My Vadakorian Landrace Project Moving Forward

[Sir Sacabambaspis]

I've finally found a small amount of time to sit down and write out a thread dedicated to one of my most exciting projects yet! While since may know of my Crocus-Fowl Landrace project, others may know there's also another landrace which may be the first of it's kind! This landrace is known as none other than the Vadakorian Landrace having the strongest ties back to Vadakor. Vadakor was the rooster with was like a sort of "pioneer" or a "founding father" of my project. He was and still is a near perfect representative of what I was originally going to be breeding for in my project.

My goal with this landrace you may ask? A landrace of Gamefowl built from scratch. Not to be killed in a battle by human greed for bloodshed, but as a bird with a strong will to survive! I don't want birds that sit at a feeder all day, hardly forage, and can't fly nor defend themselves. My goal is birds built for survival that also just so happened to lay medium sized blue eggs and don't need much feed in spring or summer as they forage. I want them to have the wings strength and ability to properly fly and also have the alertness to see predators before they attack. However I want to have birds that are people friendly and often broody so incubators aren't needed much.

Unfortunately Vadakor got Maran egg genes and Birchen from his Olive Egger mother, and his Silver Duckwing Leghorn father greatly effects his likeliness of having daughters who go broody. I've finally decided that I don't want Birchen in my project and in the attempt to make my own gamefowl from scratch I want to cross Vadakor's daughter Kikimora Junior with a Phoenix rooster.

In 2 weeks one of my phoenix roosters will more or less finish his molt and I'm hoping to pair him with Kikimora. I'll be posting more photos of Kikimora and my phoenix rooster in the coming days.

I'll also be explaining the "breed standard" of what I'm trying to breed. I have a few photos I've collected from other breeders Gamefowl that I really liked the look of and I'd like to trying using as a breeding goal for the Vadakorian Landrace.

With all the info aside I'll work on getting good photos of the birds and explaining my breed standard, if you're interested in following my project or are someone who followed the original F1 thread I hope you enjoy watching my project continue!!!

 

[Sir Sacabambaspis]

Alongside Kikimora Junior, I'll also be using my hen Persephone (Kikimora's aunt) and crossing them both to my Phoenix rooster. Now Persephone is a super fascinating bird because her mom was a purebred Blue Australorp which gave her (if I'm right) one copy of the gene for Co, Pg, and Ml which means I could get Gold Quail by crossing her to Gold Duckwing!

Unfortunately Persephone lays super dark high bloom eggs so I want to get a Hold Quail son from her to cross to a light blue egg laying daughter from Kikimora's Junior. Then I'll get a new Gold Quail rooster with a blue egg gene. At that point I have a few options so idk what the plan is after that.

These are Kikimora's dark green eggs and Persephone's high bloom eggs for comparison (sorry about the lighting)

 

[Sir Sacabambaspis]

I'd also like to make it clear what I mean by Gamefowl...

I do not mean dubbed cockfighting blood lusting birds with roosters that can't be kept together.

I mean gamefowl looking birds with high broodiness, strong, resilient, hardy birds, who have the flight muscles and strength to defend against Hawks and fly high and far if needed. I talking about fast moving birds who if needed are agile enough to take down a small hawk and escape larger predators.

 

[Sir Sacabambaspis]

Okie dokie, I have like another 15 minutes so I think I might as well explain my aim for a breed standard!

So, as far as color varieties go I'm hoping to get most color varieties derived from Persephone. That means Columbian, Quail, Duckwing, Wheaten, Concentric Pencilled, and Lacing are all possible within the Landrace.

As for physical characteristics I'm aiming for birds with large wings with strong well developed wing muscles, long but sturdy legs, and an upwards pointing tail. They should also have white earlobes with a bluish tint. They should have skate legs with no feathers on their legs and stand tall and proud. Birds should be vigorous and lively but not crazy.

This rooster right here is a Coal Miners Mug Gamefowl rooster I think looks AWESOME! This rooster (ignoring the Birchen gene) is exactly what I'm hoping to create with my project. Obviously he's also dubbed which I refuse to do and I'm very happy is illegal where I live. Mature roosters like this one have what I can "bull neck" which is where the neck feathers make the neck look super thick. In a good bird this looks very powerful imo and it's something I'm taking into consideration when breeding. I also just really love his tail and hope to achieve something similar by breeding birds with upwards facing tails to phoenix to get long tail high held tails that kinda curve like this rooster. I like how he hold his wings and how they help cover the butt fluff near the vent. The saddle feathers are also really nice as they kinda flow down and also cover the butt fluff. I've had problems in the past with birds having so much butt fluff they get fly strike from poop get stuck to it so I definitely want to avoid that. I just really find almost everything about this rooster fascinating and super impressive!

These are a few other roosters that make good examples too

Here's Vadakor for comparison: You can see how he's similar but not quite the same

 

[Sir Sacabambaspis]

At some point in the next day or two I'll explain the breeding goal for the hens since I think they're an incredibly important part of the project. While a good goal for the roosters is very important, the hens are also quite important. I'll also give a comparison of what I want to breed for and what Kikimora looks like

 

[Sir Sacabambaspis]

If there's anyone who breeds Gamefowl I'd love to hear you opinions on what I could do to improve my odds of success in my project!