Red Laced Cornish X and project talk (pics p. 8)

[big medicine]

Rohrs Keith?

Walt

Give that man a cigar.

Could not come up with his name. What I remember of his birds at Columbus, very good large darks.

 

[big medicine]

Now I can't remember who, or why, we were trying to come up with his name.

 

[kfacres]

How does the color vary ?

The color of your's is very light, almost sky blue- with very distinct red backgrounds. The colors of my blues is a very dark blue, darker than the background of this website now. It's to the point of almost black in poor lighting. When they are babies, you really have to study them to tell they are blue. I'm guessing it must be the dark I've used to improve on type that is making my blue darker. There is also less red comiing out- course it might have to do with most of mine being males-- and the red is working similar to the lacing (lack of) on the darks. I'll try to get a couple pics side by side..

this year, I also got quite a variable in the black laced groups. some have crazy ammounts of red- others look almost dark. Not sure what I want to focus on yet- if anything- other than improving body and stoutness. .

How the build on the young whites ? I liked the build on the original white male better, but if he was not producing chicks, it's all for not.

Not as chubby as my blacks- but certainly more substance than most of the blues. I agree on the cocks- but what good is one that can't reproduce? I can say that as the bird matures- he's getting quite a bit of yellow bleed, I suppose from the heat and humidity.

 

[galanie]

Might be worth noting, in case this makes a difference, that with just blue matings in other breeds, you end up with varying shades of blue. It's one of the things that makes them a little difficult to breed. You can get even color, good lacing, etc. to "fix" but will always have varying colors of blue from one bird to the next.

 

[kfacres]

Some pics from this weekend.

The best dark pullet- even though she looks plenty 'mature'.

The extreme light blue- from the BM eggs.


All from the BM eggs but the blue banded on left, she is from my eggs. The back two are Brahma.


The Dark Brahama from BM.


The best dark pullet, a blue from my eggs in background- and three whites. The one on left is appearing to be my only cockerel. and- the one lone guinea hatched this year.


The lone Dark cockerel. He'll remain as stud sire for next year obviously.


The other of the two really good black laced cockerels. This is the darker one. It took him pretty long to develop lacing- and for most of his life I thought he would be a dark instead.


The only 'light' colored blue I hatched. Note the extreme lankiness compared to the two black laced- which in theory are full siblings in blood- and are only about a month older.


One of the two best black laced cockerels. This is the 'redder' one.

 

[kfacres]

I don't really care for any of the blue cockerels I have hatched this year, or last. Last year I kept the bulkiest one to breed with this year- and this year I'll do the same to try and improve on for next. Might end up putting all the dark females with him instead of the blues- to help in that factor. Might do the same with the dark cock and blue hens-- instead of keeping them straight. Personal prference is the blue laced pattern over all other colors.

 

[big medicine]

I think you are putting way to much emphasis on color here. They are the same bloodline, whether they inherited the blue gene (or reccessive white for that matter), has no bearing on type, at least not at this stage. If a person were to segregate by color without regard for type, over extended generations it might become a set trait. But at this point I think the combination of color and type is just a random role of the dice.

I pen up the best typed birds (plus a few lighter built/looser feathered hens) and try not to let color factor in to it so much .As long as you keep the blue alive in a few of your birds, set the type you want first, then once that is established, put more emphasis on color.

I personally prefer the look of the blue laced red also, and maybe more so the splash laced red, with emphasis on the red.

Just curious, you distiguished birds from my eggs verses from your eggs, is there much difference genetically ?.

Finally got a new, well actually a used computor over the weekend, My old one crapped out and was borrowing the wifes machine. So now have all my old photos transferred to this machine and will try to get some new shots of the youngsters next couple days.

 

[kfacres]

I think you are putting way to much emphasis on color here. They are the same bloodline, whether they inherited the blue gene (or reccessive white for that matter), has no bearing on type, at least not at this stage. If a person were to segregate by color without regard for type, over extended generations it might become a set trait. But at this point I think the combination of color and type is just a random role of the dice.

I know this, but that is what makes me scratch my head. The original Blue cock from your lines was a different animal than the original full sibling black laced cock. I have found that these body charactoristics have multiplied through the next two generations-- and the birds I made this summer are fastly different in phenotype between the colors. The blues are taller, more upright, less bone, plenty less meat- and much later maturing. The black laced- obviously are the opposite. The WLR color (coming from their mothers) are somewhere in the middle. I have yet to have an outlier not fall within this set 'type'.

I pen up the best typed birds (plus a few lighter built/looser feathered hens) and try not to let color factor in to it so much .As long as you keep the blue alive in a few of your birds, set the type you want first, then once that is established, put more emphasis on color.

By 'type', are you referring to true Cornish look- SOP-- or do you refer to the more backyard meat bird growth charactoristics? I could see where one might work both ways- but the next not so much?

I personally prefer the look of the blue laced red also, and maybe more so the splash laced red, with emphasis on the red.

Show me pictures, I'm not sure what the difference is- I have a slight idea though.

Just curious, you distiguished birds from my eggs verses from your eggs, is there much difference genetically ?.

Genetically, there might be. I used that really good dark cockerel from Steve for one season- although I do not think his influence is much on my birds hatched this year. My base of those 4 WLR pullets is also different from your's. For next year, I will have quite a bit of the Steve dark cock's influence running through- as I'll have some direct daughters, and some double bred grand-offspring running around. I can say that the Cornish type is improved using this genetic line- as well as the overall muscle yield. My main reason for distiguishing the difference was 'just to know and compare'. It's not going to effect future breeding decisions. The best birds, will remain in the breeding pens. In theory, depending on how the dice roll, and that I do not plan to inject anymore bloodlines into my birds-- future offspring will either be 50% the same as your's (all colors), or 100% (as in the case of my 'darks')

 

[big medicine]

Theoretically there might be a link between color and type, but I would bet if you could hatch a thousand chicks you could pick out examples of every body type in every color. I suspect the limited sample size is swaying percieved results here. There is still some variance in body type, leg length, and so forth showing up in these birds. Understandable if you consider the range of features found in their founding breeds of Cornish, Brahma, Wyandotte, and more remotely Cochin.


I forgot about the WLR imput. Is this male from Steve a true dark, or out of eggs we sent him after the big gnat massacre a few years back?

I will try to get photos.

 

[kfacres]

Theoretically there might be a link between color and type, but I would bet if you could hatch a thousand chicks you could pick out examples of every body type in every color. I suspect the limited sample size is swaying percieved results here. There is still some variance in body type, leg length, and so forth showing up in these birds. Understandable if you consider the range of features found in their founding breeds of Cornish, Brahma, Wyandotte, and more remotely Cochin.


I forgot about the WLR imput. Is this male from Steve a true dark, or out of eggs we sent him after the big gnat massacre a few years back?

I will try to get photos.

Agree= hatched about 60 last summer- a few less this year-- but I wasn't as dedicated to hatching this year. Too much on my plate. Break that down- to 15-20 of each color.

The dark is a true dark- came from some guy in Iowa that is a bantam guy- and had some LF just running around. Don't know bloodlines- but they were a little more leggy than SOP people want them- it shows in my birds too.. but they have way more bone under them- and better heads.

The WLR were half dark as well- Christine somebody I think from Iowa. That's how I got darks first generation...

The big dark cock- as a year old... Lost him just after this pic was taken in the heat of 2012! Remember him weighing 16 or 18 pounds.