Russian Orloffs

[NCSprout]

Club site member page has been updated. please message me if I haven't added you and you want to be. Also updated where to buy thread and began adding to genetics thread on forum page.

 

[desertmarcy]

I have a dilemma. Last year, I kept back the 2 best cockerels. Both are good color but one is significantly smaller than the other, so I didn't use him for breeding, but kept him as a spare. I am pretty happy so far with the way the birds are turning out from the first male, although they are still young. Right now I'm a bit overwhelmed with birds and have limited space to keep breeder males in individual pens and am trying to cut back on the number of birds. So here I'm raised and fed this guy for 1-1/2 years for what? Insurance? Just in case? Well, I did lose an older male to the heat. If is too early yet to know if any of this year's crop will be better. So far I am liking them better than the offspring from the older male that died from the heat, even though he was a nicer male, I think. Bigger, anyway. Just trying to decide if I should add him to my butcher run tomorrow. Or soon.

 

[desertmarcy]

Club site member page has been updated. please message me if I haven't added you and you want to be. Also updated where to buy thread and began adding to genetics thread on forum page.

Would you send the link again, please?

 

[vtguania]

Thanks for the update NCSprouts. It would be nice to know what variation of Orloff are available on the where to buy thread (as far as color goes).

Desertmarcy here's the link
http://usorloffs.freeforums.net/

 

[NCSprout]

Thanks for the update NCSprouts. It would be nice to know what variation of Orloff are available on the where to buy thread (as far as color goes).

Desertmarcy here's the link
http://usorloffs.freeforums.net/

Each listing is hyperlinked directly to the website or individual email. I think it is safe to assume that the majority of them are spangled. I know Kummer(Erhard) has mahogany, but I don't know of any other colors available in Large Fowl. I will try to go back and list other colors or whether they have lrg or bantam. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Gresh]

@Riddle: Thanks for the info and pic on duckfeet. I think my Orloff cockerel had duckfeet, now that I see that picture. The pullet didn't have duckfeet, as I remember

@NCSprout: I have often wondered just how much of a flaw it is if Orloffs have little feather studs on their toes or feet. Is there a specific portion of one of the standards that says this is a flaw, or is it a flaw in the eyes of certain breeders?

 

[vtguania]

Each listing is hyperlinked directly to the website or individual email. I think it is safe to assume that the majority of them are spangled. I know Kummer(Erhard) has mahogany, but I don't know of any other colors available in Large Fowl. I will try to go back and list other colors or whether they have lrg or bantam. Thanks for the suggestion.


NCSprout thanks for the update, I clicked on a few links but didn"t notice if it had color variation. True most breeders have Spangled and very few Mahogany. I managed to acquire 7 eggs from a breeder that has Mottled, it happened to be her last eggs at that since a coyote got her two adults (LF) yesterday. They have a few young chicks so maybe next year they may have some eggs up for sale. I will be putting those in the incubator tonight, just waiting for the right level of humidy to settle (first time incubating). I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

 

[Pozees]

I have a dilemma. Last year, I kept back the 2 best cockerels. Both are good color but one is significantly smaller than the other, so I didn't use him for breeding, but kept him as a spare. I am pretty happy so far with the way the birds are turning out from the first male, although they are still young. Right now I'm a bit overwhelmed with birds and have limited space to keep breeder males in individual pens and am trying to cut back on the number of birds. So here I'm raised and fed this guy for 1-1/2 years for what? Insurance? Just in case? Well, I did lose an older male to the heat. If is too early yet to know if any of this year's crop will be better. So far I am liking them better than the offspring from the older male that died from the heat, even though he was a nicer male, I think. Bigger, anyway. Just trying to decide if I should add him to my butcher run tomorrow. Or soon.

As a general rule, if you are reluctant to use him and his size has not improved, he probably belongs in the freezer. If you are trying to develop a linebreeding program wherein you will breed this year's pullets back to their sire and this year's cockerel(s) back to their dam, it seems unlikely you would need him, unless you lose this year's sire and have no other adult cock birds to use in his place and don't want to breed siblings or half siblings. If you have neighbors/breeding partners who have related males you might still have options there anyway. I have yet to own one of these so am speaking based on general principle - if size continues to be an issue in the breed, I wouldn't think you really want to use a smaller male anyway unless it is your only option. Is there any chance someone nearby would want him just as a general purpose flock bird just in case you need him? Other than that possibility, if it was me, I would not continue feeding and housing him. You could always put him in with a few of your largest hens for a few weeks to have some of his offspring just in case, then cull. If you don't want to hatch any more, which I think you said, maybe someone else would hatch some for you.

 

[NCSprout]

I managed to acquire 7 eggs from a breeder that has Mottled, it happened to be her last eggs at that since a coyote got her two adults (LF) yesterday. They have a few young chicks so maybe next year they may have some eggs up for sale. I will be putting those in the incubator tonight, just waiting for the right level of humidy to settle (first time incubating). I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Awesome! I hope they do well for you. I have only found one person that claimed to have mottled, but they didn't breed true.
I have always thought there were others out there, but I just couldn't find them. That is also a big reason why I wanted to get an organized list of breeders. There's cuckoo out there, too.

 

[ashandvine]

I believe you may want to look at that study again. http://www.agrobiology.ru/4-2011yakovlev-eng.html
The one common link between the 4 studied breeds was their root in fighting chickens. They all had descended in part from Malay and Central Asian birds

The information is still the same as when I found this link the first time. Help me go through it? Any genetics majors out there??

I read another article about the same time and need to find it again but it was an archeological study using DNA markers to identify the first 'chicken.' I might have sent this to Charlie NC, not sure.

When I read this, "As mentioned above, the studied breeds were chosen for a subject of research owing to the fighting ancestors present in their pedigree. The comparative morphological study of Uzbek Game breed and 29 populations of different origins has shown the location of Russian Orloff and Uzbek Game breeds in one cluster of a cladogram (9). There’s no definite data on the origin of Russian Orloff breed although it possesses some characteristics of fighting morphological type" it confirms that history you are mentioning but then they state, "Russian Orloff was found to be the breed genetically most distant from three other studied breeds" and that it was only possible that the Malay was used to create the Orloff. Even they didn't have definitive information but it SEEMED to me that these two had the most in common. I believe that the Uzbek Game, according to the little bit of information I was able to gather, is that they are a localized type of fighting bird. I keep reading people parrot that the Malay was a part of this breeds make up. It makes sense but so far nothing has proven that. Right??

I want to understand this part of the publication better: Calculation of heterozygosity (Table 4) showed the lowest genetic heterogeneity in the studied sample of Russian Orloff chickens relative the three other studied breeds having close heterozygosity levels. It should be considered that the degree of heterozygosity reflects breeding processes in particular population.

Who knows what this means? I think I understand hetero vs homozygous ... but in practice???