The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

BTW, @desertmarcy I love that Barred Rock male you won with at the Apache show. Marcia, he truly is a beautiful bird. Congrats.

He is a beauty. Lots better looking than my puny 21 week old...

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

I remember someone saying you can see RIR "type" in the brooder. I realize they're only 4-5 days old, so is it too early to tell?

 

[Fred's Hens]

They look great. Yes, you can see the type, once you get used to dailing it in. They've got it in spades. Why wouldn't they. LOL

 

[Fred's Hens]

He is a beauty. Lots better looking than my puny 21 week old...

He'd be GREAT with dumplings.

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

He'd be GREAT with dumplings. 

I agree, Fred. His 8 brothers found the freezer. I just keep him around to keep an eye out for the 11 girls. He's very watchful and protective of his harem...

The only reason I have BR stock is because I wanted to run a couple of successful hatches through my new incubator before ordering eggs. A local guy had some Cackle Hatchery birds, and his fertile eggs were only $2 a dozen. I incubated 2 batches... and hatched 22 eggs out of 25. I kept him and 6 pullets, butchered and sold the rest. Next spring he'll get replaced with an RIR cock that'll father some black sexlinks for the laying pen.

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

They look great.  Yes, you can see the type, once you get used to dailing it in.  They've got it in spades.  Why wouldn't they.  LOL

Thank you, Fred. I didn't think my poor eyes were decieving me. In spades... I like the sound of that!

 

[cmom]

Quote:
We have Matt to thank as the original parent stock came from him.

 

[cmom]

If anyone is interested in hatching eggs. I will have them available for a short while. I do send eggs from 2 family groups of my top breeders and mark the eggs so if anyone if interested in preserving the breed they are not in-breeding. They are related but not sister/brother (cousins).
http://www.hilltop-farm.info/store
Here are some youngsters from last years hatch

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

We have Matt to thank as the original parent stock came from him.

I for one am very grateful. Thank you for all the work you put into refining this line, Matt... and thank you for all your work and for making these fine birds available to the general public, cmom! I appreciate it very much.

 

[Fred's Hens]

@BlackwoodHollow Finally have a quiet minute to sit down and make some evaluations and comments. Maybe you'll find them helpful, maybe not. But for it's worth.

These birds are very young and aren't finished yet. That said, I like this male in the front left in the above photo well enough. Judging anything from photos is impossible, really, but this Young K has really nice pieces and parts.




The pullet in the left foreground above has nice features and would be useful in moving forward. She'd stay. The female behind her in this photo is not worthy of breeding but will likely lay you a ton of egg in the layer flock.






The cockerel seen above narrows at the tail, but when you start out, you may need his other good features. Since you only got a handful of birds to grow out and evaluate, you cannot be too hard this first year.




In the photo above, I see two females that are worthy of moving forward. You can see that in indirect sunlight, they are have some richness and depth to the feather color.







Again in the above photo, the females show some typical Kittle features and honestly, they're something worhty to work with. I wouldn't be killing any pullets. The better ones are worth a shot in the breeding tests and the rest will lay lots of eggs in any case. This is scalding hot and bright sunlight I an tell and the grass and birds are over exposed in the photo.

Over all? I see a trio that I would delighted to worth with. Hatch off 50 chicks or more and sort through for those with improved features and more on. Meanwhile, I would indeed be looking for a really sharp cockerel to help you along. Best regards,