show quality speckled sussex ??

[Orange Ribbon]

Snowbird and Fowlman, thanks for the information and the chart.

As for the slits, I'm guessing that is made on the webbing also?

Snowbird, I am keeping the hatchery stock separate. Had thought about maybe breeding one of the breeder SS roosters to a hatchery hen or two just to see what happens, but even then they would never get bred back into the good flock.

Here is a possible plan and you can tell me if this is good or not, or if you have a better idea. I realize that how the younger birds turn out may play a part as to what actually gets bred with what.

I have 3 Roosters. For now the 2 year old rooster will remain with the 2 year old hens.

One 4 month old rooster will go with six of the 4 month old hens in one pen. The other 4 month old rooster will go with the other six 4 month old hens in another pen. As chicks are hatched I will mark the feet according to the suggestions above. I guess I need a way to mark them so I can tell which pen they came from too. The chicks will all go together into another pen until old enough to begin breeding them. Does that sound good?

Also, I need to understand what to do with any hatchlings. I know I will need to cull. Actually, some of the birds I have now may need to be culled, but not sure yet. I do know I need to probably replace the older rooster since he has too much white on his wings, but figured I'd go ahead and see what kind of chicks come out of them since that is all I have available to breed right now. Might even separate a couple of the best looking 2 year old birds into the pens with the other two roosters when they get old enough to start breeding. Several of the older hens have tails that stand up too high.

I guess that once any chicks turn out to be good enough to breed need to go into pen with the rooster that is not their father. Also, if I have any good looking rooster chicks, they will need to get their own pen and female chicks hatched from the pen they were not born from can be put in with them. I see that this could get into a mess because then you could end up with a bajillion pens and I don't think that is the way to go. Somewhere along the way there has to be a cut off point as to size of the flock(s). So, I sure would appreciate any advice on this. I have seen some posts about breeding so I will try to find them again. Since we are all working on this breed would it be good to put up some breeding programs on this thread to study on that are suited particularly to SS?

Sorry my terminology isn't up to par. Hopefully you get what I'm saying until I get better edjumacated.

 

[snowbird]

Jeff, will wait on some other opinions and then post what I would do going forward.

 

[mrheinz77]

Jeff,
Just my 2 cents worth.

1. To get the best colored offspring I would take your darkest hen and cross her with your rooster. Hopefully the other traits are good.
2. Generally I would pick the hens that are strong in the areas that your rooster is weak and cross them. Watch the resulting offspring and pick the best. When the younger birds are breeding age analyze them and look at the whole flock. There is nothing that says you need to not cross the 2 flocks.
3. Line breeding in poultry isn't a bad thing. You could pick the best cockerel and cross him back to his mother or the best pullet back to her father. Likewise you can cross 2 siblings
4. I think Don stated earlier it is better to have and breed a few really good birds than to cross a lot of ok birds. Only keep what you can manage and cull hard.
5. I think Don has also said it is better to do single matings so you know what you are getting.

Now, this is where Don and Walt come in and remind me I'm a novice and have been absent from class to long and clarify/fix my mistakes.

 

[math ace]

Quote:
If you have TWO 4 months old roosters that already llok better than the 2 year old, I would say adios to the two year old in a HEARTBEAT!

Those 4 month olds will be ready for action within 2 months! You can WAIT that long to make sure you spend the next SIX MONTHS raising better stock.

JUST MY OPINION.... But I use the best I got.... NEVER hurry to use YUCK.

 

[math ace]

Quote:
An awful lot of ole time breeders recommend what they call line breeding.

Parents produce offspring....
The daughters, granddaughters, great granddaughters are all bred back to the father.
The sons can be bred back to the mother. The grandson back to the grandmothers... etc.

Don't breed bothers to sisters.

A lot of folks do single matings. . . . FOR EXAMPLE

I have two delaware roosters right now. One is in with the delaware hens and the other is in with the extra speckled sussex hens.
When I get ready to use the spare delaware rooster...... I will throw him in with the delaware hens and throw the other rooster back in with the speckled sussex hens. Of course I would have to WAIT for the new roosters sperm to be the only possible sperm fertilizing the eggs....
Then I select the eggs from the delware hens that I want. I do that easily by letting the rest of the other delaware hens free range during the day and keep roo and hen together in the pen.

Gotta to go, but if that is not clear..... let me know and I will retype when I get back from my errands.

 

[snowbird]

This is all going good. Glad to see comments. When I give my thoughts will break it down into different posts, so it will not be a real long post as some times I get a little windy.

 

[snowbird]

Jeff, if you would like go to the Wheaten and Blue Wheaten thread and go to page #127 starting, Post 1261-1263-1264-1266-1268-1293-1294 these are some of my pens and cages.

 

[math ace]

Quote:
I found that most of my pullets with high tails also had pinched tails....

I don't know if that was a coincident or normal association.

 

[math ace]

Quote:

I don't understand this statement . .. so you will need to translate to me . Sorry.

 

[Orange Ribbon]

Thanks everyone! Now I'm getting really excited.

Math Ace, to answer your question, I dunno!

Were you asking about my breeding statement or my terminology remark? As to breeding I was wondering along the lines of whether it best to line breed or do something else like have 4 pens, throw rooster from pen 1 into pen 2, rooster from pen 2 into pen 3 etc., etc. Can't remember what type of breeding that is called. One of the reasons for my terminology remark. I can't keep in my head what certain aspects/procedures/and other things are called. LOL. Fowlman gave that chart for toe punching. I realized that would be good for keeping track of each individual bird, but then I was scratching my head trying to figure out how to mark them to know which pen they came out of. As soon as I got off the computer I realized that the toe punching not only lets you keep track of each individual bird, but along with your records you will know which pen each chick came from using the toe punch. DUH! Ever since my heart surgery last fall which was a very long major operation, my brain is a little slow sometimes. The doctors warned me it might take a year or more to get back to normal, but my normal never was anything to brag about. HA! I just have to think about things a little longer than usual, that's all.

I promise I will start getting pictures on here in the next few days. I'm trying to get my SS pens ready so I can get them away from my other birds. I have them in a separate pen all to themselves, but like today one of my older SS flew over the 7 ft. fence in with some mixed up roosters. I hope it wasn't the one that is laying eggs! I never can catch the layer in the act, so I don't know which one it is yet. Regardless, I need to get them where I can keep them extra safe and have complete control over what I'm doing. I am very proud of these birds, but I will be sure to show each of them from several angles so we can see the good and the bad. The one good thing about all of them is they have good, dark mahogany color. Not too much black with wide backs and plumb chests, some plumper than others though. That is my take on it by what I've learned from you all so far, but I might be off on some things. I know there is more to learn. I look forward to it, and I sure do thank all of you who contribute with information, pictures of your birds, even judging comments.

How long does it take for the feathers to come back after a molt? The older rooster and a couple of hens have not got tail feathers back in yet, and the rooster appears to be bare around his neck in spots. Not bare to the skin, but you can see the fuzzy feathers underneath in places. Daggone, here I am stuck on what those feathers are called.

Okay, I'm going back and read over the last few posts again to make sure I didn't miss anything. Also going to look at the posts Don recommended. Thank you all again.
Jeff