Hey, just some observations on this group of partridge rocks. In this batch of 25 there were apparently three distinct groups. The first is Starbuck, a group of one. The only fully wild type, PR in markings and the largest. The second group the Red/Browns - five of them. The remainder were more black/browns, one group slightly larger than the last tier. I weighed them all en masse at four days. 1005g, an average of 40 grams. Today Starbuck weighed 95 grams. The red/browns averaged 81 grams, Puddle, Punkin, Sparrow and Frack and a fifth no name. The middle black browns 74 grams and the bottom tier black browns 71 grams Dharma and Pax and Hiney, in this group. At the bottom of the black browns is Runs Like Nutcase who weighs 53 grams. I'm pleased with their overall gain. Starbuck is a monster, early full wings, early long tail. RLN has grown but is still smallest and has no tail feathers yet. Slow wing development as well. Now because I am also raising turkeys, these guys are on game starter. They get some yogurt, some egg, some bread as treats as well. My last group of PRs were all males, never as active, on chicken starter, and most not as friendly. They were from a totally different hatchery. Anybody else track growth and weights on their Rocks of any kind? Is there any real correlation between early size of a chick and eventual full size of the chicken? Thanks.
Quote:I'm curious about this too! As I'm raising dual purpose birds as well. Hopefully someone will shortly give an answer
Well, the monsters out grew my biggest brooder, so I outfitted the coop with the heat light and straw and deep litter, ran a ceramic heater in there to bring up the ambient temp and out they went. They'll be four weeks on the 15th. They're vastly more feathered out than the first bunch. I kept Runs Like Nutcase, Ponder and the other Tinies indoors. They could use another couple of weeks of growth and feather, first. I went out this morning to check on the horde and to give them warm oatmea/cornmeal and peanut butter, to get their day going. All was well, they ate like pigs, I'm lucky to have my hands. I'm going to be weighing them again this weekend. Some of them are VERY heavy. Starbuck is still leader in that regard, most of the red browns and several of the black browns are catching up. Come Saturday I'll probably let them out into the small chicken yard. They do still appear to be somewhat sexually dimorphic. Males have fewer back feathers, shorter wings and shorter stumpy or medium and cupped tails. And larger yellow - slightly pink combs. The pullets have long tails, long primary flights, small combs that aren't thickened/wide, some are very small and melanistic - slightly brown, and longer fuller feathers down their backs and better chest feathering. Starbuck seems to fit the female type but is quite assertive and more aware than most of them. Nevermind being part T.Rex. We're adding POL pullets on Friday and the Turkeys on Mon/Tue, the nearly adult cockeral on the 23rd. Should be interesting. Having some adults around will take the too bold cockerals down a notch. Leaving RL Nutcase indoors distressed him. He hadn't associated much with the tinies. He looked and peeped for the others alot, at one point trying to climb and follow/look for them. He's just got too few feathers and is too small in mass to go out there. This morning he's doing better. He's actually snuggling up with the little flock. Far less peeping going on. The pullets are so the cockeral doesn't have to live with only munchkin flock. The cockeral is a partridge cochin. He figures into my plans for the group. So does Ponder if she's a pullet. Though these are better than the first batch, I know I've a long way to go toward a working heritage flock. Ponder comes from gorgeous barred Rocks and the cochin guy will help with feather and back width, which I already saw as lacking in the last batch of production birds. Some of these are better but not great. Now time will sort keepers from crockpot. So weights soon. I expect most of them to have almost doubled. This week I could only get 24% starter. So I expect that to be reflected in the weigh in after this, though once they get to foraging, it won't show much.
