The American Cemani Breeders Club...open forum

[Steadfast]

He must have thought your question was a GOOD one. He pressed me to post it here.

See, you are teaching even when you don't know you are...

 

[Randy2010]

I hope everyone thinks before they start crossing this breed with others thinking they are going to improve it. Yes it may fix an issue here or there, but it is going to take just as long, if not longer to breed the traits you don't want back out. I think you are better off just to breed your birds and keep a few of the best ones and cull the rest of them, if you do this each time you are going to improve the breed. Breeding these birds to the Sumatra are not going to give you the best birds in the US. Hard work, good breeding, and culling hard on the Ayam Cemani's that are here in the US, that is what's going to give you the best, not crossing to another breed.

 

[Randy2010]

One more thing I want to add, if your birds are already having issues, "not being black on the insides of their mouths, tissues, organs", then outcrossing to an Sumatra is going to further weaken the genes that do darken these things. So until people can afford to get better bloodlines, I would keep a few of your blackish pullets and the blackest rooster or roosters and breed them together, then keep doing it over and over and hopefully you can add a better bloodline down the road. But my honest opinion, if you cross them right now you are just going to destroy what good genes that have thinking you are going to have better birds. If they were already black inside and out as their should be, then you wouldn't be crossing in the first place.

 

[Steadfast]

An excellent point.

Mike said the same thing on the phone

His point was that
We need to decide now what an "American Cemani" is.
What each of it's traits should be.

Is it a smaller pretty black bird with a longer tail, blue and green sheen feathers, which will sale better to the masses. (Sumatra added) as greenfire seems to have done.
Or
Is it a classic bigger Cemani with just a blue sheen or flat black feathers. (I vote this one) which will sale better to the breed purists out there.

Ect Ect Ect

 

[Randy2010]

An excellent point.

Mike said the same thing on the phone

His point was that
We need to decide now what an "American Cemani" is.
What each of it's traits should be.

Is it a smaller pretty black bird with a longer tail, blue and green sheen feathers, which will sale better to the masses. (Sumatra added) as greenfire seems to have done.
Or
Is it a classic bigger Cemani with just a blue sheen or flat black feathers. (I vote this one) which will sale better to the breed purists out there.

Ect Ect Ect

Right now I don't think we need to worry about what the American Cemani should be. Right now everyone main focus should be to get them to breed pure black inside and out. There are many problems with them right now, even Mikes lines has issues.

 

[DCchicken]

One more thing I want to add, if your birds are already having issues, "not being black on the insides of their mouths, tissues, organs", then outcrossing to an Sumatra is going to further weaken the genes that do darken these things. So until people can afford to get better bloodlines, I would keep a few of your blackish pullets and the blackest rooster or roosters and breed them together, then keep doing it over and over and hopefully you can add a better bloodline down the road. But my honest opinion, if you cross them right now you are just going to destroy what good genes that have thinking you are going to have better birds. If they were already black inside and out as their should be, then you wouldn't be crossing in the first place.

Excellent point Randy. This is exactly why I decided against it. Outcrossing should only be done if you breed yourself into a corner. For example you determine that crossbeak is a problem. It just seemed to add more problems then it would fix. It's a short-cut but one filled with potholes.

 

[Randy2010]

I now have a trio of Greenfire farms birds and I do not believe at all that they have crossed Sumatra into their lines. They would not have had time to breed out the traits from the Sumatra in such a short period of time.

 

[Steadfast]

Good to know.

It's just that mike mentioned that green Shen feathers are a Sumatra crossed trait. The greenfire birds have this trait.
Soooooo... I was just putting 1 + 1 together.

 

[Randy2010]

Good to know.

It's just that mike mentioned that green Shen feathers are a Sumatra crossed trait. The greenfire birds have this trait.
Soooooo... I was just putting 1 + 1 together.

I don't think the green sheen has anything to do with birds being crossed, mine from them are a bluish green and so are Toni's line.

 

[Steadfast]

I'm not arguing here.
Just using shens as an example.

Mike said that the blue sheen alone is cemani; those with blue and the green Shen is an aspect from Sumatra. And denotes a Sumatra somewhere in the family tree.

And then there are those cemanis that are pure flat black with no sheen at all.
Are these flat black birds Better or lesser cemanis?

Traits like this need to be ironed out by us... eventually.
And we are in a unique historic position to do so.