Old and Rare Breeds

[saladin]

I'm not sure any clerk could influence a judge either. I just don't think it looks good and should be avoided whenever possible.

Thanks for stopping the silkie mob. lol.

 

[cubakid]

Are you sure you are right in mind? I know you personally and I'm not sure of that.

w.

I have my moments. But I will continue to breed to the standards, made by the breeders, whichever way I must, and if double mating is reliable for breeding closer to the standard I am willing to take the chance.

 

[heritagehabitatfarms]

y'all are way to funny i was rolling on the floor reading the last few pages... some thing i think would be help full to some of us new comers or less experienced in showing is to discus the numbers of double matting...

so here is an example...
if you start with a reasonable flock of breeder quality birds say 25... u are hatching from them to get your show birds and next years breeders... u flock breed them all in one pen and hatch out 200 chicks... i would think you might get 20 breeder quality birds from them and 2 or 3 that would end up as show winners... so that is 90% cull rate or 180 birds...

if u have been breeding them for 10 years and u have developed a male line and a female line or u got a good start from a good breeder of a male and female line... u can breed 1 rooster and 3 or 4 hens and hatch out say 25 chicks get 10 breeder quality and 2 or 3 show winners from your male line and do the same from your female line... so u have 50 total chicks a 50% cull rate or 25 cull birds...

now this is just an example and i am not intending this to serve as a breeding guide lol... i am also assuming that most of the birds in the male and female lines are of better quality than the others...

it is just mainly a way to cut down on the number of culls and birds u have to raise each year... it is just easier for me to understand it presented this way...

ok ill go crawl back under my rock now lol

...

 

[BKPUCKETT]

I think I am confused on what breeding to the Standard means...Saladin, cubakid, and Walt seem to be the experts here if we could get a definition form each maybe that would help


I would think breeding to the Standard would mean, mating the 2 birds most like the Standard in the breeding pen
Using a bird not of the Standard in the breeding pen, doesn't seem like that would be called Breeding to the Standard.............. If Y'al could help us beginners please

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I would think you are correct and culling the offspring that don't meet it or at least not using them for breeding.

I haven't culled all hens that don't meet the standard. Maybe some off color, shape, size, egg color wrong, etc. but they currently stay around for eating eggs.
I'm going to be breeding a lot more this year so that will change.

 

[gjensen]

I think I am confused on what breeding to the Standard means...Saladin, cubakid, and Walt seem to be the experts here if we could get a definition form each maybe that would help


I would think breeding to the Standard would mean, mating the 2 birds most like the Standard in the breeding pen
Using a bird not of the Standard in the breeding pen, doesn't seem like that would be called Breeding to the Standard.............. If Y'al could help us beginners please

What you want is results.

Everyone is trying to get the best out of their birds.

Some might choose to double mate to get the best possible female or male. Others will not. It is a choice. There is no moral issue or right or wrong. It is a method and a choice. Some are put off by the idea and some are not. A good thing about having your own birds is doing with them as you please.

Some genes are not as stable as others. Double mating varieties with these genes seam to be more common than with solid colors etc.

I am not one of the experts. You just seam to be looking for a right or wrong. I do not think you will find that right or wrong. If someone does not like the idea of it, they do not have to do it.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

I am very interested in this breed- and have been reading everything I can. I am a bit of a newbie in terms of breeding- but am very interested in the old/rare breeds, and hope to focus my attentions on one breed down the line. So I am doing some "window shopping" research now. In the articles that were listed- Phil Bartz mentions that modern La Fleche are prone to illness due to extreme inbreeding in the last 20 years. What are the methods to improve their hardiness in light of the small gene pool? It seems that folks have added Minorca blood- which seems to be frowned upon. If not adding different blood, then how do you improve their hardiness?

It has not been my eperience that they are unhardy. Then again, I only started up with them this last year. However, the strain I'm working with has been bred in central Maine for 37 years. We've had some rude cold this winter with good frostbite potential, and they've been fine, laying well.

The biggest fault of this strain is that they are underweight, which is a common theme with rare breeds. I hope to be able to start working on that, The first La Fleche eggs are currently in the hatcher; so we'll see how they hatch for me. Barring the weight issue, these are pretty classy birds. Temperment-wise they need a little work, but that like so many other traits is a question of culling.

As to your original concern, Id mention that many, many traits are actually strain based, meaning one strain might be hardy while another is not, reflecting the breeding the specific birds have received. Often categorical statements are made concerning a specific quality that really is going to be reflective only of the birds of a specific strain.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

y'all are way to funny i was rolling on the floor reading the last few pages... some thing i think would be help full to some of us new comers or less experienced in showing is to discus the numbers of double matting...

so here is an example...
if you start with a reasonable flock of breeder quality birds say 25... u are hatching from them to get your show birds and next years breeders... u flock breed them all in one pen and hatch out 200 chicks... i would think you might get 20 breeder quality birds from them and 2 or 3 that would end up as show winners... so that is 90% cull rate or 180 birds...

if u have been breeding them for 10 years and u have developed a male line and a female line or u got a good start from a good breeder of a male and female line... u can breed 1 rooster and 3 or 4 hens and hatch out say 25 chicks get 10 breeder quality and 2 or 3 show winners from your male line and do the same from your female line... so u have 50 total chicks a 50% cull rate or 25 cull birds...

now this is just an example and i am not intending this to serve as a breeding guide lol... i am also assuming that most of the birds in the male and female lines are of better quality than the others...

it is just mainly a way to cut down on the number of culls and birds u have to raise each year... it is just easier for me to understand it presented this way...

ok ill go crawl back under my rock now lol

...

Greetings HHF!

Respecting that you're offering up theoretical scenarios, I think that in the first you have the root of future difficulties. Flock mating 25 birds is going to lead to a whole heck of a lot of variables. I've admittedly never done it, and would follow that up by saying that I wouldn't do it, because of those variables. I don't think you'd hve any improvement outside of a random fluke. I think you'd maintain quality for a brief period of time, but I think that faults would start to proliferate very quickly. I imagine that degeneration wold set in fast enough, and you're good birds would be hatchery quality (flock mated) birds in a matter of seasons.

If you have 25 birds, all of which pass the basic minimums for breeding, you should be able to pull 3 or 4 pairs from which to hatch 200 chicks (or fewer, depending on your infrastructure and time/money ability to attend to their needs--fewer well done being better than more in a mess)

Also, it's more fun (aside from more effective) to limit your breeders in number and form intentional breedings. It allows for traceability, and the opportunity to question why such or such a result did occur.

 

[heritagehabitatfarms]

i 100% agree with you on that... unfortunately allot of ppl breed this way and then sell tons of hatching eggs and that is besides the hatchery's u mentioned... i called McMurry a few years ago and got a really knowledgeable person on the phone... they use flock matings of up to 500 Birds at one time

no wonder they have the quality that they do...

Greetings HHF!

Respecting that you're offering up theoretical scenarios, I think that in the first you have the root of future difficulties. Flock mating 25 birds is going to lead to a whole heck of a lot of variables. I've admittedly never done it, and would follow that up by saying that I wouldn't do it, because of those variables. I don't think you'd have any improvement outside of a random fluke. I think you'd maintain quality for a brief period of time, but I think that faults would start to proliferate very quickly. I imagine that degeneration wold set in fast enough, and you're good birds would be hatchery quality (flock mated) birds in a matter of seasons.

If you have 25 birds, all of which pass the basic minimums for breeding, you should be able to pull 3 or 4 pairs from which to hatch 200 chicks (or fewer, depending on your infrastructure and time/money ability to attend to their needs--fewer well done being better than more in a mess)

Also, it's more fun (aside from more effective) to limit your breeders in number and form intentional breeding's. It allows for traceability, and the opportunity to question why such or such a result did occur.

 

[Pozees]

I think I am confused on what breeding to the Standard means...Saladin, cubakid, and Walt seem to be the experts here if we could get a definition form each maybe that would help


I would think breeding to the Standard would mean, mating the 2 birds most like the Standard in the breeding pen
Using a bird not of the Standard in the breeding pen, doesn't seem like that would be called Breeding to the Standard.............. If Y'al could help us beginners please

As someone who has only bred dogs in the past, will breed my first chickens next year using the better quality birds I get and raise this year, I would offer this:

To the best of my knowledge, in dogs and presumably in chickens, there has never been a perfect one. "Breeding to the Standard" means you are always reaching toward that perfect bird using, absolutely, those which most closely represent it from your breeding pens - but - since none is perfect, you don't necessarily just take the two closest and mate them, you evaluate how they fall short of perfection and select mates which have the potential to offset those shortcomings.

In double mating, as I understand it anyway, with certain breeds as previously mentioned such as Barred Rocks, when you take two well-marked birds in a single mating, you may find yourself with smutty-marked offspring rather than nice clean barring. One is therefore using mates that will produce chicks closer to the Standard.

We are not working from, but to (toward), the Standard.

My two cents. I shall now return to lurk-and-read status