Is anybody else trying to breed the perfect dual purpose breed.

[saladin]

Quote:
You saw one privater breeders stock and make a judgement about breeders and their stock on that one breeder?

Hatcheries do serve a purpose as you stated; a very important purpose. However, I promise you that you are not going to find a SINGLE hatchery in the US that can provided you with the quality of Orientals that I and a few others raise. I can't speak about all breeds nor would I attempt too, but I can speak about Asil, Shamo, and Malays.

There are some very top-notch Hatcheries out there. The stock that Urch/Turnlund Hatchery puts out for example is just excellent. But Duane Urch has been a show breeder for over 60 years. Not all hatcheries are equal.

Just saying.........

 

[punky rooster]

Quote:
I don't see any "hatchery snobbery" going on...
Anyway, this thread is getting off-topic.

 

[Young Heritage]

Interesting thread. This has been my original goal from the time i decided to get chickens. This year has been getting the breeding stock for the breeds I will be using in my project and setting up facilities. Next year will be breeding the individual breeds separately to increase my flock size and to pick breeders for my project. The year after I can actually start breeding for my project.

 

[onthespot]

Last year I got black orpingtons to improve my lavender stock. They turned out to be SUCH great birds, I sold my lavenders and just kept the pure orpingtons. My roo hurt his leg, so someone gave me a blue cockerel to move ahead on my breeding program, and I can say without a doubt, this flock is by FAR the meatiest, fastest growing, most egg laying, eye pleasing, fun to be around of all the breeds I have tried (and I've tried a lot of them). Right now I am crossing one roo on a few select Mottled Javas, just to see if I can get some typey, well mottled orpington looking birds that have dark eyes and do not carry yellow legs. So far I am very pleased with how the F1 is looking.

Here is a blue one. You can see her light eye, and in this pic, sorta see she has pink soles on her feet. The second pic, you can see she is on the right, full orp on the left. Her tail is not as rounded and wide as the pure orps, but I am VERY happy with my F1 blue orp/mottled java cross.

 

[punky rooster]

Nice!
Here's a young Buckeye I hatched. . . Don't like his comb, but he's got nice size and type, and color's coming in. (pic came out crappy)
Mitch

 

[Oregon Blues]

[[[[[..........a lot of people say start with "good birds", etc, etc, but few people tell where to get those good birds and what good birds are......]]]]]]

Somewhere on BYC is a list of breeders, organized both by state and by breed. That would be a good place to start.

What is a good bird? You can start with the description in The Standard of Perfection ( the SOP). Then you simply have to invest the time to learn what makes a good chicken and you have to develop your eye until you can easily see it. As with any hobby, you must learn about your interest before you can be any good at it. You must learn what is good and why it is good.

Well, almost any hobby. I don't think it takes much skill to collect beanie babies

 

[burtonjon]

It is my thought that the ultimate dual purpose bird has already been created. Check out the Rhodebar. It is autosexing, lays a pile of eggs and makes a great table fowl.

 

[eggdd]

Quote:
do you have more info these birds?

edited to add:

greenfire has them: http://greenfirefarms.com/store/category/chickens/rhodebar/

 

[burtonjon]

I found the link below to have some useful information about the Rhodebar.



http://poultrykeeper.com/rhodebar/rhodebar-breed-information/the-rhodebar.html

 

[Chris09]

Quote:
do you have more info these birds?

edited to add:

greenfire has them: http://greenfirefarms.com/store/category/chickens/rhodebar/

According to the Britannic Rare Breeds-
The Rhodebar was developed by several parties at around the same period prior to 1950. It is possible existing birds in the UK originate from a Mr B. De. H. Pickard from Storrington in Sussex who used Barred Plymouth Rock, an auto-sexable American breed crossed with Rhode Island Red. Mr Pickard gained standardisation from the Poultry Club of Great Britain in October 1952. During the early 1900’s the Rhode Island Red featured along with the North Holland Blue and Light Sussex as one of the most popular commercial free range laying birds. Therefore the Rhodebar was created to be an excellent laying breed that would allow cockerels to be easily identified and removed from the growing stock early on. Unfortunately the Rhodebar came in to existence at the end of the pure breed era, at a time when specific hybrid stock was being created for egg farms. Rhodebar could certainly prove to be an excellent choice for anyone wishing to create a small free-range egg laying flock and are useful for those that do not have the room to grow on all birds to select and determine sex. We have also sourced the bantam version which was created by Brian Sands of Lincolnshire. The bantam gene pool is very small, consisting of only one distinctive bloodline. Further inbreeding can be avoided by sensible line breeding or by crossing a Rhodebar cockerels with Rhode Island Red pullets then selecting the barred chicks from the progeny.

http://www.britannicrarebreeds.co.uk/breedinfo/chicken_rhodebar.php

Chris