Show Off Your Games!

[centrarchid]

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Appears to be a he. In most color types, males in second feather set which your is in, tail flight feathers are darker including those that will be replaced by sicle feathers. Also males have a mottled appearance with darkers feathers mixed in with contour / body feathers. The spangling pattern of white I am personally not familiar with but based on pictures it gives young stags a marmolade cat look that pullets lack.

 

[KC n KY]

Quote:
Appears to be a he. In most color types, males in second feather set which your is in, tail flight feathers are darker including those that will be replaced by sicle feathers. Also males have a mottled appearance with darkers feathers mixed in with contour / body feathers. The spangling pattern of white I am personally not familiar with but based on pictures it gives young stags a marmolade cat look that pullets lack.

Great! I was hoping he was a "he". Thanks for input

 

[gallo4319]

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Just saw a hen on oakridge auctions that is a "Condor" line Melville Asil

Thank you, that clear my doubts about that line...:-D

 

[CluckyJay]

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That top rooster is too gorgeous. How much would he go for? I have no money, I'm just asking, LOL.

 

[ThiefPouter06]

So I am looking for some honest opinions. If one aquires a pair of game, regardless of breed (american, aseel...), and free ranges them like normal barnyard birds what is the real outcome? I know that the "pit" gamefowl is a bird specially selected, fed, conditioned and equipped to fight. However if raised as chicks in a free range situation what does one expect? I know that at the age of 4 months the stags are traditionaly seperated. I would expect that if you had birds that were "dunghill" (what most $5 game hens are I'm sure) that some of the stags would fight for hens and territory and die and some would run off. Every game guys automatic response is , "No my fowl are dead game even the hens would kill each other!" But we know genetically this is not true. Genetics is a grab bag of results, some good some bad. Some behavior is the norm within a breed. Aseel hens hardly tolerate each other for example. I appreciate the historical value of the traditionally raised gamefowl and also realize that a kelso thats not game is no longer a true represenative of the breed. I guess my question is, can one develope a line of fowl that has the features of games (hardiness, broodiness, thriftiness etc, physique) but able to live in a free range situation with other roosters? Given adequate/multiple housing and plenty of hens of course. I also realize some are thinking ," look for a differant breed". And I am not opposed to serating cocks and will if necessary. But how necessary is my question. Historically some breeds (sumatra and other SE asian games) were kept at liberty.

 

[DTchickens]

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Games aren't separated traditionally, but must be kept separate. I can take any two stags on my yard, toss them on yours and give them a couple months to see just how friendly they get along even raised together (the outcome will most likely be one dead stag, and probably one very nearing death that may be completely ruined for breeding or even looking at depending on how long it takes before you find them.) True gamefowl are just that way, you can kill the gameness by breeding but it can take quite a long time sometimes without crossing and even then you may have a throwback that will cause trouble.

Some breeds you can look into for free ranging I'd say would be Kraienkoppe, Key West birds, and junglefowl from hatcheries. Key West bird's and Kraienkoppe both have game blood, but are not game like their ancestors. Hatchery junglefowl are just nutts, but they look like games and can coexist very well on the free range. Really a game X junglefowl cross would meet your needs well, even back to 15/16th game the cocks got along fine. I didn't like them because of how crazy they were though.

-Daniel

 

[centrarchid]

Daniel,

I am raising up some F1 red jungle fowl x games and those by some hens are down right tame. Offspring of other hens crazier than you say. Of my tame birds, they are almost like crows in respect to how quickly they train.



ThiefPouter06,

We used to have two breeding systems with our games. First is with cock yard where roosters and often hens kept separate in coops on ground once maturity reached. This partly to control fighting and also to controll parentage. We did test matings with that arrangement. Second system which provided bulk of birds was based on walks where breeders (1 rooster and a couple to a dozen hens) determined to produce quality offspring in the first system. Walked birds were stocked out in early spring and allowed to breed and raise offspring through September when usually eldest stags and if needed pullets were harvest and transferred to cock yard. We usually kept only birds that were mature, balance used as fryers. Sometimes not all stags harvested and those would cause problems Daniel mentioned, for us starting in January. Generally speaking survivors (males) were not worth much, certainly not until after next molt.

Sometimes we would abandon a walk for a year or two and often flock would persist. If enough buildings and quality forage present, then occassionally more than one adult rooster would persist. Ranges did not overlap. Since birds game, such arranngements not stable and eventually battle royal would ensue. This pattern repeated itself multiple times on my grandparents farm where collecting all birds was difficult and grandpa liked to see birds everywhere.

 

[old*cowboy]

The future has arrived.

 

[DTchickens]

old*cowboy :

The future has arrived.
http://i51.tinypic.com/k3ayw1.jpg

What are they?

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Interesting, may have just been my hens. What's your plans for the crosses if you don't mind me asking?

-Daniel​

 

[centrarchid]

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Tame version only to be used as instructional aides. Need birds I can take anywhere, will interact with audience without being confined and will come when called. What I do is goes early, release birds and get them settled before crowd arrives. Pure American games do great but a little big for small kids to handle. I have birds fly up into hands of kids so latter can look at them up close. I also want to have different colortypes which is problem if using multiple game roosters.