Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[3riverschick]

Joseph, that breast on Tux came from his grandfather Senior. Now Senior's son, Junior ( who is both Tux's and May's sire)
was very prepotent for that physique. The mating of Tux to May is 3x Senior. So I am expecting to see more of that full breast.
Best Regards,
Karen

 

[thedragonlady]

Interesting thread and perhaps a bit ... disheartening? We have a small flock of Silkies for fun and have decided to expand into a dual purpose bird for meat and eggs. I've done some checking around and reading before making the plunge. The heritage birds appealed to me and my husband as they represented so many things we are loosing to a faster, more, poor quality society we are turning in to.

I guess I'm feeling like it's pointless to try because there's no way we can produce hundreds of birds a year. It's just him and I on 5 acres of land. Am I right in feeling its pointless and we can't even make a small contribution?

I'm just now catching up on this thread. Serica, it is not necessary to hatch 100s of birds a year to produce good birds. I keep no more than a dozen hens in my Buff Orps.. I've never kept many birds in all my years of showing and breeding. The whole key is selection, and by that I mean having a picture in your mind of your ideal bird, and sticking to selecting those birds that come closest to it. I raise Buff Orps, and my goal was to produce a true dual purpose Buff, that not only would I enjoy looking at every day, but that would lay early, and produce good carcases at a young age on the cockerels.

Find a breed you enjoy looking at, with the sort of temperament you can live with too. If you buy your first birds from a reputable breeder,you will do well, and have a lot of enjoyment from having quality birds.

 

[fowlman01]

I'm just now catching up on this thread. Serica, it is not necessary to hatch 100s of birds a year to produce good birds. I keep no more than a dozen hens in my Buff Orps.. I've never kept many birds in all my years of showing and breeding. The whole key is selection, and by that I mean having a picture in your mind of your ideal bird, and sticking to selecting those birds that come closest to it. I raise Buff Orps, and my goal was to produce a true dual purpose Buff, that not only would I enjoy looking at every day, but that would lay early, and produce good carcases at a young age on the cockerels.

Find a breed you enjoy looking at, with the sort of temperament you can live with too. If you buy your first birds from a reputable breeder,you will do well, and have a lot of enjoyment from having quality birds.

I agree. If you pick a breed that is in good shape, there is no reason to breed hundreds of birds. If you pick a rare breed in need of restoration a 100 might not be enough.

Walt

 

[bnjrob]

This top view was taken a coupleof weeks ago and his comb points weren't quite healed yet.

Pic 4-24-14 Well you can't quite see it in this pic however
both sides of Tuxs' hackle actually meet in the center. This
is very much desired in Light Sussex and not often enough seen.

Pic 4-24-14
This is Tux, my best Light Sussex cock. He is going back
to the breeder as promised to continue the strain back there.
Tux has been covering May ( my avatar). May is laying
so I will be able to hatch at least 14 chicks out of her when Tux leaves.
Tux is by Junior ex May. The pedigree reads :
Tux by Junior (he by Senior ex Pullet A) ex May (She by Senior ex pullet B)
So the get from a Tux ex May breeding will be 3x Senior; 1x Pullet A ; 2x Pullet B
Senior was the breeder's premier stud cock and a 3x APA Grand Champion. Deceased last winter.
Tux was hatched mid April 2013. He is pure Walt Boese strain.


Pic 4-24-14

Pretty birds to an eye untrained in their SOP requirements. Trying to get "correct" color pattern on our Mottled Javas makes me crazy - I can only imagine the difficulty in trying to get the color pattern good on these guys.

 

[3riverschick]

Fortunately, it's a lot easier than your Mottled Javas. Light Sussex are eWh based so no balancing of the undercolor in the underfluff to get proper top color.
as in eb based Columbian breeds. As long as they have the hackle black gene and are homozygous for Co, then the black parts should stay where they
belong. Black does need attention to make sure the hackle doesn't "slide " down the neck, and the black stripe in the hackle feathers doesn't bleed thru the
white lacing thru the end of the feather forming a black necklace called a "superhackle". None of Walt's strain have superhackle. All the black hackle feathers
have white lacing all the way around them. I have a lot of respect fro anyone working with the mottled gene. It's a toughie. Like trying to put the right size
spots in the right organization on a Dalmation dog. Whew!
I do like my boys a lot, I will be even happier when I can settle their chassis's down on their legs a bit more.
Best,
Karen

 

[bnjrob]

Fortunately, it's a lot easier than your Mottled Javas. Light Sussex are eWh based so no balancing of the undercolor in the underfluff to get proper top color.
as in eb based Columbian breeds. As long as they have the hackle black gene and are homozygous for Co, then the black parts should stay where they
belong. Black does need attention to make sure the hackle doesn't "slide " down the neck, and the black stripe in the hackle feathers doesn't bleed thru the
white lacing thru the end of the feather forming a black necklace called a "superhackle". None of Walt's strain have superhackle. All the black hackle feathers
have white lacing all the way around them. I have a lot of respect fro anyone working with the mottled gene. It's a toughie. Like trying to put the right size
spots in the right organization on a Dalmation dog. Whew!
I do like my boys a lot, I will be even happier when I can settle their chassis's down on their legs a bit more.
Best,
Karen

That's interesting. I would have thought it would be harder trying to keep the black parts where they need to be.

Having white tail/wing feathers is the most annoying part of our Mottled Javas. It's been interesting to me that even in the old photos of them, most Mottled Javas appear to be more "splashed" with white, than having the distinctive V-shaped white feather tips that the SOP says mottled birds are supposed to have. We have been able to decrease some of the white in our Javas though, but it is going to take more time before we see fewer white wing/tail feathers. The color project we have going has not yet turned out with what we were expecting, and we mostly wound up with black feathered birds with the first generation. But that actually may help with getting some of the excess white out of our flock. The drawback though is that the birds that have more black in them, also seem to be winding up with more pink soled feet instead of the required yellow. But we're having fun and seeing improvements so the work is worth it.

 

[hellbender]

Fortunately, it's a lot easier than your Mottled Javas. Light Sussex are eWh based so no balancing of the undercolor in the underfluff to get proper top color.
as in eb based Columbian breeds. As long as they have the hackle black gene and are homozygous for Co, then the black parts should stay where they
belong. Black does need attention to make sure the hackle doesn't "slide " down the neck, and the black stripe in the hackle feathers doesn't bleed thru the
white lacing thru the end of the feather forming a black necklace called a "superhackle". None of Walt's strain have superhackle. All the black hackle feathers
have white lacing all the way around them. I have a lot of respect fro anyone working with the mottled gene. It's a toughie. Like trying to put the right size
spots in the right organization on a Dalmation dog. Whew!
I do like my boys a lot, I will be even happier when I can settle their chassis's down on their legs a bit more.
Best,
Karen

I would think that using a high quality white Dorking might get you some relief. I don't need them in my breeding program(s) but it just seems they would be the place to help 'fix' your problem with their body type.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

I agree. If you pick a breed that is in good shape, there is no reason to breed hundreds of birds. If you pick a rare breed in need of restoration a 100 might not be enough.

Walt

Exactly!

Also, echoing a bit one of our conversations elsewhere, there's a lot to be said about focus. There may be several breeds and varieties that don't make into the 21st century. I used to think that was a tragedy, but more and more I'm realizing that's alright. There are so darn many of them, and there are only so many of us. In the last few years at the North Eastern Poultry Congress the Langshan people have been putting on one heck of a display. They're awesome--I mean awesome. The Blues and Whites are fine, but the blacks are outstanding. There's just this bank of Black Langshans that's awesome to behold. If we were to see more an more people rallying around healthy breeds and varieties with fellow chicken friends following suit, the results would be great. We might see few variations in LF, but what we would see would, in my opinion, be ever better. One good variety in a breed is an awesome thing. It would be awesome to see large classes of other breeds mirroring those Black Langshans. The Salmon Faverolles have also been quite interesting, nice sized displays with good birds. There aren't any Whites, but that's OK. The Rocks have good representation in White and Barred; White and SL Wyandottes.

On the other hand, the RIRs have been looking a little weak. Just as a thought: there is style and quality to these birds that represents years of effort. The need to be caught before they slip. This is so much more worthy a rallying point than Legbars or "Iowa Blues" or even random, faddish varieties of established breeds that have never really had importance. If people get into them and raise out 20 to 50 a year, they're going to do well and the community would be strengthened in a powerful way.

As to Walt's point about truly rare breeds, I've been there....I'm still there, but it's getting better. Both breeds are now showable if not champions, and other established breeders, and even some APA judges, are picking them up. It has taken several years though and comfortably over a thousand birds. Am I glad I did it? Yes. Would I do it again? Hmmm..... It's hard to say because they've become my breeds; they are the way my brain thinks chicken, but geesh, what a pain.

For folks on here wondering, and others might have additions, but when I think of dive in breeds that would fit a smaller operation, birds already in good condition who would benefit from more breeders, offering strong competition, I think of these:

Barred*, White*, Buff*, and Partridge** Rocks
Buff Orpingtons*
Black Australorps*
White*, SL*, and Columbian** Wyandottes
New Hampshires*
RC and SC RIR*
Light* and Dark** Brahmas
RC Anconas*
White*, Light* and Dark* Brown Leghorns
Black Minorcas*
Buff*, Black*, and Partridge** Cochins
Black Langshans*
Blue Andalusians** (if you're willing to color cull)
WFB Spanish** (everyone always talks about them as if they were made of porcelain, but there are actually some good one's out there)
Black Ameraucanas*
Dominiques*
Blk Sumatras*
Silver Spangled Hamburgs*
Speckled** and Light Sussex*
White** and Red Dorkings**
Buckeyes*
Salmon Faverolles*
WCB Polish*
Golden Campines**
White Chantecler(*)

~~There are two I would highlight, because I think population-wise, they're in a dangerous space: Speckled Sussex and Spangled Hamburgs. I'm really hoping that there's some strong rallying around these breeds before they descend to the "nothing but hatchery stock" status. I actually have the opportunity to begin with the Hamburgs, but I'm torn. They really need support, as an APA judge friend of mine recently put it, "Now there's a dying breed." There were none in competition at the Ohio National last season; that's a bit of a poultry tragedy right there. That Speckled Sussex be so low is another tragedy. They've been eclipsed by the Light Sussex imports, which though nice, don't have the US history that the Speckleds do, and unlike the Lights, they offer something unique to the poultry world.

For those wanting to do something big, and I mean big, Houdans could be fixed with White Dorkings. That would be awesome. Otherwise, I think they're pretty washed up.

This list is just meant as a food for thought list. I just went for a mental stroll up and down the aisles, and these are the birds I see regularly that would be good candidates to pick up. One (*) means I think it's an easier journey; (**) means I think in would be tougher but approachable.

There are some outstanding roll-models on this thread. If you're lurking and wondering, consider this list closely. These breeds could offer a lot of fun.

It would be neat to see more people with the Mediterraneans and Hamburgs. They're awesome chickens that, on occasion, get a bad rep by people who don't really know them.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Fortunately, it's a lot easier than your Mottled Javas. Light Sussex are eWh based so no balancing of the undercolor in the underfluff to get proper top color.
as in eb based Columbian breeds. As long as they have the hackle black gene and are homozygous for Co, then the black parts should stay where they
belong. Black does need attention to make sure the hackle doesn't "slide " down the neck, and the black stripe in the hackle feathers doesn't bleed thru the
white lacing thru the end of the feather forming a black necklace called a "superhackle". None of Walt's strain have superhackle. All the black hackle feathers
have white lacing all the way around them. I have a lot of respect fro anyone working with the mottled gene. It's a toughie. Like trying to put the right size
spots in the right organization on a Dalmation dog. Whew!
I do like my boys a lot, I will be even happier when I can settle their chassis's down on their legs a bit more.
Best,
Karen

It does give them a clean Columbian appearance.

Ode to Mottling......What the &%$@! IN seriousness, it's a cool challenge. Thank God my Dorkings are white....

 

[Yellow House Farm]

I would think that using a high quality white Dorking might get you some relief. I don't need them in my breeding program(s) but it just seems they would be the place to help 'fix' your problem with their body type.

When you find some, let me know!

Still, Karen's pullet is looking strong. They'll make an interesting combo.

On a side note, perhaps we could all try to be better this year with posting pic of birds growing out. I know, I know, I'm horrible at actually doing it myself