Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[thedragonlady]

I was under the impression that hatching large fowl late and growing them out through winter and colder weather often resulted in larger birds? I never kept records and hatched year round so I'm not sure just something I'd heard so many times from people I trusted that I believed it.

Just throw the WHOLE grains to them to develop large innards, and to keep warm. You WILL raise larger LF in the winter.

 

[Mr MKK FARMS]

Quote: So why exactly would you get bigger birds in the winter? That doesn't make sense to me.

 

[thedragonlady]

So why exactly would you get bigger birds in the winter? That doesn't make sense to me.

Birds will eat MORE in winter. They do not in warm weather.Eat less + stay smaller. There is a reason the South is Bantam country, and the North is LF country.That can be overcome by hatching times though. Been doing it for years.

 

[Mr MKK FARMS]

Quote: Interesting. Even if that isn't true (I don't know what to believe), I don't really want chicks over winter. In Canada is get seriously cold.

 

[bnjrob]

I do know I have studied that most white feathers(esp flights and tail feathers) generally come back with even more pronounced white with each successive molt.

Oh yeah - got some Mottled Javas that I swear are gonna end up all white in a few years.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Some common sex-linked genes:

Barring/cuckoo
Silver (as in Silver Grey versus Red Dorkings)

If you breed a homozygous SG male to a Red female, all the chicks will be silver. If you breed a Red male to a SG female, all the male chicks will be Silver, the female chicks will be red.

The same rhythm holds true for barring.

This would also happen with other Silver-Red pairings: i.e. Silver-penciled-partridge (Golden penciled) Rocks and Wyandottes.

Some common dominant genes:

1. rose comb (dominant to all combs)
2. pea comb (dominant to all but rose comb)
3. barring
4. blue
5. Columbian
6. Crest
7. Extended Black
8. Extended Black Restricted (Birchen)
9. Frizzle
10. Polydactyly (5th toe)
11. Dominant white as in White Leghorns (not a color in and of itself, it just blocks other color fro manifesting.
12. late feathering, as in standard-bred Barred Rocks
13. muffs and beards
14. Melanotic, part of building an all black chicken
15. Naked neck
16. Rumpless
17. White Skin
18. Ear tufts, as in araucana
19. blue egg shell
20. Pattern gene, this is difficult of explain here but it's what makes pencilled, hamburg-spangled, laced, they're all connected

Some common recessive qualities:

1. recessive white, as in White Rocks, Wyandottes, etc...
2. brown, as in Dark Brown Leghorns
3. buttercup
4. wheaton
5. silkie feathering
6. lavender, aka self-blue
7. mottled, as in Anconas, mille fleurs, porcelain, speckled Sussex, spangled OEG
8. non-molting tails, as in some lines of phoenix
9. single comb
10. fast feathering
11. wild plumage type, as in bbr oeg
12. yellow skin
13. vulturine hocks

 

[bnjrob]

Interesting. Even if that isn't true (I don't know what to believe), I don't really want chicks over winter. In Canada is get seriously cold.

So why exactly would you get bigger birds in the winter? That doesn't make sense to me.

If you lived down here where our seasons consist of Hot, Hotter, Hottest, and Christmas - you would be able see the difference between hatching when it is technically winter versus hatching any other time.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

I don't have them but am interested in the reason behind this - is it because of a very limited gene pool for the breed?

Yes, you want to protect the gene pool you have. There aren't a lot of go-to's with Barnevelders.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Just throw the WHOLE grains to them to develop large innards, and to keep warm. You WILL raise larger LF in the winter.

I'm not sure this would work in the North. I've never raised strong birds in the winter. Then again I've never thrown them whole corn, either. But, raising birds through the winter in NH stinks.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Oh yeah - got some Mottled Javas that I swear are gonna end up all white in a few years.

This is a trait of the mottled gene.