The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[Fred's Hens]

They definitely can't be feather sexed, but according to one of my books they can be sexed by down color. The male's tops of their wings will be a lighter yellow than the females who have darker red colored shoulders. It also says the females will generally be a darker red color. I'm not sure how accurate this is, but it worked for my five heritages. It seemed to me that the differences in wing color became more distinct with age.

This technique is also strain related as to it's "success". Some strains present with the lighter wing patch on the males and some strains do not, so it's only so/so on effectiveness and is strain dependent.

Again, if you're a breeder of these birds, you could care less. You find out for certain at around 8 weeks anyhow, so just feed them, water them and enjoy the ride. There's no real need to know any sooner, unless you want backyard pet egg layers, in which case these standard bred birds aren't likely the right choice anyhow.

I agree that over the years, the odds are pretty dang close to 50/50.

 

[cmom]

Quote: Fred is correct. I tried to ship eggs to Canada before the Avian Influenza out-break. There are a lot of regulations and restrictions. I ended up not sending them. The big one, couldn't ship to a foreign address, had to be a US address. Health forms signed by a veterinarian (not many vets will sign a form for eggs).

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

Fred is correct. I tried to ship eggs to Canada before the Avian Influenza out-break. There are a lot of regulations and restrictions. I ended up not sending them. The big one, couldn't ship to a foreign address, had to be a US address. Health forms signed by a veterinarian (not many vets will sign a form for eggs).

@cmom did you get my last PM? Just want to make sure all my ducks are in a row...

 

[onarres]

If you can feather sex, you've got hatchery stock. Some hatcheries use "short feather" bred to "long feather" birds as a kind of sex link to forego the expense of vent sexing chicks.

As breeders of true Reds, we honestly don't care what sex they are. We need both sexes, obviously, to breed and maintain these birds.

I had read several online articles regarding sexing chicks. The ones that referenced feather sexing included rhode island reds as a breed that could be sexed by feather length. The articles did not specify "standard" or "production" breeds, hence my original question.

I am setup to hatch small batches until I can increase the size of my laying flock. I picked up 2 breeding pairs of true reds this past January. I have 12 eggs in the incubator from them now.

I just hatched 13 true red chicks, from eggs I had ordered last September. Different breeders, same strain.

I plan on breeding to the standard. I also have limited space and resources to work with. I like to know things in advance so I can do advance planning, like getting good homes for the cockerels and hens that wont make the cut. Or time to find others who would also have an interest in breeding to standard so we can share in the improvement of the strain.

In the end I know you get what you get, and work with what you got, but time to plan can go a long way in making it better.

 

[cmom]

Quote:
I have gotten nice chicks from males that weren't my first choice but they certainly made very nice chicks. You have to hatch a lot of chicks for a good few. My first hatch for this year is due on Thursday then another hatch the following week. I do grow out all of my birds and in the fall/winter months cull out the ones that aren't potential show quality. I take the culls to a couple of farm swaps in my area and shows and sell them all. It does help on the feed costs.

It is nice to have a partner with the same line to keep the line going. I now have 4 coops and pens with my SC RIR's and 3 coops and pens with my RC RIR's. One has a blind RC RIR male in it and I should cull him but he doesn't eat much. He started out slow but now is a very handsome male. I band all of the birds so I know who is who.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Here's a problem or maybe better to say, challenge.

When you decide to commit to Standard bred fowl and decide to breed them to that Standard, you are almost forced to put a LOT of chicks on the ground, as cmom said rightly. Even with some of the best birds in the world as one's start, roughly 75% of the chicks will not be good enough examples of the breed to satisfy your critical eye.

An old timer's saying in this fancy says, "Folks usually fail to become good breeders because they don't eat enough chicken". A folksy way of saying you're gonna cull, cull and cull some more, each and every year. You can eat them, sell them, send them to an auction and/or keep a few of the females as table egg layers, (although you'd be better off getting production reds for that job).

A breed is a "man-made" thing, of course. A breed isn't a species. The Red didn't walk out of a jungle. We made them by selective breeding and they only "stay put together" by continued selective breeding.To keep your "handi-work", your birds, the birds of your breeding moving foward and staying good examples of the breed, we fight the law of the universe called entropy. This law, like the law of gravity, is real. It states, simplistically, that things do NOT stay organized. Things move from a state of order to disorder. This means that without strict selective breeding, one's birds degrade and entropy. They need selective breeding each and every year. To accomplish this, it is best to have a few decent to pretty good birds every year.

Since one can only expect 5-10% of the birds one hatches to be good enough to make the grade, it simply takes a lot of hatched chicks to find those 4 or 5 birds you'll winter over for the next year.

The second reason we don't get excited about whether chicks are males or females is that we've gonna have those birds for a loooooong time. Cmom nailed this too. You cannot really pick your "winners" and/or your "keepers" until they have been fed and cared for over a 8-10 month period. It takes these birds a long time to grow. The male you think looks GREAT at 5 months or 6 months can absolutely go to junk as he comes into his own at 11 months of age. Birds you might get in a hurry and cull at 3 months may turn out to be a stunning adult and in our rush, we just send him down the road. Dang!!!

So, in short, there's sooooo much time. There's no way to really rush anything. You're gonna burn a lot of feed money before quality decisions can be made about them.

 

[Rhodebar Lover]

This technique is also strain related as to it's "success".  Some strains present with the lighter wing patch on the males and some strains do not, so it's only so/so on effectiveness and is strain dependent.

Again, if you're a breeder of these birds, you could care less.  You find out for certain at around 8 weeks anyhow, so just feed them, water them and enjoy the ride.  There's no real need to know any sooner, unless you want backyard pet egg layers, in which case these standard bred birds aren't likely the right choice anyhow.  

I agree that over the years, the odds are pretty dang close to 50/50.      

Ok, I didn't know it was line related. I understand that it is necessary to raise both sexes to near maturity to find the ones needed to keep. It just gets exciting to see what they will become.

 

[cmom]

My chicks are due to hatch Thursday. I'm so excited.

http://www.hilltop-farm.info/store

 

[onarres]

My chicks are due to hatch Thursday. I'm so excited.

http://www.hilltop-farm.info/store

Good luck on the hatch can't wait for the results.

 

[cmom]

Chicks are starting to hatch. Kind of caught me by surprise. because they aren't due until Thursday. I candled them all and another surprise is that there were hardly any duds.(infertile or quitters). Now if they all hatch that will be 90% of all the eggs including infertile and quitters. That's out of 200 eggs.