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[daxigait]

My two week old chick with the leg that would not straighten out now has it coming out to the side some from the hock and the foot now stays curled. It hops around,but is smaller than the others now. I wish I felt comfortable culling, but it is hard for me when they are so young and try so hard.

@Ur-ur-ur-urrr can you tell the gender?

 

[shahtir101]

Hmm... I suppose it's a possibility. Bossy hens do tend to flaunt their authority to subordinates around the feeders, but it doesn't really make sense since you were also blocking access. We may never know what provoked it...   

I am just taking my best guess


@TJChickens
That could possibly be it. But, it was weird that she wouldn't stop attacking them. She tried to get them through the hardware cloth and them when I moved them she attacked a perfectly healthy bird that she grew up with

 

[NestingHillsSC]

I ordered 6 RIR pullets & a rooster from Southern States last spring. When I picked them up, the rooster was white! Either S/S or the breeder had slipped RSL's in on me, & I didn't know the difference 'til I started digging around on BYC & discovered that RSL roosters are white.

I'm told the sex-links are better layers than pure Reds, so I figure I got the better end of the deal, but the fact remains that I didn't get what I ordered, so won't be buying birds from Southern States again.

They do lay better. Now they are RIW's.

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

My two week old chick with the leg that would not straighten out now has it coming out to the side some from the hock and the foot now stays curled. It hops around,but is smaller than the others now. I wish I felt comfortable culling, but it is hard for me when they are so young and try so hard.

@Ur-ur-ur-urrr can you tell the gender?

Sorry it's not getting better. It's a pullet.

 

[kwhites634]

They do lay better. Now they are RIW's.

Sorry...I don't follow

 

[NestingHillsSC]

It's like saying my grandfather was Indian, so I'm Indian... even though the other parts are Caucasian. All production reds originally come from heritage reds, but that definitely doesn't make them heritage by any stretch of the imagination...

If the breeder introduced a heritage bird or two into the flock, there may be a few offspring that will show some similarities to heritage birds, but this most likely won't get passed down into the next generation. It's virtually impossible to breed out the production gene, so it's best to either go all out heritage... or not at all. While you make change the appearance of the productions to make them look "nicer", it's probably not going to end with satisfactory results. Either color will be messed up, egg production impacted, or both. Mating a thoroughbred to a mutt does't give satisfactory results with other animals, and chickens are no different. Just my opinion...

Right. Once you cross a Heritage with a Production it will no longer be anything close to a Heritage. And you can never get it back. Even if you have Heritage and you don't selectively breed your best it will spiral out of control very fast. You then end up with heritage birds that can't stand up to the SOP. That being said, then do you really have Heritage birds any more. Maybe for your only satisfaction of calling them Heritage birds. But in reality and all honesty, NO!

 

[TJChickens]

I am just taking my best guess


@TJChickens
That could possibly be it. But, it was weird that she wouldn't stop attacking them. She tried to get them through the hardware cloth and them when I moved them she attacked a perfectly healthy bird that she grew up with

crazy wench!

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

Right. Once you cross a Heritage with a Production it will no longer be anything close to a Heritage. And you can never get it back. Even if you have Heritage and you don't selectively breed your best it will spiral out of control very fast. You then end up with heritage birds that can't stand up to the SOP. That being said, then do you really have Heritage birds any more. Maybe for your only satisfaction of calling them Heritage birds. But in reality and all honesty, NO!

+1. You can call them heritage, but if they don't meet SOP standards, they are anything but heritage. Robert Blosl wrote about how a lot of people got into breeding HRIR and quit because things went the wrong direction... so it takes a special, dedicated person to keep them true to standard. I intend to be one of those people...

 

[NestingHillsSC]

So about what on average is the difference production wise?

Well my Heritage line are actually very good layers. If you single out 1 hen of each you might be talking 2 eggs a week. Maybe. Some Heritage lines don't lay as well. Maybe 4 eggs a week.

 

[NestingHillsSC]

I suspect it's because she knew the roo was weak. Animals sense these things, and tend to speed up the natural process of elimination. Survival of the fittest kind of thing...

Exactly what I would have said. I had a rooster, my fault but won't get into that, became not right. And all the other roosters would attack it badly. I finally just had to eat it. As the saying goes, the weak shall parish.