Java Thread

[masked rider]

No one get out the pitchforks and whips, but I have a question that I cannot seem to find answer too. Is there any problem or down side to having a mixed flock of Mottled and Black Java?

Background mottled - I have several very nice mottled cockerels but no pullets from a black male x mottled female. Not my cross, I hatched some eggs from the cross but all cockerels.

Background - I have a pure black flock that is a work in progress. The recessive white gene does show up in the black line from time to time, less than 5%. Is there any reasons why this is a bad idea to take a "good" black Java and breed it with my mottled cockerels?

I realize I will be introducing the mottled gene into my black flock, but isn't the gene already there?

Any thoughts?

 

[bnjrob]

No one get out the pitchforks and whips, but I have a question that I cannot seem to find answer too. Is there any problem or down side to having a mixed flock of Mottled and Black Java?

Background mottled - I have several very nice mottled cockerels but no pullets from a black male x mottled female. Not my cross, I hatched some eggs from the cross but all cockerels.

Background - I have a pure black flock that is a work in progress. The recessive white gene does show up in the black line from time to time, less than 5%. Is there any reasons why this is a bad idea to take a "good" black Java and breed it with my mottled cockerels?

I realize I will be introducing the mottled gene into my black flock, but isn't the gene already there?

Any thoughts?

No, the mottled gene is not necessarily already in your black flock.

A Black Java should have dark eyes. If it does not, then it could have the Auburn gene in it or the Mottled - depending on the background of your Black flock. If you introduce the Mottled into the Black, then you will further dilute the Black causing more eye color and feather color issues in your Blacks.

If you mix the Black/Mottleds, you are introducing a different set of genes to interact in whatever way they so choose, instead of trying to iron out the genes that are already in each color. This addition of extra genes - dominant and recessive - could cause you more headaches down the road if you are trying to breed to the SOP. It'll make it harder to try to figure out what is going to pop up in the offspring and may be more difficult to get rid of faults.

If your goals are to breed to the SOP, then I would not recommend mixing Blacks and Mottleds.

If your goal is to simply propagate your own backyard flock so you won't run out of Javas and don't want to buy new ones if your numbers ever get low, then interbreeding the colors is up to you.

 

[masked rider]

thanks for the info bnjrob!

my understanding is the my foundation black java flock (Urch and Garfield) do/did produce auburn birds from time to time. I personally have not had a "auburn" bird show up to date in the true sense, but I do have some variability in eye color as well as shanks, beak, feet and soles.
Do you happen to know the history of the mottled gene in java? I would assume it was a sport from a java x java cross, but maybe someone mixed something else in there to get the mottled gene.

I would like to keep my black line, black but I am really in a spot with no mottled pullets and two good looking cockerels.

 

[masked rider]

No, the mottled gene is not necessarily already in your black flock.

A Black Java should have dark eyes. If it does not, then it could have the Auburn gene in it or the Mottled - depending on the background of your Black flock. If you introduce the Mottled into the Black, then you will further dilute the Black causing more eye color and feather color issues in your Blacks.

If you mix the Black/Mottleds, you are introducing a different set of genes to interact in whatever way they so choose, instead of trying to iron out the genes that are already in each color. This addition of extra genes - dominant and recessive - could cause you more headaches down the road if you are trying to breed to the SOP. It'll make it harder to try to figure out what is going to pop up in the offspring and may be more difficult to get rid of faults.

If your goals are to breed to the SOP, then I would not recommend mixing Blacks and Mottleds.

If your goal is to simply propagate your own backyard flock so you won't run out of Javas and don't want to buy new ones if your numbers ever get low, then interbreeding the colors is up to you.

Only thing I have ever read is that the mottled java was a cross between a Black Java Roo and a White Hen. I don't know if that white hen was a white java or some other breed.

 

[bnjrob]

thanks for the info bnjrob!

my understanding is the my foundation black java flock (Urch and Garfield) do/did produce auburn birds from time to time. I personally have not had a "auburn" bird show up to date in the true sense, but I do have some variability in eye color as well as shanks, beak, feet and soles.
Do you happen to know the history of the mottled gene in java? I would assume it was a sport from a java x java cross, but maybe someone mixed something else in there to get the mottled gene.

I would like to keep my black line, black but I am really in a spot with no mottled pullets and two good looking cockerels.

Figured that's where your Blacks came from since Garfield had more of the recessive whites showing up in their birds.

Actually the old literature from the 1800s says that the Mottleds were made by mating a Black Java with a white hen of some kind.

Even some of the people that have had their Blacks for many years still have eye/foot/shank color irregularity.

I don't know where you stand on Auburns, there are some that insist that Auburn comes from a relatively recent cross with something other than a Java. I don't believe this based on my historical research but it is likely that one of a few people that get on here will have something negative to say about "unpure Javas". I just ignore them. Anyway, I have had Auburns show up in both Blacks and Mottleds. Thought we might end up with some Whites out of our Mottleds, but all of them were runty and died as chicks. It's a lot of extra work to keep the records for both Blacks and Mottleds in addition to our color project birds. So before you decide to do any mixing of the colors like we have done for our project birds - make sure you really want the extra headache.

If all of your birds are Urch birds, then it may not be quite so bad to mix them for the Mottled group. But you still could end up with some color issues even if you only use the offspring as Mottled birds. But since the Mottleds came from Black crosses originally, it wouldn't be as bad as using the mixed color offspring to mate back into your Black flock. Especially if you are making progress with your Blacks, then you are already seeing a pattern of what your breeding choices come out as, so you probably don't want to mess with that.

Your other option could be to get some Mottled pullets. I may have some in a few months once the hens finish molting and get back to laying - prefer to do winter hatching - and the breeder I got our Mottleds from originally will be hatching in the winter/spring I know. They are Urch line birds. I'm up outside of Dallas and Ruth is down near Austin.

 

[masked rider]

Figured that's where your Blacks came from since Garfield had more of the recessive whites showing up in their birds.

Actually the old literature from the 1800s says that the Mottleds were made by mating a Black Java with a white hen of some kind.

Even some of the people that have had their Blacks for many years still have eye/foot/shank color irregularity.

I don't know where you stand on Auburns, there are some that insist that Auburn comes from a relatively recent cross with something other than a Java. I don't believe this based on my historical research but it is likely that one of a few people that get on here will have something negative to say about "unpure Javas". I just ignore them. Anyway, I have had Auburns show up in both Blacks and Mottleds. Thought we might end up with some Whites out of our Mottleds, but all of them were runty and died as chicks. It's a lot of extra work to keep the records for both Blacks and Mottleds in addition to our color project birds. So before you decide to do any mixing of the colors like we have done for our project birds - make sure you really want the extra headache.

If all of your birds are Urch birds, then it may not be quite so bad to mix them for the Mottled group. But you still could end up with some color issues even if you only use the offspring as Mottled birds. But since the Mottleds came from Black crosses originally, it wouldn't be as bad as using the mixed color offspring to mate back into your Black flock. Especially if you are making progress with your Blacks, then you are already seeing a pattern of what your breeding choices come out as, so you probably don't want to mess with that.

Your other option could be to get some Mottled pullets. I may have some in a few months once the hens finish molting and get back to laying - prefer to do winter hatching - and the breeder I got our Mottleds from originally will be hatching in the winter/spring I know. They are Urch line birds. I'm up outside of Dallas and Ruth is down near Austin.

Thanks for the info bnjrob... I will drop you a PM on maybe getting some pullets from you in the near future. I am about the same distance from both of you here in Angelo, so very doable.

You know, I have mixed feelings about it really. I really enjoy Java, but you are right there seems to be a lot of variability eye/foot/shank color for as much hype as there is about "pure black lines" and it puts the person with a young flock in a spot. I have to weigh pink sole, good looking pullet vs a lesser pullet with the correct sole color or complete shank color in my program. I guess when I got into them I thought because there were so few lines of birds around and an old breed, I thought they would be more uniformed really.

I had a non java breeder tell me to use my white java and cross them back to the mottled birds. I am not sure that really solves anything unless the white bird is split mo, since mo is recessive.

Auburns - the photos I have seen of auburns are gorgeous birds. I am with you, I think they have been there the whole time and show up form time to time.

 

[tommysgirl]

a friend of mine attended the Heirloom fest in Sonoma county last month and listed to a guy who was talking about breeding to SOP. He said that shape and vitality were his two primary focal points and that once he got roos that mated frequently and pullets/hens that were the first up and the last to roost he went from there. I thought it was interesting since vitality had never crossed my mind as a trait to breed for. So much focus on legs and combs but it made sense to me that w/o a vigorous line that are shaped right what do you have? Just a thought from a non- SOP- breeder who may one day become one.

 

[masked rider]

a friend of mine attended the Heirloom fest in Sonoma county last month and listed to a guy who was talking about breeding to SOP. He said that shape and vitality were his two primary focal points and that once he got roos that mated frequently and pullets/hens that were the first up and the last to roost he went from there. I thought it was interesting since vitality had never crossed my mind as a trait to breed for. So much focus on legs and combs but it made sense to me that w/o a vigorous line that are shaped right what do you have? Just a thought from a non- SOP- breeder who may one day become one.

Hey tommysgirl! Thanks for the insight. I have to say I agree with the guy! My first batch of BCM were from a "top" breeder that has blue ribbons from here to the moon and only bred to the SOP. Her birds looked good, egg color was like 7 or above and no white feathers anywhere on a bird. I bit hook, line, and sinker and cost me a small fortune to get some birds. Sure enough egg color was a >7 after about 28 weeks of waiting and you may only get one egg a week, and yep the birds had no copper on the breast but it make take them 18-24 months to get to eating size.

My goal with black javas is to raise healthy, happy, great homestead type bird (as they were intended) that produce eggs well, eat well, and reproduce pretty consistent replacement generations of birds to keep the breed going. That being said, I also want them to look like black javas.

The SOP is great, but seems like folks are too worried about appearances and not enough about what homestead type chickens were really developed to do provide which was to provide meat and eggs for a family. Just my 2.5 cents..

 

[MagicChicken]

The black javas I got from Duane Urch in January are happy, healthy, productive black birds that mostly look like black javas. (I did get one "leggy blonde" cockerel with unusually long legs and a lot of auburn and gold hackle feathers. He dressed out at 4 pounds at 7 months old.) The meat has been tasty. I get 4-8 eggs a day out of 8 pullets. They've backed off lately, I think they are getting ready to molt. The cockerels have been molting for a few weeks now. But I'm still getting 4 eggs/day out of the 8 pullets. 7 pullets if you don't count the broody who has been sitting on eggs for a couple of weeks. In terms of providing meat and eggs for a family, Mr. Urch's birds are fantastic.

Edited to add the pullets started laying at 4 months old.

 

[bnjrob]

a friend of mine attended the Heirloom fest in Sonoma county last month and listed to a guy who was talking about breeding to SOP. He said that shape and vitality were his two primary focal points and that once he got roos that mated frequently and pullets/hens that were the first up and the last to roost he went from there. I thought it was interesting since vitality had never crossed my mind as a trait to breed for. So much focus on legs and combs but it made sense to me that w/o a vigorous line that are shaped right what do you have? Just a thought from a non- SOP- breeder who may one day become one.

Exactly. I think it's easier to focus on the color because that is the first thing you see as you are approaching a chicken and people forget that there is more to a chicken than just their color.

I found subscribing to the Poultry Press helpful because it only had black and white photos until recently and it made my eye look more at type and size rather than color, so I could learn to see the shapes and ID birds by type and size and not rely on feather color. With our birds, I turn photos into black/white so I can get rid of the extraneous distractions and try to focus on size/type with them. Although today I was guilty of going to see the juveniles and looking at the cockerels thinking which one might be the biggest out of the ones that have yellow feet.

Hey tommysgirl! Thanks for the insight. I have to say I agree with the guy! My first batch of BCM were from a "top" breeder that has blue ribbons from here to the moon and only bred to the SOP. Her birds looked good, egg color was like 7 or above and no white feathers anywhere on a bird. I bit hook, line, and sinker and cost me a small fortune to get some birds. Sure enough egg color was a >7 after about 28 weeks of waiting and you may only get one egg a week, and yep the birds had no copper on the breast but it make take them 18-24 months to get to eating size.

My goal with black javas is to raise healthy, happy, great homestead type bird (as they were intended) that produce eggs well, eat well, and reproduce pretty consistent replacement generations of birds to keep the breed going. That being said, I also want them to look like black javas.

The SOP is great, but seems like folks are too worried about appearances and not enough about what homestead type chickens were really developed to do provide which was to provide meat and eggs for a family. Just my 2.5 cents..

There has been discussion on the homesteading with poultry thread about breeding to the SOP and effects positive/negative on the utility of chickens. I agree with both sides and disagree with both sides depending on the different points that we have been discussing. I'm with you, I want old-fashioned homestead birds. While people may disagree with me, I think there are many people that concentrate on the "prettiness" of a bird and not necessarily the other traits and because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, even judges at poultry shows may be guilty of placing birds that have the outward appearance of the SOP but don't entirely fulfill what the bird was originally meant to be. It may also be because more people are breeding bantams rather than large birds - or at least people are telling me that they see more bantam birds at shows that large fowl and those are cutesy birds so that's what everyone wants to see - a pretty bird whether it's big or small.

I'm still trying to figure out what year the Java SOP got so minutely detailed but I think the SOP book that this occurred in may be still copyrighted which is why I haven't found it online. But there is a little bit of difference in the Java SOP from the late 1800s through a few years after the turn of the century compared to today's more detailed SOP. And there are pictures of those old Javas that have some differences from what today's ideal SOP bird is supposed to look like.

If it means breeding away from the SOP at some point down the road in order to get what I want out of these Javas as dual-purpose homestead birds then I will do so. For now I'm working with today's SOP (in all areas not just color) except for the few non-standard color projects that we have going, because all Javas pretty much need improvement since so few people kept them going since the early 20th century. There are a few of us that have discussed the viability of keeping more than one flock - one flock up to today's SOP along with a flock that more closely resembles some of the old birds seen in antique photos and sketches.