Show Off Your American Gamefowl and Chat Thread!!!

[rohrspoultry]

For those of you who breed do you leave your hens with cocks all year long or do You separate? Also ill try my hardest to get you to understand what I mean lol but say I breed a hatch hen to kelso cock the chicks would be half each right and the chicks after what would they be.
Thank You!!!

 

[sdm111]

For those of you who breed do you leave your hens with cocks all year long or do You separate? Also ill try my hardest to get you to understand what I mean lol but say I breed a hatch hen to kelso cock the chicks would be half each right and the chicks after what would they be.
Thank You!!!

I have most paired up and a few singles but try to keep pairs or trios together, if I understand right It depends on if u inbreed the chicks together they would stay half and half. If u bred say a pullet back to her dad you would have 3/4 kelso, 1/4 hatch
Maybe someone can varify

 

[Linnmarie]

11 New babies an proud parents

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

Wondering if what I was told could be possible. A guy told me he heard from an old timer that you could breed a pheasant to a game chicken to give your gamefowl more power in its kick. Has anyone else heard this?

ihave read some stuff on pheasant chicken crosses first it can occur naturally but you need to research the succesful crosses if I remember right you have different fertilixation rates based on sires species and then hatching rates of those in the low 40%. I think pheasant sire 7-6% fertility of eggs layed -& cock as sire 19-5%. Bteed of chicken can increase defects in chicks it seems to me. You have to be patient and incubate a lot of eggs to get a few viable chickd... And I cant remember if some chicks are sterile based on father species to mother species and if you can only breed back to a certain species to get chicks like you have to do with green jungle fowl crossings. I have no idea if pheasant blood gives you extra zip in any trait but there are pictures of such crosses on the web and the cock birds do have pheasant like tails. I am on the cell so sorry about sp issues

 

[JShubin]

I dont think adding pheasant blood would be good for extra kick... maybe just cool colors and appearance. but without fertility it is only a one time deal and no way to improve upon through subsequent breeding back to the gamefowl side.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

I dont think adding pheasant blood would be good for extra kick... maybe just cool colors and appearance. but without fertility it is only a one time deal and no way to improve upon through subsequent breeding back to the gamefowl side.

I don't think it would add the desired zip, and then there is the fact many chicks that do survive to adulthood seem fragile often not living as long as a chicken or a pheasant... according to people who had an accidental mating or actually have fiddled with this. Now I do not know if the cross causes a problem or if it is something else like diet issues.

The math is not in your favor 1000 eggs at 6-7% is 60-70 fertile eggs but a 42% hatch rate would give you 25 to 29 chicks with possible 1% defects that you must cull on top of that but less defects than the other option which gives you 190 to 50 fertile eggs but 78-20 chicks but which results in 12 times the birth defects you will have to cull so that is up to 9-10 chicks further loss.

I have to find the longterm fertility notes... but often one gender is sterile as I pointed out with green jungle fowl cross domestic chicken.

I have often wondered about this idea of mating pheasants to chickens for gameness/ability and I wonder if what is really meant was chickens of pheasant type body like the Sumatra as that makes a heck of more sense. Remember people thought birds like the Sumatra (there are other breeds like the Minohiki or Yokohama with the "pheasant" look) or Green Jungle Fowl, Sri Lankan Jungle Fowl, or Grey Jungle Fowl where pheasants in the olden days. Most people seem to do it either as a Mad Scientist thing or to get interesting new feather patterns.

There is bits and pieces on behaviors as well on these crosses and they make different noises but I would not expect them to be game but who knows. I am no expert I just read up on this a few years ago as I had no idea it could even be done till I saw the first image on the net.

I also have wondered if this might be an old school folk joke, like the chicken version of the Snipe Hunt. Somehow I can see some tough old guys telling the young guys this just to pull a prank.

It is a mighty big list of species that can cross with the chicken btw. I would love to see the Silver Pheasant Cross also I found a Peacock Cross (old black and white photo, very tall bird).

http://www.aviculture-europe.nl/nummers/08e06a07.pdf

The link is a little paper on crosses, but there are science paper too (because college kids need projects

) and if you do a search you can find lots of images and stories about how it happened by accident in someone's flock or someone fooling around with the idea.

I am not telling anyone what to do or not do but understand you have challenges and need patience and the breeding might or might not give you the long term desired results. Crosses often need very special diets or they die young. Long-tail breeders have done a lot of experimenting with the jungle fowl and some folks who have are on BYC they post pictures too.

Peace All.

 

[roosterhavoc]

I would go for a 3-way cross of golden egg laying goose/sage grouse/ purkey (peacock X turkey) X MS black. But that's just me.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

On the breeding thing I ran across some info that I have not been able to verify... I do not breed, but am studying everything I can on breeding as it is a goal for me (disclaimer)

So here is what I found:

Each bird has 4 gametes it contributes in the process but apparently 3 of the hens go to supporting the 1 that contributes her DNA to the chick and that is a her 50% but the rooster supposably supplies 12.5% of each of his gametes to the chick for his 50% as all 4 gametes are active in the fertilization process.

Now I am not sure how to use that in breeding but what I am taking away is hen gives 1 whole gamete (random out of her 4) and you get a more randomized mix of all from the rooster. I think it means several families could easily be created from each crossing of the same two birds. Hen DNA chooses sex of chick.

But it seems too some animals more reliably pass certain genes, which means in matings you want to note that, as those animals male or female up your chances of getting the result you want or don't want.

Then there are sex-linked genes which add a twist, I think it is unwise to assume all sex-linked genes are physically visible as other species have shown such genes exist for other factors, like the X factor in racehorses which is now understood to be a bigger healthy heart than normal, it is passed by the mare but only expresses in males.

So take this all with a grain of salt as I need to verify the info, as we all know everything on the net is true...

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

I would go for a 3-way cross of golden egg laying goose/sage grouse/ purkey (peacock X turkey) X MS black. But that's just me.

Awesome! LOL

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

Comb question: Topsy birds, what have you guys seen and does this line have a tendency toward the dome soft spot thing?