Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[Ifish]

Not specific to Delawares, but this is a chart of historical market ages and weights for broilers. http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/u-s-broiler-performance/

The Chicken Of Tomorrow contest was in '48 - '49, and that's when stuff really started to change with meat birds.

That is a very interesting chart. 1985 until now is very interesting to me. The average to weight, live weight pounds, average days per pound, all take off.

What happened in 1985?

 

[gjensen]

And that's just the color. The mythology of the breed promises so many nice elusive things beyond easy-plucker feather color.

As we're on the topic of Columbian pattern, I came across an interesting article from Poultry Journal of 1956 discussing the feathering rate of Delawares and New Hampshires ... for a while the link took you right to an image of the 1-page article. Now it doesn't. But here is the citation, and maybe some of you with research credentials can get to it ...

Late Feathering Closely Linked with Columbian Color in ChickensPoultry Science (1956) 35 (2): 490

If I remember the gist, the inspiration question was "Why do Delawares feather so slowly?" And the research chosen to investigate was to mate some Delawares (slow feathering) with New Hampshires (faster feathering). They hatched nearly 2000 chicks ... which they sorted into piles, fast & slow for each of Delaware-like & New Hampshire-like ... I wish I could remember more than that ... and found that most of the New Hampshire-like chicks were faster feathering, while most of the Delaware-like chicks were slow feathering. I think they got like 15 fast-feathering Delawares out of nearly 1,000.

The conclusion is that the Columbian pattern is a poor conductor for the fast feathering gene. But ... I'm confused as the New Hampshires also carry the Columbian pattern gene.

So ... I now I'm curious about the feathering rate of Light Sussex ... and to a lesser extent, the feathering rate of other Silver Columbian pattern birds. Perhaps without the confounding of the barring genes (slow), there's no concern?

I believe that they misinterpreted what they were seeing. I suspect that along the way, they came to a different conclusion.

 

[gjensen]

I hope someone can access the article and explain what they were thinking with the both the experiment and their conclusions. What little I've read suggests the slow feathering and barring have been cultivated to go together as then you get better barring. Not sure if that can be undone. For sure you don't need awesome barring in a Delaware. So I'm not remembering/understanding why the Columbian was the focus of the experiment. Maybe because the diagraming of the cross suggests you'd get a certain percentage of fast feathering Delaware-like birds, but the experiment produced much lower numbers, suggesting there is some extra inhibiting factor involved ... which for some reason (possibly explained) they attributed to the Columbian????

The nugget I found fascinating was that you did get SOME fast feathering Delaware-like birds out of the cross. That could maybe be useful to someone capable of hatching thousands of chicks looking for just those few to use in a Fast Delaware line.

Cuz starting over with Delawares is such funzies.

If you want fast feathering into your line, at this point, you will have to introduce it. All of the other strains that I know of are fast to feather, so it is accessible in your color/pattern.

There is not a formula to figure it out. It is only that there has been no effort to preserve it in the line that you are working with.

 

[Ifish]

Didn't mean to post, can't figure out how to delete.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

 If you want  fast feathering into your line, at this point, you will have to introduce it. All of the other strains that I know of are fast to feather, so it is accessible in your color/pattern.

 There is not a formula to figure it out. It is only that there has been no effort to preserve it in the line that you are working with.

The line I'm working with is only like 6 generations old ... and a couple of those generations were still working toward Delaware from the original hybrid ... as far as I know, it's always been slow.

My guess is the faster-feathering lines have been tweaked at some point.

Possibly, also, the original "Superman" bird mentioned in the breed history had the faster feathering gene. Though the fact that the 1956 article exists at all tells me otherwise, it tells me in 1956 the industry was dissatisfied with the feathering rate of Delawares.

 

[gjensen]

Not specific to Delawares, but this is a chart of historical market ages and weights for broilers. http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/u-s-broiler-performance/

The Chicken Of Tomorrow contest was in '48 - '49, and that's when stuff really started to change with meat birds.

The change was realized (earlier) when it was realized that there was a large market for intentionally bred and raised production fowl. What changed was the organization of the effort, and the money behind it. Outfits like Vantress (sp?) were very interested and motivated.

Before the misc. contests . . . . the NH were the first intentionally bred and developed commercial breed. Where poultry breeding prior was (some would say) more primitive, it became very specialized with an organized effort to enjoy real and substantial improvements. Many of our late breeds were intentionally bred to fill a specific niche. The efforts were very commercial, and very scientific (for the time).

New Hampshires, Delawares, etc. are (were) very commercial breeds.

 

[Zanna]

I worked on my own Delaware line for about 5 years before getting the Kathy line. I started with a conglomerate from several different "non" common sources of Delawares, meaning, not Whitmore or any lines that most of you would have heard of. From my very first breedings, the chicks feathered every bit as fast as my NH and BCM and bred true to colour with a few oddities but very few. My biggest concern with colour was a few lovely pullets with Grey underfluff rather than white. Walt told me that that was such a minor fault, if the bird was nice, use it. I had issues with type that I did not try to keep working with after I got the Kathy line birds but not with colour or feathering. I am out of town or I would post some pics of them. If anyone has access to the Chicken State University thread on here you can see pic.s of them, I think I was the only one that posted Delaware pics. Please post them here if you like, I am not computer savy enough to do it My point is that I believe this can be done with Kathy's line with time. At some point, most likely not next season, I will start to select for the faster feathering birds and breed them forward. I feel strongly we will get there but it is going to take time, patience, belief and determination.

I too learn from and enjoy all this discussion but we need to get busy breeding these birds!!

 

[gjensen]

The line I'm working with is only like 6 generations old ... and a couple of those generations were still working toward Delaware from the original hybrid ... as far as I know, it's always been slow.

My guess is the faster-feathering lines have been tweaked at some point.

Possibly, also, the original "Superman" bird mentioned in the breed history had the faster feathering gene. Though the fact that the 1956 article exists at all tells me otherwise, it tells me in 1956 the industry was dissatisfied with the feathering rate of Delawares.

No. That is not the case, concerning the project birds.

It has long been understood that slow feathering was counter productive in production fowl. It is considered by some to be an advantage in some ornamental varieties. That would not be the case with the Delaware, in my opinion.

There were some that considered it as an advantage among broilers.

It is not that it has been tweaked in some lines. It was intentionally eliminated long ago.

What you had been reading was some trying to understand what they were seeing, and how it was inherited. I do not know when we began identifying evidence of the different rate of feathering genes, but I do know we were discussing them in the 40s-50s. There was such an effort to eliminate the trait from Reds etc. One of the advantages to the New Hampshire was that it had the sex linked fast feathering gene as the Leghorn did.

The production "Reds" were improved by introducing the fast feathering and associated growth of the New Hampshire. We still comment that production Reds are hybrid crosses between the two today, which is misleading. I think Ideal still describes them similarly.

What you would want (if I am thinking right), is a male from a fast feathering line. I believe it is sex linked, so the female offspring would exhibit the fast feathering. It would be relatively simple to breed for it from there.

 

[Zanna]

What you would want (if I am thinking right), is a male from a fast feathering line. I believe it is sex linked, so the female offspring would exhibit the fast feathering. It would be relatively simple to breed for it from there.

Is it your belief that we can not get faster feathering within this line itself with breeding for it at some point? We would need to look for a male from another line like I previously had?

 

[gjensen]

I worked on my own Delaware line for about 5 years before getting the Kathy line. I started with a conglomerate from several different "non" common sources of Delawares, meaning, not Whitmore or any lines that most of you would have heard of. From my very first breedings, the chicks feathered every bit as fast as my NH and BCM and bred true to colour with a few oddities but very few. My biggest concern with colour was a few lovely pullets with Grey underfluff rather than white. Walt told me that that was such a minor fault, if the bird was nice, use it. I had issues with type that I did not try to keep working with after I got the Kathy line birds but not with colour or feathering. I am out of town or I would post some pics of them. If anyone has access to the Chicken State University thread on here you can see pic.s of them, I think I was the only one that posted Delaware pics. Please post them here if you like, I am not computer savy enough to do it My point is that I believe this can be done with Kathy's line with time. At some point, most likely not next season, I will start to select for the faster feathering birds and breed them forward. I feel strongly we will get there but it is going to take time, patience, belief and determination.

I too learn from and enjoy all this discussion but we need to get busy breeding these birds!!

Are you describing grey as I describe smut?

You can improve the rate of feathering of slow feathering breeds by selection. You can do this and expect reasonable and steady improvement. You will not enjoy the speed of the fast feathering gene, unless it is there. Though you could add it.

I read accounts of selecting to improve the feathering of slow feathering Reds. They would select accordingly at specific points like 8 wks.

I would be tempted to introduce the fast feathering gene, on the side, as a side project.

The birds that you guys have are remarkable birds. I would be proud to enjoy a project like them. They are worth discussing.