Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[fuzzi]

It is so peaceful with the right boys and some sassy girls.

I felt so sorry for him, the hens were not nice, but it worked out well.

From July

Zack is good with his chicks. His own father tried to kill him.

 

[Skyeknight]

Just a somewhat random comment about bringing back rare breeds. Someone else posted a similar comment, and I read back a bit on this thread and didn’t see it, so apologies if I’m reposting.

A huge problem with rescuing a species or sub-species from near-extinction is that we generally wait too long. When there are few individuals left to restart the breed, we are looking at a genetic bottleneck: where after a natural disaster or some other event, there are very few individuals left to breed from.

Unless these individuals are scattered around the world, the chances are that they are closely related to one another (inbred), and using them as breeding stock increases the likelihood of concentrating lethal and other harmful genetic defects in their offspring.

If we want to maintain their specific genetic contribution to chickendom, a strong argument can be made for cross-breeding them with other breeds (subspecies), rather than trying to keep the line “pure,” which just continues to weaken the bloodline.

@Perris ‘s breeding program with the aim of increasing genetic diversity is far more important than trying to preserve unique individuals of a traditional but fading breed, sad as it is to say.

I also quite like the way Perris keeps chickens. Preserving genes by just letting rare breeds intermingle is not something I would think of. It's much like the Galveston island coyote, which is a hybrid canine still carrying genetics of extinct canine subspecies. Even if the respective chicken breeds die out for some reason the genes will still be there in other forms.

I myself am trying to "collect" phenotypic mutations like the 5 toe genes, fibromelanosis, crest, beard, tufts feathered shanks and double spurs. Although I am not as handsfree and will select for specific mutations. I hope I can at least keep some of those mutations around and see how they interact with each other.

 

[Perris]

We're going to get a second crop of strawberries this year
This one, picked between the downpours yesterday, was delicious

 

[Perris]

A bit late, but just want to say Im very pleased and exited too, to read Shad and Perris git in contact over choosing a cockerel! ! View attachment 4214110View attachment 4214111

I missed a few days again. And I think I know now why I didn’t get any update warnings. I was reading in the thread and stopped/skipped, bc I needed to do something else. Didn’t read up to the newest page.

In the Netherlands and Germany there a several industrial hatcheries that sex the eggs halfway the breeding process. They get a little liquid out of the egg with a thin needle. The minuscule drop of egg-fluid comes into a tube with liquid that reacts and changes in colour. A different colour for males than the females. A numbering system with coordinates makes it possible to take the male eggs out.

I have seen a documentary on TV about the hatchery that developed this new technique and how they made this work.

and then what do they do with the c. 50% of eggs/foetuses rejected via this process?