effects of accumulating modifiers in a line such that the line comes to adopt an identifiable regularity, or uniformity, by which it is called a strain. This is why simply hatching higgledy-piggeldy doesn't make one a breeder, and why when would-be breeders say that they're going to do this, that, and the other thing, and create this, that, and the other variety, many experienced breeders just smile. They might lack the technical jargon to say all of this, but they're aware that it takes years and years to do certain things, and "'tis many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip" and unless a breeding project is replete with discipline, progress simply cannot be had. Only through the channeling of selection pressure along consistent, unchanging criteria (SOP), can one develop homozygous individuals with a high frequency of accumulated modifiers that create elite, prepotent breeders that distribute the hard-won genetics evenly throughout the strain.

Science, art, patience, persistence.

 

[bnjrob]

Agreed....however I'd bet their buttermilk was not pasteurized...which can eliminate alot of the good probiotics...which is why I add some probiotic powder to some moist bread about once a week...sure they get some from the ground...I just do it for a little 'bonus'

action. Who knows how much is really in our soil today...especially since I am in dreadful 'suburbia'

Good point. Today would have to look for "cultured" buttermilk and it still wouldn't be the same as having the fresh from the cow and then turned into buttermilk product. I make butter from scratch using pasteurized whipping cream but have to toss in a spoonful of live culture yogurt and let it sit on the counter a couple of days to get the cultures growing.

 

[Apdeb]

Ive been feeding mine raw yogurt. I can get it for $3 a quart at the farm around corner from me
THEY LOVE IT

 

[NanaKat]

Ive been feeding mine raw yogurt. I can get it for $3 a quart at the farm around corner from me
THEY LOVE IT

Home-made yogurt here...less than $2 a quart

YellowhouseFarms, et al....Really enjoying the discussion on prepotency, nicking and breediing. I'm making copies for my file.....

 

[Arielle]

Ive been feeding mine raw yogurt. I can get it for $3 a quart at the farm around corner from me
THEY LOVE IT

THat is a good price!!

I use braggs apple cider for me and as a starter in a bucket of wet pellets. THey eat it like candy. Improving the health of my chickens has also improved my health, too.