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wingstone said:
I am not judging, just really curious as to why some like these birds, not feeding the extra makes sense, do you have other reasons also.
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1) Being able to sell pullet chicks at a premium.
2) Kids love to name the chicks, especially nice if they can be sure of the gender for the names
3) It's cool to understand the genetics behind the various sex-linked traits. I enjoy being able to predict the phenotype (appearance, production qualities, etc) of a cross, predicting the gender is an extra bonus. Did you know there is a cross where you can determine the gender before the chick is even hatched?
 
dheltzel said:
wingstone said:
I am not judging, just really curious as to why some like these birds, not feeding the extra makes sense, do you have other reasons also.
Click to expand...



1) Being able to sell pullet chicks at a premium.
2) Kids love to name the chicks, especially nice if they can be sure of the gender for the names
3) It's cool to understand the genetics behind the various sex-linked traits. I enjoy being able to predict the phenotype (appearance, production qualities, etc) of a cross, predicting the gender is an extra bonus. Did you know there is a cross where you can determine the gender before the chick is even hatched?
Click to expand...


See now I am interested, are you saying that I could breed for all males to hatch if I was wanting to fill a grow out pen..
And yes understanding genetics should make a difference, how accurate are you on predicting what will hatch.
 
wingstone said:
See now I am interested, are you saying that I could breed for all males to hatch if I was wanting to fill a grow out pen..
And yes understanding genetics should make a difference, how accurate are you on predicting what will hatch.
Click to expand...

Well, the cross to determine gender before hatching is a silkie roo (and color but barred/cuckoo) over white leghorn hens. Supposedly, you can candle at some point and only the hens have dark legs, so you can identify them before hatching. IDK how practical that cross is for meat production, but let me give a more interesting example.

Before the broiler industry moved to cornish x rock crosses, many broilers were a cross between Delawares and New Hampshires. Those are both big birds, especially the males. A page or so back, we were discussing this cross to make red sex link layers. If you use hatchery birds, they aren't that big, because they are both bred for efficient egg production. If you get the heritage stock, they get much larger, but aren't as good as layers. Unless, you add in the hybrid vigor of the sex-link cross. They will not be the exceptional layers that the brown egg industry uses (ISA browns, mostly), but they will probably exceed the parent stock both the girls as layers and the boys as broilers. I don't want to raise broilers, but would love to have a good source of robust red-sexlink eggs to hatch. I bet I could find someone interested in taking all the silver (mostly white) males to raise for meat. If the hens have heritage qualities, they may not be the flash-in-the-pan that the commercial sexlinks are. The backyard hobbyists might find this to be the perfect layer, lasting much longer than the highly bred commercial sexlinks, and laying very large eggs as they get older. The commercial hatcheries select away from very large (or small) eggs, because the egg market is mostly for "large".
 
Give me a couple weeks and I will be looking for those extra Roo's.....hubby is building a hoop house to drag around out back, one of those will be exactly that rooster's...

I actually find that they get long rather well when no hen's are around
 
So as far as disposition of the offspring, which side doe that come from... I am asking because I used to have some Delaware and every too tuned mean, same problem I had with the SLW
 
I went out to the coop and I looked in the nesting boxes, and one of my isa browns had laid this unbelievably small egg, and it is really soft and has no shell, like it laid the egg with only membrane,
Her it is beside on of there normal eggs:
400
 
randerson846 said:
I went out to the coop and I looked in the nesting boxes, and one of my isa browns had laid this unbelievably small egg, and it is really soft and has no shell, like it laid the egg with only membrane,
Her it is beside on of there normal eggs:
400
Click to expand...


I get them every so often, nothing to worry about unless it is constant...enjoy them for the cuteness, for me many of those eggs have no yolk.
 
In a couple weeks when I have some empty pens, everyone here is gonna vouch that I am running experiments with deltzel,,,,, right......I have the silkie and leghorn, curious as to skin color that will produce but won't the offspring have the body of the leghorn, then what do I breed that offspring back with...


Just need to say that I am glad SoME of you do not live closer, for you think up these things and I just have to see the outcome in front of me to have it stick in thehead....

Any more experiments,,, I do have the bresse that I am not at all impressed with,, although they do process out bigger than they appear, with some nice breast meat
 

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