The American Cemani Breeders Club...open forum

[maranfarmer563]

Best of luck with your hatch,I do use medicated food for my juvenile chicks out on grass in chicken tractors in the summer. I see you are more north than me. Hopefully the weather won't be too hard on you. I have a greenhouse to raise my winter babies. Welcome and keep in touch Jody

 

[EpicBlueAcres]

Unfortunately it is already down into the 20-30 real feel temps even during the day. Our last winter was brutal lost 2 of my older girls to the svr wind & freezes. The babies will be in the house for awhile (while I build the inside portion.of their coop in our climate controlled barn. I want to keep them in the house as long as I can stand so they get as people friendly as possible. We do farm tours in the summer for city kids to see chickens & horse & heirloom veggies and understand what goes into making their food and a good diet. I also raise heritage chickens for meat.

 

[Regin]

Hello all,
I am a new owner of Ayam Cemani & in the middle of my first hatch (eggs imported from UK, Tony Marie Astin & Chris Charles lines). I have done research on this breed as I have been fascinated with them since I started with chickens over 3 yrs ago. I finally saved enough money to do things proper and get quality eggs (started with 9). I want to work on breeding and perfecting these birds (that is if my hatches give me males & females). I have plans for a fully heated and a/c coop with attached run and hope to free range (nervous about loss). I have organic food and artisian water to keep them as healthy as possible (i don't drink our tap water so don't want my birds to). Theu y will be going to our avian vet for a health check as soon as old enough. I am going to raise these guys and start hatching some eggs and go from there. I am looking into getting npip but am scared from the disclaimers "they can't be held responsible for killing any birds during the testing process" besides being hard to get my chickens are pets not livestock to me.
Is there anything else I should be doing? Advise?

Congratulations!

I wouldn't worry about the NPIP process killing your birds. It's just a standard disclaimer. Some very high strung birds could be frightened badly. Sounds like yours are going to be used to being handled.

I went to a class to DO the testing. The testing involves pricking and taking a drop of blood form the vein at the second wing joint. The blood drop is mixed with a reactor agent to see if the chicken has specific antibodies.

 

[EpicBlueAcres]

Thankyou Regin for the information on npip, I am a certified veterinary technician so I wonder if I would even be able to draw the blood or at least assist. Some of the rescues I have taken in are still easily stressed, we had workmen redoing our horse barn stalls & they stopped laying for a week

 

[maranfarmer563]

I put a new roof on my chicken coop and mine stopped laying too

 

[DCchicken]

So here is an example of what not to purchase (this was purchased as a three week old from Mike Bean and is now mine):



1. Ayam Cemani do not have white earlobes. This shows a lack of the FM gene in the Smithsonian line.
2. The comb should not flop over. This is a trait inherited from Mediterranean breeds like Leghorns.
3. Wattles should be black (or at the least gray with mulberry in them).
4. Skin should be black, not gray. This would indicate Lavender Leghorn DNA.
5. Body shape (carriage) is incorrect. This indicates DNA from Mediterranean breeds that are bred for laying. The long back of Leghorns promotes increased egg laying.

To "fix" this line would require breeding with a pure, legitimate Ayam Cemani. At least 40 or so offspring would need to be hatched and grown out. Then out of those offspring, only the single best example would be kept. So 99% of the offspring would be culled. Then that best chicken would be bred back to the same pure Cemani. The original rooster (in the picture) would be culled and not used anymore.

So to "fix" the line would require thousands of dollars in feed and housing. And then there is the time issue. By the time the line would start to resemble the Dutch Standard (or even the British Standard), the price of the Ayam Cemani would have fallen to the point where it is would not be financially feasible to sell the offspring. You would spend more than you could possibly recover.

As with any breed, you should start with near Standard perfect examples. If you cannot afford them, then just wait. By next Spring, the price will have come down to the point that Ayam Cemani will probably be very affordable. Many of us have spent the year heavily culling and are now building out large flocks. I expect that my Cemani flock alone will be able to produce 30+ eggs per day. That volume is going to push the price of high quality Cemani down to affordable levels. And that's just my farm. There are lots of Cemani breeders already out there. So the price is rapidly dropping.

 

[lishanicole81]

Has anyone considered using svart hona with the mike bean Cemani line to reintroduce the pure fm gene and then breed back to Cemani to meet size and appearance standards?

 

[Double Kindness]

Well Reginald is a little piggy and eats himself silly on ff he's healed up nicely from the crow reduction surgery and I have a haffie (ac x mo) pullet in with him and he's taking very sweet care of Cookie. Which shows me that he is a good personality so far. She is far younger and smaller and the only pullet out of the last 6 chicks I got from my friend.

 

[DCchicken]

I have had a lot of people send me PMs about Ayam Cemani (and Svart Hona). So I would like to extend an invitation to everyone that might have a question but maybe does not feel comfortable posting in a forum. I myself am now on my 4th generation of breeding Ayam Cemani. I spent a large amount of time researching their genetics and history. I own multiple lines and even breed Svart Hona. Or if you have breeding question in general, feel free to ask that as well and I will share with everyone. I have been doing research on FM breeds like Ayam Cemani, Svart Hona, Ogye, and Hmong for a research paper.

Here are some of the interesting questions that I have gotten from customers. I plan to post more as time allows but thought it useful to post these:

Q: What are the different colors of Ayam Cemani?

A: Technically there is only one color of Ayam Cemani and that is black. Both the Dutch Standard and Indonesia Standards specify everything to be black. In Indonesia, However, recently a genetic anomaly happened. A genetic blue Ayam Cemani chick was hatched by a breeder in the U.S. Blue is linked genetically to black. However, there is just a single bird that we know about at this time. So it may be a while before they are for sale to the public.

Q: How come some of the Cemani I see have red combs and wattles and others have black combs and wattles?

A: Both the Dutch and Indonesian Standards call for black combs and wattles for Ayam Cemani. The black comb and wattles are caused by a combination of the FM gene and the GF modifier. Going strictly by the two established standards, if the comb and wattles are any color other than black, then the bird is not Ayam Cemani. Ayam Cemani are actually a sub-breed of Ayam Kedu. The Kedu come in three color varieties: kedu (black feathers with red/clear skin and comb), hsian (partridge feathers with black skin/comb), and cemani (black with black skin/comb).

Q: I heard the term "Cemani" means all black. Is this true?

A: No. Although Cemani is commonly used to refer to the all black Kedu, it actually is the name of a village in Java, just as Kedu is a region in Indonesia. However, the term "ayam" does mean chicken. So Ayam Cemani are chickens that originate from Cemani. But since both the Indonesian and Dutch standards call for all black, the name is associated with all black chickens.

Q: Will two perfect Cemani produce perfect offspring?

A. That is the hope. However just like all breeds of chickens, some offspring may not be perfect. I highly recommend only selling, breeding, and purchasing perfect examples. My experience is that Cemani buyers will not tolerate any red in the combs or wattles. So those chicks should be culled.

Q: Why are Cemani so expensive?

A. Pure examples of Ayam Cemani do not lay well, which causes fewer chicks and eggs to be available from each hen. So expect on the low end, 60 eggs per year and 90 on the high end. However, some breeders have crossed their lines to Leghorns in an attempt to increase egg production. But once you create a hybrid, it is no longer Ayam Cemani and since it is the genetics and not just the "look" of the bird that makes it Ayam Cemani, it will be difficult and expensive to bring them back to something resembling Ayam Cemani. The price of Ayam Cemani will come down drastically over the next year.

 

[DCchicken]

Has anyone considered using svart hona with the mike bean Cemani line to reintroduce the pure fm gene and then breed back to Cemani to meet size and appearance standards?

I own original imports of Svart Hona that are unrelated to Greenfire's Svart Hona. I have noticed that my Svart Hona are already quite larger than any of the Cemani lines in the U.S. At some point I plan on trying a cross of my Svart Hona to my Cemani lines. However, doing so is going to introduce unknown genetics and issues. So it has not been a priority. There is just too much demand for pure breed Svart Hona right now to cross them out.