Historic Presence of Jungle Fowl in the American Deep South

[Don 27]

I am also considering the possibility that my birds are overweight. When I got coturnix quail I started keeping 30% protein feed on hand and I started feeding it to all my birds due to the reasonable price I can get it at my local feed store. My games started growing noticeably when I switched over. They may be fat or they may be structurally larger than what they might have been otherwise. I also did the math last night and realized I was feeding them much more than I thought. Therefore I’m going to both cut back portions and switch to lower protein. Then I’ll see if their weight drops or not.

If they are overweight, then I may still be dealing with some line of American game bantam.

I'm not sure I haven't had enough experience to tell what mixes are in birds. Very cool though!. I don't know what would be best to feed your birds but I can tell you what I feed my birds. During the summer foraging on about 3acres, and they feed on compost. I just put fruit and vegetable scraps I'm my compost along with egg shells. During the winter they still forage and eat compost but I also supplement with about three large handfulls of scratch grain For 4 hens and 3roosters. One pile of gran per rooster and the hens will eat with the roosters. Rooster will not share one pile .

They do have good weight around 4lbs for a rooster .. And 2lbs for a hen.

 

[EggWalrus]

Those are cool Looking roosters. Mine never made it I only hatched one chick but I left the chick alone free range in the yard for ten minutes and when I came back the stinken cat found him and ate him. ... It's my fault. Too bad one of my hens didn't adopt him. As for my game fowl they are doing well!. View attachment 1999564 here's a picture . It's an older picture but he hasn't changed much.

Looks like AG and silkie mix.

 

[Don 27]

I just came across this thread and the OP and the other posts with photos afterward bring back my fondest memories of the type of chickens my grandfather had. They are my first recollection of chickens and his birds were what he called American Game/Bantam mixes. There on the top of Beech Mountain, NC, they roamed the pasture and woods that surrounded his barn during the day and roosted in the trees at night. I recall them being in small groups of one rooster with three or four hens. The hens would lay all over the place including in the barn. It was like finding a treasure when I found a nest but my Grandpa always had a rule which was look but don't touch. He had also advised me to give any hens with chicks a wide berth. While I was pretty good about leaving eggs alone, I found it dang near impossible not to go near the chicks. One day I followed a hen with about a dozen chicks into a barn stall while thinking about finally getting to hold of one of those chicks. I then quickly found out about why my Grandpa Shook had advised me not to crowd a hen with diddles because that Mama bird lit me up. She flew up in my face while flapping her wings and scared the heck out of me with her cackling . When I came out of the barn still shaken from the experience, there stood my Grandpa laughing his tail off. He then told me about getting flogged in the same manner at about the same age after not listening to his Dad about a Mama hen with diddles being protective. After that, I always heeded any advice he gave me.

this would be awesome to have. I'm actually
looking into building one of those Old historical barns with hand tools. There's a big oak woods in the back of the property. I bet I could get some good lumber out of there. I would be interesting to do it like they use to. If I ever get the barn built I would let my game fowl have access to the barn .

 

[EggWalrus]

Just a few minutes from my wife's home (which was just a few more minutes from my home) there was a fellow that every knew to raise "fighting roosters." He raised them openly in his front yard with a few rows of huts and staked ropes. Back then there were still states were it was legal and our understanding was that he raised them in Florida and traveled with them to wherever it was legal for him to do his thing with them. His roosters didn't look like our homestead games. What I remember most about them is lots of different colorations and plumage shapes. Although I liked and raised chickens since childhood, I never took an interest in his for reasons I don't know so I never walked among them or studied them hard in passing. I may (or may not ) have had a great uncle who was hard-core into that aspect of raising them late into contemporary times who probably could have told me lots about the traditional lines when I became interested in figuring out what they were and where to get some from, but considering I'm a state prosecutor he never seemed too keen in talking to me about what he knows about game fowl .

I got some pics of Hei Hei. Sorry for the ugly red background in what otherwise would have been good shots. I recently turned the momma and her bittes out of the brood pen and I didn't think about it being in the background with its red cardboard windbreaks. All of my flock is currently penned until my bitties get a couple more weeks of growth on them, then I'll turn them all out together. Maybe by then I'll know what to do with my guineas (my guineas killed chicks in a previous batch if I didn't mention that previously).

View attachment 2000778 View attachment 2000779 View attachment 2000780 View attachment 2000782

I've never noticed that he carries himself with a protruded breast until now. I also never noticed that he's now basically the size of the white leghorns. I think all of the games have grown since and filled out since I switched to 30% protein feed for their morning feed. I don't feed them in the evenings, and I give them less than half than a normal allotment of feed per chicken when I feed them in the mornings. I want them to forage for much of their food yet I don't want them to have nothing this time of year where the insect population has been beat back by some freezes.

Last pic below is another one of the brothers that I gave away. Picture is up to date as of yesterday although its not bright or clear. Of the 8 cockerels I started with and minus the 3 that died (2 killed by the 3rd which was culled), 3 of the remaining 4 all became human aggressive. Those three all look similar with the white earlobes and more robust build. Hei Hei is the only one that isn't human aggressive and his build and stance is noticeably different than the other 3 and he has a red ear. Also, Hei Hei is the dominant rooster over Raptor in spite of Raptor's more robust build. Hei Hei has a quiet confidence that I like. I just wish he had the beauty of the other 3.

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[Florida Bullfrog]

View attachment 2029613View attachment 2029613

What are those EggWalrus? And what do they weigh?

 

[Chicken Heel]

What did he raise them for if not for the eggs?

Grandpa Shook raised them for the pure joy of watching them just being chickens. At this time of his life in his late 60's, he enjoyed reflecting on a hard scrabble life as an Appalachian Mountain tobacco farmer and former moonshiner who always enjoyed the simple things in life. I recall the day his last milk cow, a Guernsey named Pet, passed away from milk disease after calving and he had tears in his eyes while knowing it was more than likely the last cow he would have. He also teared up when his old plow horse Blackjack succumbed to old age after having plowed thousands of beautiful rows for many years. Even after all these years, I can still smell that rich, black mountain soil as he and Pa Shook plowed the ground in the springtime.

 

[Don 27]

Check it out!

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1762&context=etd
According to this research paper, red jungle fowl of wild caught, pure, Indian stock were released and distrubted all over the Southeast from the late 1940s to the 1970s. Way more than what we’ve acknowledged in this thread up until now. Far more than just the Fitzgerald group. It says over 1,000 were released into the wild in Florida in multiple counties and more were distributed to private breeders in Florida.

How ‘bout that?

Sweet!! I want some

Looks like AG and silkie mix.

You guessed it! Good guess. The farmer I bought t them from said " I originally just had game fowl but they weren't very fertile , so I introduced silkiebantam to the mix and it wasn't long after that when they started to go feral"

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

Grandpa Shook raised them for the pure joy of watching them just being chickens. At this time of his life in his late 60's, he enjoyed reflecting on a hard scrabble life as an Appalachian Mountain tobacco farmer and former moonshiner who always enjoyed the simple things in life. I recall the day his last milk cow, a Guernsey named Pet, passed away from milk disease after calving and he had tears in his eyes while knowing it was more than likely the last cow he would have. He also teared up when his old plow horse Blackjack succumbed to old age after having plowed thousands of beautiful rows for many years. Even after all these years, I can still smell that rich, black mountain soil as he and Pa Shook plowed the ground in the springtime.

There's nothing like the mountains of WNC. I hate how outsiders with money have displaced so much of that culture, especially in your area.

 

[EggWalrus]

What are those EggWalrus? And what do they weigh?

Not sure. I couldn't ever catch him.
But if I were to guess is say about 4 lbs. Not a big bird by any means. Got him from an old-timer in GA that said he'd been raising them since the 60s or 70s.

 

[EggWalrus]

Sweet!! I want some

You guessed it! Good guess. The farmer I bought t them from said " I originally just had game fowl but they weren't very fertile , so I introduced silkiebantam to the mix and it wasn't long after that when they started to go feral"

He looks like American Game from his coloring, but that black comb and face gave away his Silkie ancestry