Landrace/adaptive breeding discussion

[Florida Bullfrog]

I went ahead and pulled all 15 motherless chicks off of free range this evening. Some of them are starting to tree roost but their choices aren’t going to give them any protection from a downpour. The 5 older chicks are sticking to their coop at night so I put the 10 younger chicks with them. i’m going to let them get used to roosting in that coop and then I’ll turn them back out. For the ones that were continuing to roost on the ground, the coop they return to every night is now home to one of my new free range mommas (the black one in the video I posted today). She ended up with 12 chicks. When the big grey layer cross comes off her nest I’ll coop her too and let both mommas raise theirs out a couple of weeks in the coops before turning them out.

The 10 chicks I caught tonight have good meat on their breasts which is pretty neat considering they’ve been mostly turning their noses up at commercial feed. I hate to soften them with coop life for a few weeks, but I think I’ll be glad I did once the rains start.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Momma #3 to hatch within 24 hours. She ended up with 7 chicks. All black with a little white on them.

 

[tinychicky]

View attachment 3852608
Gorgeous bird. I wouldn't be displeased if a handful of mine came out like this. Not the pattern I want, tail is a little long, and darker than my needs - but still a very good looking bird and better than many (most, really) I've hatched in the last 12 months. Would likely do pretty well on my grounds. Any idea as to weight???

Thank,U_Stormcrow! She's probably around 3 lbs, but I'd have to wait until nightfall to weigh her and know for sure- they tend to run on the small side which helps them escape predators easily. She is a decent layer, a good forager, and a good broody, as are her kin.
I will add, I really prefer pea combs in our New Hampshire winters, particularly for roosters. Fortunately, all of this year's mix chicks have had pea combs so far!

 

[tinychicky]

Momma #3 to hatch within 24 hours. She ended up with 7 chicks. All black with a little white on them.

I like seeing her nest site up off the ground. Seems safer. When mine hatch outside the coop, they often go for deep cover under dense brush. It works well enough here, but I suppose in your area snakes would be more of an issue on the ground? Nesting up high may be a valuable adaptation if that's the case.

 

[LaurenRitz]

I like seeing her nest site up off the ground. Seems safer. When mine hatch outside the coop, they often go for deep cover under dense brush. It works well enough here, but I suppose in your area snakes would be more of an issue on the ground? Nesting up high may be a valuable adaptation if that's the case.

Snakes climb as well. And they're great swimmers.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I like seeing her nest site up off the ground. Seems safer. When mine hatch outside the coop, they often go for deep cover under dense brush. It works well enough here, but I suppose in your area snakes would be more of an issue on the ground? Nesting up high may be a valuable adaptation if that's the case.

I like elevated nesting for when they're setting on the eggs, but it can lead to problems after the chicks hatch.

My experience, universal across all my chicken bloodlines, is that whenever possible free-range hens like to return to the original nest every night with their biddies so long as the nest hasn't been hit by ants or predators. I presume this is because the nest site has proven itself to be a safe place if the hen was able to brood there for 3 weeks without issue. This is a problem for two reasons. First, for the first week or two the biddies will have to roost on the ground. The hen will often lead them to the elevated nest box then roost with the biddies under the box. Depending on where the box is located, the ground underneath may not be a good place to sleep for the night. Second, once a couple of weeks have went by the hen often flies to the box and tries to get the biddies to join her. If they don't, it's a coin toss whether she leaves them alone on the ground or not.

Those reasons are why I like the forced-coop method for the first couple of weeks. It retrains the hen to regard the coop as the safe place and she'll return to the coop instead of the nest box every night. It also so trains the biddies and if the hen abandons them as what happened with the two broods of biddies I posted about several posts ago, the biddies themselves will return to the coop and can be managed from there.

In nature, red junglefowl hens usually nest on the ground. I'm fairly positive I've read literature that confirmed some RJF nesting in low tree hollows or otherwise using cover not inconsistent with a nest box, but I cannot find it at the moment.

 

[LaurenRitz]

At 5 weeks my broody is spending less and less time with the chicks. She still sleeps with them at night and they follow her around, but she's not so focused on them. No attempt to get them on the roost yet.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

A few developments today.

First, I turned out the 15 this evening on the bet they'd return to the new coop at dark. They did. Therefore I'm going to let them go on full-free range again. It will be up to them to me smart enough to return to the coop in a heavy downpour.

I noticed the chicks segregated themselves by color but that may not mean much long-term. I have lots of adults that do that but it may have just been how the cookie crumbled this evening in the order they left the coop. I can't say.

2 more mommas came out with new biddies. I knew where the white one was, but not the Cracker hen. I couldn't get good pics of them, but this one shows the contrast in colors for camouflage purposes. The white one is a third generation Cracker x Easter egger cross. Both the daughter and granddaughter of the original white Easter egger cross came out looking like mini versions of her, even though this daughter should be more Cracker by genetics. The original white Easter egger was a good free-ranger and would possibly still be alive, but I culled her when I confirmed the Marek's outbreak last year. I culled everything that came from a hatchery.

There's a total of 5 hens now brooding chicks on free-range. Probably around 60 chicks between them. The hens are pairing off and brooding together, which is a pretty common behavior on my yard.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

The hen in the last pic hasn't brooded yet this season. I am not sure if she's laying somewhere or not. I'm still missing one of the black hens, I am expecting her to appear with chicks any time. In total, I know I have one black hen setting in a nest box due in about a week to a week and a half, a missing black hen, and a missing Cracker hen.

Of the first two black hens that raised then abandoned the 15 chicks, both are laying again. The dogs (or my terrorfowl?) found one of the nests and destroyed it. The second hen is still laying in a location I know of and I expect her to go set against in several days.

The black stag has fathered a fair number of these free-range chicks. This red "improved" Cracker stag has probably fathered the chipmunk ones.

 

[LaurenRitz]

So Mama is back to foraging with the adults, her babies foraging on their own. They're just a little under 6 weeks.

We'll see if she returns to the nest box tonight, but I think she's started laying again.