The Buckeye Thread

[CanadianBuckeye]

Sooooo, Canadian Buckeye all you need to do now is match your birds and then fill the incubator every 22 days from February to November. Then choose the best 10 birds that you hatched throughout the season. I would do that if I could afford the feed bill. I currently have 15 chicks and they are eating almost a bag of feed a week. I could not imagine what the feed bill for over 500 chicks would be.

Stryker Yikes!!!!

but you're right, may as well run a full incubator as a 3/4 empty one.

Don't confuse yourself with looking at all birds as potential show type birds. The goal of any breeding should be to reproduce the parents quality at minimum, but really to improve on the next generation to be better than the parents. However, if a parent has something to reinforce a good trait on a son or daughter, then don't think you should just keep scrapping the old. You should always look at pairings in a way that takes the strengths of both parents and compare it to the other and find if they do compliment. If they both share the same bad qualities, then you are going to reinforce it or make it worse by breeding it together again. Example, two birds with bad combs (because it is a simple trait to pick out) are bred together, you may luck out and get some throwbacks to an earlier generation that had a correct comb, but you would more likely see most or all of you birds to have combs as bad or worse than their parents. One a Buckeye, a big, wonky comb is hard to ignore. I could keep giving examples, but I think that one is pretty good to start with. So, if you have one parent with a good comb and another who's comb is say, oversized, some will have one end and others will have the other end of the distance between the good and the bad. But you never look at just one trait, you still need to look at the whole package and what each bird is bringing to the pairing.
I hope that isn't just mud for you. I think you are picking up on this stuff very well, CB.

Just knowing and doing are two very different beasts where this is all concerned.

MCM this makes sense, my next step will be picking out the best couple of hens for my rooster next year.

 

[Minniechickmama]

Yikes!!!!! Stryker

but you're right may as well run a full incubator as a half empty one ;-)
MCM- I hope you're nice and close to the feed mill, you are obviously their best customer!

I buy feed from a friend who is a dealer. I get to go over in the evenings and most times we visit for a bit. I use Blue Seal Feeds. I used to use a mix from an elevator, they got bought out by another big ag company and the feed was crap and jumped up $3 per bag in a week. I left them.

 

[cvamoca]

Also, make sure you hang onto the parents to breed back to their best offspring.

 

[stryker]

Good point.

 

[stryker]

Canadian buckeye, I know of people hatching every ten days. I think those have a Hatcher but not sure.

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

Also, make sure you hang onto the parents to breed back to their best offspring.

Isn't that what you do only if one of /both the parents are exceptional?

Stryker I don't think I'll ever get that big, hatching every 10 days, no way!!!

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

I buy feed from a friend who is a dealer. I get to go over in the evenings and most times we visit for a bit. I use Blue Seal Feeds. I used to use a mix from an elevator, they got bought out by another big ag company and the feed was crap and jumped up $3 per bag in a week. I left them.

My chickens are pretty fussy too, they definitely have feed preferences. They didn't like the standard grower crumbs, I had to dump it.

 

[Minniechickmama]

Isn't that what you do only if one of /both the parents are exceptional?

Stryker I don't think I'll ever get that big, hatching every 10 days, no way!!!

Yes and no. You have to look at how any pairing might compliment each other. To keep a cock who fathered a generation around just because you think you should isn't a reason. Keeping a cock back because you want to strengthen a trait he has by breeding him to his daughters, that would be a reason to keep him. But if you use a bird that, though it may have some good qualities, if the next generation kept them and more, then why keep the older bird? You want to progress, not stagnate.

 

[stryker]

Isn't that what you do only if one of /both the parents are exceptional?

Stryker I don't think I'll ever get that big, hatching every 10 days, no way!!!

I don't think that I would do that either.

 

[estamets]

Pretty sure I got a Buckeye in my last order of mixed brown layers from My Pet Chicken. Beautiful mahogany feathers, pea comb.
Question on sexing - her comb is red (at 8 weeks), and legs are thicker than my other girls. Hackle and saddle feathers are all round, though. Any other traits I should be looking for, in trying to sex her?