Historic Presence of Jungle Fowl in the American Deep South

[centrarchid]

Im not sure if this is the right thread to ask this on, but today I found one of my hens hidden nests in the barn. I'm really excited about it because if this breed starts laying eggs it's going to go broody . I'm a little concerned if I should add more wild hatching eggs to the nest or just leave it alone, and let her try hatching out her own eggs. Also is it too late in the year for chicks?
Thanks.

Hatch date is later than ideal. If free-range rearing of chicks, then they will be small when hawks are moving. Then they will be going into winter small. Younger chickens much less able when weather is very cold. i have had games hatch chicks in the coldest parts of winter that Indiana can throw at you. The biggest problem once chicks hatched is keeping them fed. Those had to be fed ground feed and kept in manger area of barn until ground became ice free. Forage is not as easy to find for chicks that must balance nutrition with staying warm and dry. Hen needs to brood more when temperature low and chicks need to eat more when cold. The efforts conflict.

 

[Don 27]

If its necessary to feed the chicks during winter then I would have no rejection for doing so. I agree I should spend my money on hatching eggs during the summer months vs the winter months it's more of a risk . I would rather have them free range instead of eating commercial feed anyway .

 

[Don 27]

I hope I'm not upsetting the op by asking these questions. I don't want to create a new thread and have a bunch of people criticize me on how I like wild chickens ,And how they think I'm ridiculous.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Not at all, ask away!

 

[Don 27]

Thanks ya regrouping the red jungle fowl group into a new thread would be a bit of a challenge anyway lol . Thanks for creating this thread .

 

[varidgerunner]

Hatch date is later than ideal. If free-range rearing of chicks, then they will be small when hawks are moving. Then they will be going into winter small. Younger chickens much less able when weather is very cold. i have had games hatch chicks in the coldest parts of winter that Indiana can throw at you. The biggest problem once chicks hatched is keeping them fed. Those had to be fed ground feed and kept in manger area of barn until ground became ice free. Forage is not as easy to find for chicks that must balance nutrition with staying warm and dry. Hen needs to brood more when temperature low and chicks need to eat more when cold. The efforts conflict.

I have read things that indicate that this is a secret of gamefowl keepers of old, a trick for regulating size in a line. If a line got too heavy weight wise, they would select fall hatched pullets to breed to. For the reasons you mention, they don't get as big. The smaller the pullet, the smaller the egg, the smaller the egg, the smaller the chick, and the smaller the chick, the less head start he has. Don't know if this has actual genetic ramifications, don't see how it could, but sets up a feedback loop of sorts that could regulate size.

I regularly have orientals hatched in September. With some shelter and feed provided they seem to do better. Instead of a hen that turns on them and makes them fend for themselves at a young age they have a hen that broods them basically all winter, they don't game up until early spring, so I don't have to individually house a young bird that is still growing in the coldest months, which means they are able to conserve heat with brooding/huddling behavior in the coldest part of each 24 hour period. It does take more feed as there aren't bugs available.

 

[centrarchid]

I have read things that indicate that this is a secret of gamefowl keepers of old, a trick for regulating size in a line. If a line got too heavy weight wise, they would select fall hatched pullets to breed to. For the reasons you mention, they don't get as big. The smaller the pullet, the smaller the egg, the smaller the egg, the smaller the chick, and the smaller the chick, the less head start he has. Don't know if this has actual genetic ramifications, don't see how it could, but sets up a feedback loop of sorts that could regulate size.

I regularly have orientals hatched in September. With some shelter and feed provided they seem to do better. Instead of a hen that turns on them and makes them fend for themselves at a young age they have a hen that broods them basically all winter, they don't game up until early spring, so I don't have to individually house a young bird that is still growing in the coldest months, which means they are able to conserve heat with brooding/huddling behavior in the coldest part of each 24 hour period. It does take more feed as there aren't bugs available.

For us, breeding gamefowl late in season was avoided owing to economic reasons. Generally we kept only birds hatched from first of year through June 1. Cocks were picked up in July and stags of sufficient age were penned in September through October if deemed good enough. This approach taken so all stags where in same cohort making management easier. Stags in pens and keep are more expensive to maintain. Later hatched stags would have to be kept for an additional year in pens making them much more expensive. Late season pullets where kept as needed but over time their egg size increased. The chicks hatched during winter were much iffier when comes to survival so in reality chicks did not regularly pop up until April.

We are far enough north for winters to freeze eggs and ground.

As a kid, I did play around a lot with those late and extremely early hatched chicks. Those were special times as my grandfather and uncle taught my brother and I how to rear and handle those birds. I had to use hog feed for chicks and learned access to manure pile effectively compensated for limitations of the hog feed.

Feather development of late season stags was very different if not outright delayed. It was fun figuring out how late season stags had to compensate for a harsher rearing environment.

The late season harvest of stags did not always work with a couple crosses made so they hard to be harvested earlier and thus more expensive to keep.

 

[centrarchid]

For OP and similar areas with milder winters, winter breeding may even be desirable. My assumption is forages dominate what the chicks eat rather than feed. To make that work, hens and chicks need to be able to move about and not face too much predator pressure.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Our conditions will be summer-like thru late October, then mild until late November or mid December, then we alternate between mild days and freezes thru early March. The freezes are just enough to knock back a lot of the insect life. There will be natural browse and fruits/nuts in the woods available thru the cold months, but the birds will have to travel further to get to it all. Further than I want them to be habituated to. Therefore I’ll probably start supplementing more when it gets cold. Right now the combined flock of games and layers get a small ration of laying mash that they mostly ignore beyond a few pecks (the guineas end up cleaning it up). The flock is feeding on love bugs heavily as of the last few days and the big layers are laying some monster sized eggs.

I have a batch of game x leghorn eggs in the incubator due at the end of September. They are smallish to normal sized eggs. All of the laying breeds started making these giant eggs when the lovebugs appeared. If this giant egg laying continues I’m going to try some of those eggs in a future hatch.

The games aren’t laying yet. When they start, I’m going to hatch a batch and select a rooster that looks like Raptor but hopefully has has better personality. Then Raptor will be culled. Heihei is fine and so far exhibits no standoffishness with me.

 

[Don 27]

Of your selling I probably won't be able to buy any birds off of you. Ohio is a little further away from Florida than I'm willing to drive.