The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[Robert Blosl]

The upper bird might be a male the two on the bottom might be females. Look for more red color in the comb on males coming on that shows you the males. Still a little early. Glad you got some good Rose Combs they are super rare and maybe as rare as any Heritage Large fowl out there. Great chickens for the North if you have frezzing come worrys. bob

My Horstman RC RIR's. Any help with sexing would be great, this is my first 3 RC Reds, so i am not yet able to sex them at an early age.

 

[Robert Blosl]

Don't worry about the green in this bird. It may go away but you got to remember these chickens have no color stability. They are not breed for color or breed type only for egg production. These are not true old fashion Rhode Island Reds. Thousands of these are sold in the USA today. They stole the name away from the real Rhode Island Reds and if you type Rhode Island Reds into the Bing Search Engine you will see hundreds of pictures of these colored production chickens and maybe ten pictures of the true Rhode Island Reds that we have pictured on this thread.

I suggest these birds to people who want to try to make a few dollars in selling eggs to the local folks to pay their feed bills. They will lay about 275 eggs per year. They loose egg laying as they get older or burn out. They are the sprinting type of laying chickens that need to be replace every year or two. The dark Rhode Island Reds depending on the strain can lay good numbers of eggs up to five to seven years of age. The normally loose about 20% production per year as they age. Some chicks I have handled this year are decedents of a male that I sold a boy in Texarkana Texas eight years ago and where breed to three seven and eight year old hens that I sold a fellow in Illinois about 12 years ago. One male is still producing chicks at four years of age and two of his sons came down my way this past year.

That is very old and shows in the long run the dark Rhode Island Reds are the best investment if you get a strain of New York or Illinois or now south Alabama. We have a new strain of Mohawks that are half Illinois and half Florida that I am so excited about I have volunteered to foster some of the chicks to grow up. Anyone who has the Mohawks from Illinois need some of this new blood to mix into your line. After 15 years they are getting a little inbreed and need badly some new blood from the Florida line.
That's my two cents worth on Rhode Island Reds. I hope I have not tricked any one to respond to this thread as I have been accused in another thread. Because of the nice man from Texas who wrote his comments the thread has died. Funny how some folks can write something and put a fire out on a thread. This is what happens on another web site up north. No buddy hardly posts on it any more.
Hope you enjoy your Rhode Island Reds and hope more folks get some of these dark birds from New York , Illinois and South Alabama in the near future. Hope you enjoy these egg laying machines like others do.

You will get hooked on them regardless how light or dark they look.

Hi guys! I bought some rhode reds from murray! They are all grown up now i hatched chicks from them and 3 pullets had black spots all over their backs and wings. they are pullets becouse they lay. here is an example of what it looks like but with more black spots. is this normal?

 

[groundpecker]

The upper bird might be a male the two on the bottom might be females. Look for more red color in the comb on males coming on that shows you the males. Still a little early. Glad you got some good Rose Combs they are super rare and maybe as rare as any Heritage Large fowl out there. Great chickens for the North if you have frezzing come worrys. bob

Thanks for your information. I wanted an actual heritage RiR breed, sense i began reading this thread, so i ordered a few from Horstman.
Hopefully i can work towards building a nice flock of these without ordering any more chicks.

 

[catdaddyfro]

Don't worry about the green in this bird. It may go away but you got to remember these chickens have no color stability. They are not breed for color or breed type only for egg production. These are not true old fashion Rhode Island Reds. Thousands of these are sold in the USA today. They stole the name away from the real Rhode Island Reds and if you type Rhode Island Reds into the Bing Search Engine you will see hundreds of pictures of these colored production chickens and maybe ten pictures of the true Rhode Island Reds that we have pictured on this thread.

I suggest these birds to people who want to try to make a few dollars in selling eggs to the local folks to pay their feed bills. They will lay about 275 eggs per year. They loose egg laying as they get older or burn out. They are the sprinting type of laying chickens that need to be replace every year or two. The dark Rhode Island Reds depending on the strain can lay good numbers of eggs up to five to seven years of age. The normally loose about 20% production per year as they age. Some chicks I have handled this year are decedents of a male that I sold a boy in Texarkana Texas eight years ago and where breed to three seven and eight year old hens that I sold a fellow in Illinois about 12 years ago. One male is still producing chicks at four years of age and two of his sons came down my way this past year.

That is very old and shows in the long run the dark Rhode Island Reds are the best investment if you get a strain of New York or Illinois or now south Alabama. We have a new strain of Mohawks that are half Illinois and half Florida that I am so excited about I have volunteered to foster some of the chicks to grow up. Anyone who has the Mohawks from Illinois need some of this new blood to mix into your line. After 15 years they are getting a little inbreed and need badly some new blood from the Florida line.
That's my two cents worth on Rhode Island Reds. I hope I have not tricked any one to respond to this thread as I have been accused in another thread. Because of the nice man from Texas who wrote his comments the thread has died. Funny how some folks can write something and put a fire out on a thread. This is what happens on another web site up north. No buddy hardly posts on it any more.
Hope you enjoy your Rhode Island Reds and hope more folks get some of these dark birds from New York , Illinois and South Alabama in the near future. Hope you enjoy these egg laying machines like others do.

You will get hooked on them regardless how light or dark they look.

Well may he rest in peace then, maybe it was the stress of your so called "trickery" LOL that got the better of him, reckon?
ETA:
Jeesh sometimes I'm as dense as an anvil, I swanney, I got it now. the thread got killed I'm sorry for the mass confusion there. Well still maybe he is at peace then for killing the thread then huh?

 

[monnie662]

Well, you never get too old to learn. Saturday I saw two things I've never seen before in my near half century of watching chickens. I sure wish I'd had my camera handy.

Our large grow-out pen has all the chicks we are growing out for next years breeders plus our flock of RC RIRs. Friday night late I shut the coop up to catch some extra cockerels that I was hauling to a sale about daylight Saturday morning. After caging them and loading them in the horse trailer I went to bed and forgot to open the coop back up. When I got home Saturday morning, I ran out and opened it up so they could get some water and find some bugs.

First I had two Orloff chicks around 6 weeks old jumped in the water trough and SWIM like a duck! Seriously, they were floating and paddling like a darn duck. Weirdest thing I've ever seen. Stayed in about a minute or so then hopped out and went on out in the grass chasing bugs.

About an hour later our biggest and oldest RC RIR rooster walked over and stepped in the trough, fluffed his feathers and submerged completely under water. All that was sticking above water was his head. I thought I was going to lose him, I've NEVER seen a chicken completely submerge like that. He stayed that way about three of four minutes, then I started to the gate to get him out but before I reached the gate he just stood up, shook like a dog and walked of like nothing had happened. It was the darnedest thing I ever saw.

Now I've saw thousands of chicks and chickens get in water, maybe wade around, splash a little, stuff like that. But swimming and submerging chickens?

That was a first.

How big or deep is your trough? It is so hot and dry that I'll go buy one for my chickens to see if they will use it. I know your temps are the same as mine since we are in the same state, I'm just a little further south than you. I've been putting frozen water jugs in the water for them but maybe they'll sit in the water if the trough is bigger.

 

[henpeckedmuch]

I have some questions for those of you that raise Heritage Rhode Island Reds. Attention NY REDS, R. Blosi, and others.

When are the wing feathers upper webs on their "Shorter Secondaries" supposed to turn black?
I'm culling obvious faults already such as comb and skeletal disqualifications but at what age do you usually draw the line on color and shape?
By that I mean, at what age do you give up hope they will get better?

I have 35 chicks of the Urch line, and 23 from A. Rademacker lines all between 11 and 18 weeks old. None of them really have black in thier Secondary wing feathers.
Some of the older birds didn't have good black in their tails either but as their baby chick tail feathers molt they appear to be coming in nice and black now.

 

[NYREDS]

At those ages they're still in juvenile plumage. Wait awhile. From those lines I'm sure they'll develop good wing colour.

 

[Robert Blosl]

I saw some chicks today we had to cull and the primary feathers are the first to come out then others will follow. I dont cull for color till they are about five months old. As a beginner with that many chicks I would cull only for type this year. You are to green to understand color and color faults.

If the chicks are all the same age from each owner look for the ones that have the redest combs or who mature faster than others. If you have some that are runty or slow to feather get rid of them. You should have one or two that are sticky out in your mind. The look like they jumped out a head of the others. Normally these will be the ones that crow the first or lay first and make great breeders.

You sure have a bunch dont you. On the Radamaker birds worry about females that have bumps or humps in their backs. This is showing up on his strain. Its like a cushion in the middle of their backs. You want birds with flat top lines with no humps or bumps. Like New York Reds says be patient. Then take lots of pictures and post them on photo bucket or get a account at Picture Trail.com its free. Post your pictures for us to look at them. Get you some numbered plastic leg bands so we can see the numbers on their bands. We can then comment on your pictures to help you.

Glad you got some. What state do you live in and what region. Maybe others would like to come your home latter and pick up some of your extra birds. bob

 

[RedBugPoultry]

My Horstman RC RIR's. Any help with sexing would be great, this is my first 3 RC Reds, so i am not yet able to sex them at an early age.

Can you post a better picture of their heads? A straight on view? From the sizes of the combs they all look like pullets. Are they developing any good sized wattles? Thin combs usually mean pullets on a RC birds and if the have little/small wattles that would also indicate a pullet. We raised our first RC Reds this season but they turned out very similar to our Doms. Leg size was a good indicator also....

 

[immyjay54]

Haven't posted for a while, I'm having computer issues. Took a few shots today of my RIR juveniles from dinahmoe. Don Nelson lines. These shots are at 13 1/2 weeks old. First picture is of the 3 cockerels and 1 of the pullets. I guess you can tell by the combs/wattles.

Just had to let you see the chest on this bruiser, he looks like he has Cornish in him. lol

Pullet below is really heavy built.


Different pullet. Seems that they are all going to have pretty nice long flat backs and pretty nice tail set.


These birds might not be the perfect specimen but I am still very tickled with my Don Nelson and Mohawk lines as they are growing very nicely and seem to be filling out pretty well. Will post a few of the first bunch of Mohawks from Paul Gingerich soon. They are 10 weeks now and really beginning to get pretty nice.
Hope I haven't bored you all with so many pictures.
Jim