Potential Breed Creation

[Blw18]

Three years ago, I began a breeding project to make a chicken breed of my own to fit my farm. I’ve had a bunch of different breeds over the years but I’ve never really been satisfied with any of them. Being a college kid, I can’t afford tons feed so my birds are fully free ranging. But being free ranging, they’re exposed to predators constantly. Hawks are especially bad. Smaller chickens just don’t last long. Also being in central Mississippi, they need to be able to tolerate heat, wet weather, and also freezing weather during winter. I also want a good layer that will go broody but can also be used as a meat bird. They need to be really good at spotting predators and able to fend for themselves majority of the time. Large size REALLY seems to help with warding off attacks. I also want a bird that is really disease and parasite resistant. They would really need to have a pea comb because my single combed birds get so many gnat bites it’s ridiculous whereas it doesn’t seem to affect the pea combed ones. Even in Mississippi where we have mild winters, frostbite still happens. A cold snap in March froze off the spikes on two of my single combed roosters. I also don’t care if the legs are feathered or not as long as they aren’t TOO heavily feathered. They don’t have to be mass producers of eggs or anything but enough to keep me and my neighbors happy. Anyways, I started out with a exhibition black langshan rooster over one of my naked neck hens that layed exceptionally well. I kept a rooster off of them and bred him to an English Orpington hen. Of those, I kept three hens back (two black and a cuckoo) and they are amazing! They lay large/extra large eggs daily and weigh about 8-9 pounds each. They’ve free ranged since they were born. All three sleep 20 feet in a tree. I wanted to get the size up a little bit and add some color so I crossed them with a buff laced Brahma rooster. The chicks are twice as large as the Ayam cemani’s they are being raised with at a month old. I’ve got another line that’s a mixture of langshan, English Orpington, naked neck, and Egyptian fayoumi that fit most of my criteria. I’m keeping back some Cornish rock pullets on a diet and ranging to add some meatiness to the breed.

This is my original F1 Langshan-naked neck cross.

These are the hens from my F1 rooster above and a chocolate cuckoo English Orpington I no longer have.

Buff laced Brahma rooster I crossed to the F2 hens.

One of the Brahma/F2 chicks beside an Ayam Cemani of the same age. All the chicks born this year have either been solid black or solid white with black spots mixed in. All chicks have the pea comb and the legs are lightly feathered.

And this is a roo from the other similar line. His dad was half Egyptian fayoumi half naked neck and his mom was half English blue Orpington and half black langshan.

Anyways, if anyone had any advice to me in trying to do this it would be greatly appreciated. I understand this will be a lengthy, difficult thing to do and I can’t seem to find much information on the subject. I’m not looking to start a new “trend” or anything...just a breed I can maintain on my place from here on out. I want an extremely hardy, big as can possible, meaty, egg layer that is tolerant of all weather and has some aesthetic qualities as well. I would like to know if anyone had any tips on the topic and any potential improvements to my idea. I apologize for the lengthiness of my post I had my idea it was that long!!

 

[Blw18]

Saverne that’s awesome! Yours lay better than most purebreds. Everything I hatch is usually raised by a broody on the yard so all 30+ chickens I have free ranging sleep at the top of this red oak tree by the barn. Flightier stuff just flies to the top and the bigger ones make it to the first limb (probably 7 foot up) and climb their way to the top. I tried discouraging this but with so many I just gave up.
Here is some of the fayoumi crosses.

This is the oldest one. She’s a lot prettier when up and about but she’s gone broody at the moment. She took after her dad’s side more. She has some fayoumi coloring and blue legs but is considerably larger and her body shape is more like the dads with feathered legs. She also is really good tempered and gets all under my feet at feeding time.

The second hen looks and acts like a fayoumi other than her color. She’s more pheasant-acting than anything I’ve ever seen. I thought she was hawk bait after she didn’t show up at the house for several days when one day she showed up to eat. I followed her when she left and she had a nest 150 yards into a cutover near the barn. She hatched the eggs and it took me three days to catch them all because she never left the thicket. Her chicks are half Brahma. Both are great layers and superb mamas but broodiness that will drive you insane. Their eggs are light brown-tan and pretty big.

These are their parents. The rooster is half naked neck half black langshan. The hen is pure fayoumi.

I paired the first hen with the rooster below and got this chick. He was the only one that hatched out of the clutch. A possum got into the nest and ate all the eggs except this one at about 18 days incubating. He’s taking after the fayoumi side a lot from what I can tell. Growing really fast and has the blue legs. He’s 5 weeks old.

This rooster was paired with the first fayoumi cross hen. He’s maybe 1/8th fayoumi. Mostly langshan and Orpington.

 

[Blw18]

Also, if anyone has done a project like this before I would definitely like to hear about it.

 

[RaineyTN]

Nice I have played around with Brahma mixes the last couple years. My main mixed rooster I still got started with Brahma and Orpington but I can’t remember what all else was mixed in before I got to him. Pretty similar build and comb to your rooster in the last picture. I’m also planning on gettin that line back to pea comb but I just bred him back to Orpington and the 2 week old chicks are huge compared to my same age pure brahma chicks.

I started another line last year with Brahma to RIR which had pretty good size but took too long to fill out and was a little slimmer than I wanted.

 

[RaineyTN]

Yep, my rir mixed had decent meat on the legs but nothin up top. This is the only picture I have still of one of them

This is the rooster I just bred back to the orpingtons. And yes that’s funny you said that cause he sits in the barn half the day too. I’m thinking about using my ameraucanas to bring the pea comb back in and maybe bring the size down a little.

 

[Blw18]

They are kinda in a sweet spot right now so I’m almost hesitant to add any other genetics to them. Everything I have is extremely human friendly. I cull/sell anything that is aggressive to people or too wild to handle. They’re also really docile around the other chickens. Even though they’re the biggest, they are usually only midway in the pecking order. The roos are fantastic to their girls and I’ve had zero problems with overbreeding or fighting even with multiple roosters in the flock at once. A little fighting here and there until the “boss” is established and then they’re best friends again. The hens don’t care anything about going broody until you leave eggs in the nest for extended periods and then they’ll drive you crazy wanting to sit on everything. The project birds do well all year minus getting a little hot...the pure orpingtons and other cold-hardy breeds thrive in the cold but as soon as those 95+ degrees days hit, they sit in the barn, lose weight, and basically inhale water to keep cool. I’d like to reduce the feathering on the projects a little more but not so much that they start getting chilled when it gets cold.

 

[Blw18]

If you’re looking for a breed that requires the least care possible, they’re the way to go. My pure fayoumi hen is friendly and doesn’t act “feral” like most do but most of the crossbreds act wild and hardly ever come around at feeding time. They lay really well and get majority if not all of their food on their own. They don’t do well at all penned up.

 

[Blw18]

Exactly! You never know what you are going to get. Since I’m not raising for show or to sell pure stock, almost all of what I hatch are mixed breeds. Some are 4th generation mixed breeds. And the thing is, the quality has seemed to go up the more deeply they’re mixed. I’ve always been told that crossing two or more mixed breeds together would just decrease the egg and meat yield and I can see if you introduce a bad line that could happen, but that applies to purebreds too.

 

[NatJ]

I just found this thread, so I know I'm responding to older posts. But I did read it all, and I didn't notice anyone else saying what I intend to say

The project birds do well all year minus getting a little hot...the pure orpingtons and other cold-hardy breeds thrive in the cold but as soon as those 95+ degrees days hit, they sit in the barn, lose weight, and basically inhale water to keep cool. I’d like to reduce the feathering on the projects a little more but not so much that they start getting chilled when it gets cold.

One way to reduce the feathering, increase the meat, and maintain the pea comb: add hatchery-quality Dark Cornish. Not Cornish Cross that grow so fast, not the show-quality Cornish that are wider than they are tall. The Dark Cornish I've had were from McMurray Hatchery and Ideal Poultry. They had pea combs, enough feathers for warmth but not a lot of extra fluff, clean legs, feather patterns that I liked, were fairly good layers-- basically a dual-purpose bird that was a little more compact than most and has the pea comb.

I need to get some more color in somehow because my main chickens in the main project line are either solid black or solid white with maybe two or three tiny black spots randomly placed somewhere on their neck or back. Some are solid white. The parent hens were black but where the solid white came from I have ZERO clue. I don’t own a single white chicken on the farm. I’m not good with genetics but is that a recessive white gene? It’s weird because majority (probably 70%) of the chicks have been white.

The white came from your Buff Laced Brahma rooster. He had white lacing on buff. That means he had the Dominant White gene that turns black into white.

So the chicks were black (because of the Extended Black gene from their black mothers), and then all the black was turned white by the Dominant White gene.

They’ve all become excellent foragers and have taken 100 degree days and daily thunderstorms with stride. The only downside is they have feathered legs and aren’t very meaty. They’re also really slow feathering. The 4 month old roosters still have chick down on their back and haven’t grown in any tail feathers. The 5 month old roo didn’t start growing tail feathers until two weeks ago. I know given their size they’re going to be very slow maturing.

Sounds like they're coming along pretty well!
Slow vs. fast feathering is controlled by one gene, and that gene is on the Z (sex) chromosome. Slow is dominant, so it cannot hide and pop up again later.

The simplest way to get rid of slow feathering is if you can use a fast-feathering male next year. All of his daughters will have fast feathering, and some of his sons probably will as well. (Any sons who feather slowly will carry the fast feathering gene, and can pass it to half of their chicks.)

Those Liege chicks look nice! And I see they have many of the same qualities that I found in Dark Cornish (pea comb, close feathering, compact body, patterned feathers. Looks like they feathered out fast, too.) So I can see why you've decided to cross them in to your mix!

 

[Blw18]

Oh, that's really nice! It makes it much easier to work with the colors! (And the other traits as well, of course.)

I have a notebook of all the past and present breeders on the farm and their progeny. Each has a name (if they’re more of a pet) or an ID (F1 BL/CT #1, F1 BL/CT #2, etc.). Underneath each name is a list of known traits, traits they’ve passed on to their offspring, behavior notes, ancestry, health history, and several other things. It makes it so much easier to keep track of everything about the current flock but also help me predict what a certain pairing will produce in their offspring.