Plymouth Rock thread!

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

I've always found that if there is a somewhat mean rooster on the property, it is either because he wasn't handled enough when he was younger, or because he needs to be shown that you, the chicken keeper, are the one in charge. Or both. My guess is that he thinks you kicked his butt (the ripped comb -- reminiscent of a peck-order fight) so now he respects that you outrank him, and consequently is much nicer.

LOL I worded this horribly. I hope I managed to at least get a *little* of my point across.
Just be calm and gentle with him, but don't take any nonsense, and he should be good. Just my experience, hope this helps.

I have had experience with mean roosters and dont tolerate them for long, I give it a few weeks of showing them i'm the boss and let them change their attitude and if they dont there gone. Its that simple. I have only had him a week. And he is a little over a year and a half old, so i dont what all happened in his past and wasnt there to handle him when he was young. If him ripping his own comb makes him respect me more fine by lol, although i wish he wouldnt of ripped his comb. He is just for color project, he was never meant to be shown

 

[TNBEARCHICK]

Hey guys I am looking to replace my current barred rocks with a new flock, I am looking for egg production first off and quality second as these are egg layers and to sell a few extra hens along the way. Thoughts.

 

[speckledhen]

My best producers as well as the healthiest/longest lived are my hatchery BR descendants. Direct hatchery stock lays well, but they all seem to die from reproductive malfunctions. Their daughters, however, lay extremely well and are long lived. For example, my Becca and Amanda are almost 7 years old and still laying, even though Amanda has terrible arthritis. Both are daughters of a McMurray BR flock. My 4 year old BR, Fern, is out of a rooster whose own sire was McMurray and her mother was from Ideal. She is my best layer, even now. My heritage BR hens are good layers, but not fabulous layers, and their eggs are not as large as the hatchery descended hens. They are not 3 years old, so their longevity isn't something I can attest to firsthand yet.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Hey guys I am looking to replace my current barred rocks with a new flock, I am looking for egg production first off and quality second as these are egg layers and to sell a few extra hens along the way. Thoughts.

I appreciate that your thinking through your flock replacement.

I've seen just about every hatchery's version and none of them are close to the Standard for the breed. It's just the nature of hatchery stock and the purposes and goals of the hatcheries themselves. If you want a better bird, in type, in fidelity to the Standard, truer in temperament to the breed's history, physical size and better meat production you'll have to look toward the many, many breeders. White Rocks, Barred Rocks, etc are kept and bred true to the Standard by many folks and are not that difficult to obtain.

I've been a Rock Head for over half a century. They remain dear to my heart. A Rock is a DUAL PURPOSE bird, in that they should have decent meat and decent egg production. They'll never compete with a CX for meat and never compete with an RSL for egg production. If you push to breed a Leghorn-ish bird, cloaked in a pseudo Rock exterior, as many hatcheries have, you get a production "rock" (sic) that will then face the same ovarian and ascites issues as other high production strains.

A good bench mark for a Rock is 200-240 eggs a year, flock average. The breed was never intended to lay more than that. It was intended to far out lay the all too common 100 eggs per layers of that era. It was designed to be a beautiful, gentle, busy at foraging, DECENT egg layer that could also provide fine tasting, fine meat, with yellow skin for the table.

 

[speckledhen]

There has to be someone who is breeding a decent line of Rocks who are not right from the hatchery, someone who doesn't necessarily have the old heritage lines (which I adore, of course), but who have good quality homestead Rocks who have a good laying history. If my own were still with a BR rooster and laying enough, I would have no problem offering eggs from them. Mine are not Leghornish in type at all. In fact, Amanda that I mentioned is a tank of a hen. Of course, you won't see the super precise "test pattern" barring on them, though Amanda's is finer than most, but the generations one or two from the hatchery are better birds as far as health.

You cannot beat an egg a day. My BR hens in their prime (first three years) lay an egg a day, like like a good production Rhode Island Red. I've had them running side by side and they lay as many eggs as the RIRs. I haven't had a LH, however, as I said, even a RSL doesn't lay more than one egg per day, 7 days a week. Fern, who is 4 years old, until this year, gave any LH on the planet a run for her money.

So, though it does vary, and as Fred said, the Rock is a dual purpose bird, not technically just a laying breed, an egg a day is all they lay, no matter what breed you get. I do wish I was in a position to breed from these BR hens I have who are stellar layers because I think you'd be thrilled with the results.

What I'd love to do, really, is cross those hatchery descended hens with my Indy, who has the Stukel lineage on his mother's side, and the stupendous laying ability of the Delaware on his sire's side, and see what happens with those daughters. The Delawares lay earlier than the Rocks I've had (17-22 weeks they all start, it seems, in this line), but this is the Rock thread. Unfortunately, I may not be able to do any of the breeding projects I have in mind due to monetary constraints. Can't afford the feed.

 

[aoxa]

There has to be someone who is breeding a decent line of Rocks who are not right from the hatchery, someone who doesn't necessarily have the old heritage lines (which I adore, of course), but who have good quality homestead Rocks who have a good laying history. If my own were still with a BR rooster and laying enough, I would have no problem offering eggs from them. Mine are not Leghornish in type at all. In fact, Amanda that I mentioned is a tank of a hen. Of course, you won't see the super precise "test pattern" barring on them, though Amanda's is finer than most, but the generations one or two from the hatchery are better birds as far as health.

You cannot beat an egg a day. My BR hens in their prime (first three years) lay an egg a day, like like a good production Rhode Island Red. I've had them running side by side and they lay as many eggs as the RIRs. I haven't had a LH, however, as I said, even a RSL doesn't lay more than one egg per day, 7 days a week. Fern, who is 4 years old, until this year, gave any LH on the planet a run for her money.

So, though it does vary, and as Fred said, the Rock is a dual purpose bird, not technically just a laying breed, an egg a day is all they lay, no matter what breed you get. I do wish I was in a position to breed from these BR hens I have who are stellar layers because I think you'd be thrilled with the results.

What I'd love to do, really, is cross those hatchery descended hens with my Indy, who has the Stukel lineage on his mother's side, and the stupendous laying ability of the Delaware on his sire's side, and see what happens with those daughters. The Delawares lay earlier than the Rocks I've had (17-22 weeks they all start, it seems, in this line), but this is the Rock thread. Unfortunately, I may not be able to do any of the breeding projects I have in mind due to monetary constraints. Can't afford the feed.

I know my line of Rocks are great layers. Bigger eggs than my hatchery rocks. Size is comparable (in eggs) to the Red Sex Links I raise. They lay frequently as well 5/7 days at least, averaging 6/7 days a week. The eggs tip the scale at extra large - so I am very happy with them.

They go broody as well. The ones I got were point of lay and older. I am growing out the pullets now who are 17 weeks now I believe.. I will have to let you guys know when I see the first eggs out of them. I suppose they will take much longer to hit maturity compared to the hatchery stock, but I can wait.

I found the SPPR eggs Janet sent me off with were very large as well. I am not yet sure how often they will lay yet, but she said they start between 30-35 weeks if I remember correctly.

 

[speckledhen]

Well, aoxa, lines make a difference in laying production and egg size, in heritage and hatchery. My hatchery descendents are both from McMurray parentage and Ideal parentage and are one and two generations out from the direct stock. They lay extra large to jumbo, BUT, remember, the older the hen, the larger the egg and all my hatchery descendents are much older than the breeder girls, except maybe the Blue Rocks. The Blue, Black and Splash Rocks lay jumbo eggs and they are two and three years old. The heritage 2 year old hens lay medium to large, but nobody is laying now (except old Becca, Amanda and Fern, haha) Everybody is molting for the 2nd or 3rd time this year.

Honestly, I don't care where they came from. If they suit the purpose you got them for, they're perfect for you. The only reason I don't buy hatchery birds anymore is they die on me from internal laying, egg yolk peritonitis and cancer. One exception is my Buff Brahma who is almost 7 years old, but she hasn't laid in almost 2 years.

 

[Fred's Hens]

The answer MAY lie in this. How tight do you want the barring? By that, I do not only mean how crisp you want the barring, but how many bars on a feather?

A fuzzy BR will generally outlay a crisp BR and an average number of crisp bars will out lay a BR with the super, duper fine crisp barring. It is a kind of gradient. Here's why, perhaps.

Egg laying is tied to fast feathering. If you have super fast feathering, you get a very fuzzy, cuckoo bird, but you will often get great laying, 22 week starts as well and 300 eggs flock average. If you have a bit slower feathering, the barring becomes Dominique like with Vs instead of bars. If you get crisper barring, but fewer bars per inch, the birds can feather a bit quicker, although slow by fuzzy bird standards.

The super, duper crisp, test pattern, tightly barred, a zillion bars per square inch birds? You MUST have very slowly feathering. You cannot create those birds without very slooooooow feathering, slow growing genetics. Laying starts can be 36 weeks. The egg will often be smaller on such birds for the pullet year as well. Decent laying for a bird of this class is 220 eggs.

It is all related to the "stop - start" gene found in the Barred Rocks.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Here's show winning, Barred Rock group of females from the early 1900's. If you look at the Barred Rock Journal (readable online with google book reader) these are typical birds from the era. Right through to the 1930's there were many fine Barred Rocks with less numbers of bars per inch. The barring was crisp, just not a zillion bars per inch. These birds made the Barred Rocks North America's favorite bird and put them on farms from coast to coast and literally around the world. Widely popular.

But the fancier folks kept pushing the barring tighter and tighter and tighter. Plus, as the Barred Rock gave up some of it's ground to popular breeds that were coming on the scene, such as the Rhode Island Red, and later the New Hampshire and Delaware (very brief window with the Del) and finally gave way to industrial egg and meat production post WWII, the Barred Rocks were relegated to fanciers. Such fate befell all the old breeds. By the 1970's, old dual purpose breeds were out of vogue, surpassed by the thin bodied hyper layers one hand and the chunky hybrid broilers on the other.

When you breed purely for the fancier's show world, attention to egg laying and growth rates take a far back seat to pretty and trophies. Just the truth and just the way it is.

Some of us are determined to actually breed some of these wonderful old birds with performance in mind. We must select for it and push for it. Some of us are not willing to sacrifice these venerable old breeds. To put "bred to the Standard and bred to perform" birds back into the mainstream, we've got some work to do.

 

[aoxa]

Well, aoxa, lines make a difference in laying production and egg size, in heritage and hatchery. My hatchery descendents are both from McMurray parentage and Ideal parentage and are one and two generations out from the direct stock. They lay extra large to jumbo, BUT, remember, the older the hen, the larger the egg and all my hatchery descendents are much older than the breeder girls, except maybe the Blue Rocks. The Blue, Black and Splash Rocks lay jumbo eggs and they are two and three years old. The heritage 2 year old hens lay medium to large, but nobody is laying now (except old Becca, Amanda and Fern, haha) Everybody is molting for the 2nd or 3rd time this year.

Honestly, I don't care where they came from. If they suit the purpose you got them for, they're perfect for you. The only reason I don't buy hatchery birds anymore is they die on me from internal laying, egg yolk peritonitis and cancer. One exception is my Buff Brahma who is almost 7 years old, but she hasn't laid in almost 2 years.

That definitely makes a difference - the line they came from. Our hatchery barred rocks come from a local hatchery. Nowhere near as large as McMurray. They were fantastic layers and wonderful temperaments on them though. Terrible type. Worse than the hatchery stock I see in the US. But for layers? They are fantastic.

Actually the Barred Rock that started my obsession with the breed was a hatchery Rock that you see in my avatar. Really she started my love of chickens all on her own. She also died from internal laying. Poor thing. Very sad to watch them go like that. If I notice it now, I cull early. Sometimes it is hard to tell until they show symptoms when you have a large flock and can't always tell which egg belongs to which chicken.