The Front Porch Swing

[Beekissed]

BK, I've been asking myself that exact question. I was a librarian for long enough to not really want to spend a lot of time cataloging birds.

I was thinking from my first generations here, putting the pullets first to lay in with their father and hatching out as much from them as possible. For the males, breed the ones that start to look/act like cockerels first back to their mothers, hatch those eggs ...

But of course with the Delaware project the goal is to get them looking right, so after the time for the "firsts" passes and the rest of the birds catch up maturity-wise, then do beauty pagent breedings ...???

Only band the good broodies???

Start again with a similar strategy as the second batch matures???

This means moving birds around, and having multiple pens ... another of my pet peeves. But it would maybe move the Delawares towards maturing a bit faster. And I'm thinking the Delawares as heavy as they are might stay put in their designated pastures a bit better than the hatchery birds do. Those light-bodied leghorn influenced birds I got from the hatchery are independent thinkers. Especially the California Whites.

Since I'm not one to be putting "looking right" at the top of my list of traits to breed for, that would come dead last for me...absolutely dead last. Once I got the laying, health, early maturing, broody tendencies, foraging and survival traits, temperament, feed thrift and feather quality down, then I'd worry about colors or looks. For me, showing or SOP has very little meaning if the dog won't hunt. You may be able to take him to a show but no one who is serious about a hunting dog is going to want any of his offspring.

In my state there are very little, if any, shows or people who breed heritage birds for SOP or shows...none, nada...if they are they are not advertising it anywhere. Around here we have three kinds of chicken people...we have commercial operations, we have backyarders wanting egg production and you have the pet crowd. That's it. The biggest market for heritage line birds in this area are the backyarders that want to sell eggs at farmer's markets and do it sustainably...they like to advertise that they have free range, heritage breed birds laying those eggs(though they are all hatchery sourced).

Then there is me...I just want to see and work with a quality bird before I die. I've had several quality birds from a hatchery source..what I consider quality...but they always lacked one trait or other that keeps them from being the best of the best~lack of broodiness was foremost.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Fresh air, sunshine, fresh green pastures, space. Over and over again in the Feeding Poultry book, these are the basics. We could not have strayed further from that with industrial poultry production. And even in back yards, with the "hostility" surrounding the birds these days, they are often overly confined.

Another basic is deep litter ... so many beneficial things in that stuff.

That said, there is a woman here in Oregon who lost her entire flock to something she believes was brought in on the shoes and/or clothes of a person who stopped by her farm one day pretending to be a friend of a friend. She worked with the locals to figure out what it was, and is now advocating to have the testing expanded for NPIP certification. She has a list of hatcheries that have tested clean for whatever it was that sickened her birds.

 

[bruceh]

Bruceh, you lost all your birds to disease. How on earth does that happen?

I read the bio security warnings here at BYC and it is all very scary, but also lots of it seems so silly. Especially when so many "serious" chicken people show. And then someone who appears to know what they're doing loses all their birds to one outbreak ...

I'm on the same page as you and BK regarding showing -- I got all the pretty ribbons I'll need in this life as a kid with my horses. I'm not even that comfortable going to a chicken show as a spectator now. But I would share showable birds with someone else ... if I ever had any.

I'm starting to set eggs with my first "project" birds this year ... Delawares from Kathy's restoration project. I got a trio from a woman in my state who got a couple dozen. They are pretty, solid, dignified birds compared to my hatchery birds and the mutts of those hatchery birds. But this generation was "slow" to mature.

I selected the Delawares because the breed is designed to do everything I want birds to do ... the standard says it matures reasonably fast to produce a steady stream of eggs and plenty of meat and still wants to forage and go broody. White so it plucks nicely.

I picked them out of a book based on performance specs. We shall see if the chicks I hatch this year show any improvements ... and then I'll have some to choose between.

leslie,
yes all my birds either died or i put down. bio security is very important. my situation very heartbreaking. the short of it is i brought in a bird that was ill. before you ask yes bio security measures were taken. the only thing i did not do was draw blood on that bird. the bird came from a reliable source. at first i thought it was the meat chickens . however after some necropsy preformed the culprit was a bird i needed for new blood that would work fine with my breeders. that particular bird was a carrier of severe mycoplasma. so that one bird in return passed it to my birds.when my birds starting becoming ill i was shocked. i did not know until i sold a trio of birds to my friend. that trio within hours should symptoms. i was so upset and blamed my friend. soon after within days a cold snap happened. then bingo. i went into my coop dead birds. i had to figure out was going on. so i took some birds for necropsy. well the results were what they were. i myself will never ever breed a sick bird period. my reds were still standing. so i had to destroy them. i figured out to my satisfaction the culprit. after the slaughter. i took the new bird in for necropsy. that bird results showed some scaring and tested positive for fowl collera.
as far as showing birds . yes poultry people show their stock. you would be surprised who will not or are stopping. the reason is illness. i know a fellow breeder who took 3 birds to show. when he quarentened his birds after . they were dead with in a week. im not alone frank reese had the same problem back in his day. im in good company.

for fixing the problem. i consulted a poultry vet along with the department of agriculture. it is a long process to fix. it involves vaporizing my poultry unit with a disinfection solution for 3 days straight. then my ground has to sit for 3 months with no birds on it.

the npip is cert. is worthless. it only requires testing for AI and Typhoid. mycoplasma are not tested for. that falls under flock management. well good luck with that. ask the person you buy eggs or chicks from if they test. 98% will say no. then you will get it is in all flocks so it is the way it is. it is not in all flocks. then you will get the answer well you can get it from a wild bird.
hog wash. that theory is plausable . you would have to have an infected bird land in your area and your chicken must have contact with that one infected bird. these illnesses are passes from hen to egg. so when you hatch eggs those chicks are infected. so the circle continues. there is a way to disinfect the eggs prior to hatching. it involves a process using either tylon or gentramyacin .
most breeders will never test for such things. why is number one they have a lot of money in their stock. so they do not want to know. 2nd. it takes testing every 90 days.
my solution is as follows. every new chick, if not from my tested flock, stays in a quarrentine area for 4 months. then they get tested before they are allowed with the others.a % of birds gets a test every 90 days. any positives are culled. it will take time . however the end result is a very hardy flock that produces strong resistint off spring.
back in the day. farmers culled for a sick bird. today people treat with medications.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I looked into growing citrus indoors during winter, about two weeks ago. Are you reading the same Gardening magazine that I am? Lol. I did some research and found out that indoor citrus trees/plants need high humidity. My home is too dry, even with a humidifier, to keep citrus. I have a nice sunroom with windows. I was hoping to grow lemons.

I also understand that citrus needs good ventilation. Your location is near a door, so it can be opened to provide the ventilation. I hope that you are successful growing citrus. It would sure brighten up the room and your spirits.

Eeeek! No magazines. When I moved into this house it was essentially buried in slithering piles of periodicals. They'd shift around and I'd always be thinking I had visitors. It's probably why I keep my recyclables in the entry hall so it is easier to push them out the door and down to the curb. I still have nightmares of all the work it took to excavate down to flooring and counter tops and other flat surfaces here.

But catalogs ...

I'm completely satisfied by window shopping and rarely, if ever, buy things. I'm the worst person ever to buy things for ... I just don't want more stuff to dust. Come next Christmas you can all come to my place and take stuff away, that would be the best gift ever!

Right now I'm mostly inspired by this nursery catalog. I think for sure I'll try a Kaffir lime as I'd love to cook with the leaves, and even if it doesn't fruit I should get something out of it. After that, I'm stumped. Dad LOVES small, easy-to-peel oranges, and Kishu Mandarins are all that plus no seeds. Improved Meyer Lemon is supposed to be one of the easiest to grow. What else, without caving to the "one of each" non-solution solution?

I used to live in Nice, France and the smell of citrus blossoms there was ah-MAZE-ing! Living for a while in a totally different climate and looking at all the things that grow there is mind expanding for me. I'd stare up at the palm trees so hard I'd trip over the sidewalks and go flying. They have a cactus that grows all over the sea cliffs, and it produces an edible fruit, and hundreds of people will walk past a huge cactus weighted down by ripe fruit in a day and just ignore it ... they are that used to it.

Seville Orange was probably the type planted as street trees in Nice. They smelled SO good.

We have wet winters here, but our summers are dry. It could be quite humid year-round in Nice. I'm not thinking conditions here are "ideal." I may have to beef up my "orangery" at some point.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

leslie,
yes all my birds either died or i put down. bio security is very important. my situation very heartbreaking. the short of it is i brought in a bird that was ill. before you ask yes bio security measures were taken. the only thing i did not do was draw blood on that bird. the bird came from a reliable source. at first i thought it was the meat chickens . however after some necropsy preformed the culprit was a bird i needed for new blood that would work fine with my breeders. that particular bird was a carrier of severe mycoplasma. so that one bird in return passed it to my birds.when my birds starting becoming ill i was shocked. i did not know until i sold a trio of birds to my friend. that trio within hours should symptoms. i was so upset and blamed my friend. soon after within days a cold snap happened. then bingo. i went into my coop dead birds. i had to figure out was going on. so i took some birds for necropsy. well the results were what they were. i myself will never ever breed a sick bird period. my reds were still standing. so i had to destroy them. i figured out to my satisfaction the culprit. after the slaughter. i took the new bird in for necropsy. that bird results showed some scaring and tested positive for fowl collera.
as far as showing birds . yes poultry people show their stock. you would be surprised who will not or are stopping. the reason is illness. i know a fellow breeder who took 3 birds to show. when he quarentened his birds after . they were dead with in a week. im not alone frank reese had the same problem back in his day. im in good company.

for fixing the problem. i consulted a poultry vet along with the department of agriculture. it is a long process to fix. it involves vaporizing my poultry unit with a disinfection solution for 3 days straight. then my ground has to sit for 3 months with no birds on it.

the npip is cert. is worthless. it only requires testing for AI and Typhoid. mycoplasma are not tested for. that falls under flock management. well good luck with that. ask the person you buy eggs or chicks from if they test. 98% will say no. then you will get it is in all flocks so it is the way it is. it is not in all flocks. then you will get the answer well you can get it from a wild bird.
hog wash. that theory is plausable . you would have to have an infected bird land in your area and your chicken must have contact with that one infected bird. these illnesses are passes from hen to egg. so when you hatch eggs those chicks are infected. so the circle continues. there is a way to disinfect the eggs prior to hatching. it involves a process using either tylon or gentramyacin .
most breeders will never test for such things. why is number one they have a lot of money in their stock. so they do not want to know. 2nd. it takes testing every 90 days.
my solution is as follows. every new chick, if not from my tested flock, stays in a quarrentine area for 4 months. then they get tested before they are allowed with the others.a % of birds gets a test every 90 days. any positives are culled. it will take time . however the end result is a very hardy flock that produces strong resistint off spring.
back in the day. farmers culled for a sick bird. today people treat with medications.

That really is a sad, sad story.

Having to cull the "standing" birds you worked so hard to produce must have been heartbreaking. I'm impressed it didn't break your spirit and that you're coming back for more. Bless you and good luck.

So ... the least avoidable bio risk comes when bringing in new birds ... everyone needs to do this "at first," or, as you experienced, when you want to refresh the gene pool.

Obviously I have never drawn blood from any of my birds, or had any kind of testing. I DID ask over in the heritage LF thread if testing my existing flock (hatchery birds, and their mutt offspring) prior to bringing in the Delawares was a good idea, and otherwise how to prepare for a trio of breeders, and really got no useful answers.

Probably the best teacher is direct personal experience. It seems to me people who have had birds for a long time (or at least want to sound as if they have

) speak in what reads to me like a cute "code." All kinds of in jokes and slang that are maybe sarcastic, maybe ironic, maybe facetious, maybe exaggerated, maybe some of each of the above, all probably with a kernel of important truth if you know how to peel that onion and then decode what you find, but to a new person their words are utterly confusing and non-helpful. This is going to sound rotten, but I suppose the best thing I can say for a lot of the old-timer expert advice is that the easy to read advice from newbie experts can be way worse?

It is nice to find a few people with similar goals to mine, lots of experience, and an ability to share their knowledge with generosity.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Since I'm not one to be putting "looking right" at the top of my list of traits to breed for, that would come dead last for me...absolutely dead last. Once I got the laying, health, early maturing, broody tendencies, foraging and survival traits, temperament, feed thrift and feather quality down, then I'd worry about colors or looks. For me, showing or SOP has very little meaning if the dog won't hunt. You may be able to take him to a show but no one who is serious about a hunting dog is going to want any of his offspring.

In my state there are very little, if any, shows or people who breed heritage birds for SOP or shows...none, nada...if they are they are not advertising it anywhere. Around here we have three kinds of chicken people...we have commercial operations, we have backyarders wanting egg production and you have the pet crowd. That's it. The biggest market for heritage line birds in this area are the backyarders that want to sell eggs at farmer's markets and do it sustainably...they like to advertise that they have free range, heritage breed birds laying those eggs(though they are all hatchery sourced).

Then there is me...I just want to see and work with a quality bird before I die. I've had several quality birds from a hatchery source..what I consider quality...but they always lacked one trait or other that keeps them from being the best of the best~lack of broodiness was foremost.

I wouldn't breed for "looks," except that is a promise I made when I agreed to help with the Delaware restoration project. I, too, am hoping form and function can co-exist. I presume I'll get some "pretty" birds.

 

[Beekissed]

I think most people breed for what they find to be of most importance to them and then work on the other traits later. Since laying isn't considered in the SOP, I think many neglect that altogether or leave it until last when they have perfected all other things. The only thing is...no one seems to be able to perfect all those other things and they try for year and years to get color, wings, tails, heads, legs, and chests to coincide in one bird and then produce it consistently and it seems to take many, many, many crossings and hatchings and cullings to get it there.

So, if you concentrate on that for years upon years and never really get there...not with consistency, where does the health, hardiness and laying come in? How many years then does it take to get those there...how much medicine will you give your line to get them to live long enough to develop hardiness? Can you do that without losing the perfect looks?

How much lighting will you have to do to get enough eggs to hatch? Will you have to do that always? Will you sell your birds with a light kit and instructions on how to set the timer? Will you have to heat your coops every winter because you do not have a winter hardy breed....but dang she's purdy!

These are all questions I have for breeders that one dare not ask on a breeder thread without getting a mafia necktie for daring to phrase the question: "But where's the real chickens?"

It's like dating a woman with hair extensions, fake nails, a push up bra, a tight girdle, high heels, a spray on tan, capped teeth and tons of make-up...she might look good enough to take to the prom but do you really want to wake up next to her every morning and have to see how she really looks? Do you want to pay for the maintenance on such a woman? Worst of all, you find out she cannot cook, won't clean house and won't do the laundry.

These are all the things I ponder when I contemplate the current breeding world.

 

[Beekissed]

Well, the setup I wanted to use for my incubation had to be changed a little due to equipment problems, so minor adjustments had to be made but will probably work out better in the end. Actually, I think it will be much better in the end, so it's kind of neat to troubleshoot a new method and find better solutions as one goes along.

Did some research on broody hens last night and found out some fascinating things about their design that I never knew. God surely did design them for a specific job and gave a bird the specific regulation in their body to complete the job, despite ambient temps.

Did you know that broodies can control blood flow, metabolism and type of metabolism, and heart rate via hormones that a bird that is not in a broody state cannot accomplish? They even react differently to ambient temps to keep that brood patch at a steady 95* and can even heat up different parts of the brood patch almost immediately in response to cold skin stimulus.

 

[bruceh]

bee,
that's to funny about that description. yes the utility is darn near gone.
i quit the chicken improvement plan. I'm done. i am now going to open a brand new magazine. I'm calling it chicken freak magazine. it will be filled with pullets that wear no diapers or them back protectors.. full frontal .showing breast my first center fold will be a beautiful buff silkie in full molt.really showing some skin. next will be a very endowed Cornish. i will be featuring sometime in the year a very long legged oriental shamo.. Christmas edition will be a very very nice Rhode island red with a nice tent tail.and a beetle green sheen.
do not worry ladies i have thought of you also. fist month there will be long crower. that birds crow will attract the most stand offish girl. 2nd will be the ameraucana sporting that irresistible pea comb and flashy plumage. 3rd month I'm doing a feature on the leghorn with a comb over comb 4th month i very sexy black copper marans with nice feathered shafts and a matching hackle and saddle feather suit. hold on to your eggs ladies. Christmas edition will be featuring a very muscular barred rock with a nice chest and powerful thighs.

omg i got to much time on my hands. see what happens when you loose you chickens. i do nothing now but clean and write.


i never want to be mis-understood. i may have some expirence to new person. bee has more expirence then me. mr fanagen has more expirence then bee, wiford kittle has more expirence then all above mentioned put together.all we can do is come together and share ideas.
it is all about learning from each other for the betterment of the birds. you as a new person you may have an idea that others never thought of.. you never know where answers come from. i will give bee credit her natural teachings made a convert out of me. i used to be married to la-200 and tylon. then i got a whole new flock and started the fermented feed and pasture. the results have been more then pleasing.
it is all about each other and the common welfare of the bird and what you want from that bird.
common sense , trail and error, time, and sharing ideas together. that is what improves the bird as a whole. not points from a show. yes we all like to get as close as we can to the s.o.p. however at what cost.

 

[bruceh]

Well, the setup I wanted to use for my incubation had to be changed a little due to equipment problems, so minor adjustments had to be made but will probably work out better in the end. Actually, I think it will be much better in the end, so it's kind of neat to troubleshoot a new method and find better solutions as one goes along.

Did some research on broody hens last night and found out some fascinating things about their design that I never knew. God surely did design them for a specific job and gave a bird the specific regulation in their body to complete the job, despite ambient temps.

Did you know that broodies can control blood flow, metabolism and type of metabolism, and heart rate via hormones that a bird that is not in a broody state cannot accomplish? They even react differently to ambient temps to keep that brood patch at a steady 95* and can even heat up different parts of the brood patch almost immediately in response to cold skin stimulus.

i knew about the humidity and temp. i had no idea of what,why and design thats great i like to read it