The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[monnie662]

flewdacoop, You are not being dumb. You like a lot of us on here are just not as well learned as some of the ones that have been raising the heritage lines for a long time.
I have had chickens for many years and when a kid, my parents always had lots of them. They were a mixture of many breeds that mom and dad had for eggs to feed our family and sell a few eggs to help pay the feed bill.
A couple of years ago I got 25 pullets, 1 cockerel RIR from McMurray hatchery. I raised them for approx 6 months and got to lurking on BYC and saw what the old time RIR's looked like. WOW, I was hooked. I started reading up on them and trying to find out which were the top lines. Anyway, I now have some gorgeous juvenile RIR's growing up and hope to have a couple really nice flocks of them in a few years.
My hatchery birds did supply me with lots of eggs and I enjoyed them but just decided I would like to raise the old time strains.
Be happy with what you have and if you decide you would like something different later down the road, get yourself some of the pure, old time birds and you will see the difference. I don't think there is any difference in the taste of the free range eggs no matter what color the chicken is. lol They are all good.

Sounds like my story. When I "accidentally" hatched some heritage birds I was hooked. Bought eggs off of Ebay. Haven't looked back since.

 

[Robert Blosl]

I started my Heritage Rhode Island Red program 28 years ago. I got three females and three males FREE? I did hit the lottery when I first got started but I had done my home work for at least five years living in apartments reading old Red Journals and Red Chronicles. I once started with Light Brhamas and thought they where tops latter I found out they where the pride of a hatchery in IOWA. No big deal got rid of them and got some real ones. In Reds you are always looking to improve so if you got some eggs from a breeder and they are a little light in color or short in body then the next year you find a guy who has some great New York Reds or some Mohawk type then you get rid of them and move on. Each year its a learning experience. I was just looking at some White Rock Cockerles and saying to my self how much I have improved with them in the last three years. Then I looked at one of my little White Leghorn bantams the last chick hatched for the year. He will be the smallest leghorn I have ever raised, the best comb I ever raised now I got to make him a pen to condition him in so in December when I go to a show he will be in perfect feather.

I even named him PEE WEE. Dont tell anyone I name my chickens they may think I am going the other way. However, if you have patients things will all work out.

Look on the bright side you have a lot of folks on this thread to help you and share with you what they have learned and what to stay away from.

http://build.tripod.lycos.com/trellix/sitebuilder/f_edit_page.html

go to this site and look at the pictures of large fowl and then hop around and look at other pictures of Reds, Red bantams. The color is all the same dark Red and the type is brick shape. bob

 

[flewdacoop]

thanks for the info sound like i did get what i wanted, and i am trying to get a colorful flock of hens adding to my flock 6 hens at a time just bought a straight run of what i said it was pure domineques got 10 of them and 5 of them were males so i got rid of them and now have 5 hens but i know only one is a domineque and one is a barred rock the other three are solid black single comb and red starting to develope on their neck and chest, they are 7 weeks old now.. so i think my next set will be something yellow, but i dont want any males just girls for the eggs i have a family of 5 and my dad lives on my property in our other house, and have plenty of family in town that wants fresh eggs too. i am enjoying raising my chicks and the kids like them too, i could remember as a young kid growing up and going to my grandmas house and her yard was full of them.. thanks for the advice and GOD BLESS

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Two more weeks until the last batch of eggs of the season are to hatch.

Then shutting the incubators all down. Good Lord willing, they will all be in the new incubator shed when I start back to hatching on January the 1st.

 

[immyjay54]

Just moved my Mohawk juveniles out to their new coop today. I hope they can take this hot weather. They have been under my back porch in grow out pen. Their new coop has wire around the top but still with not much air blowing, it is awful hot.
How about their color Bob? I think they look pretty nice. But of course I would think so. ha,ha. These are the ones from Paul.






These are two different age groups.

 

[henpeckedmuch]

Here is the other question on tail color.
Thanks for the answers on the meaning of the term "pinch tail". Does anyone have any input on the other question? I've relisted it below. Thanks.

The tails on some of my nearly started pullets have three to four rows of feathers towards the end of their tail that progressively have more black in them. That is to say the last feathers are all black with the beatle green tint. Then the next row in are mostly black with a little mahogany around the ends. The third row has a little more mahogany around the end, and the forth row only has a small amount of black and are mostly mahogany. On the other hand, some of my hens have one or two rows of black/greenish tail feathers and the remaining feathers on their tail are all mahogany.
Which of these two occurances are more desirable?

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Here is the other question on tail color.
Thanks for the answers on the meaning of the term "pinch tail". Does anyone have any input on the other question? I've relisted it below. Thanks.

The tails on some of my nearly started pullets have three to four rows of feathers towards the end of their tail that progressively have more black in them. That is to say the last feathers are all black with the beatle green tint. Then the next row in are mostly black with a little mahogany around the ends. The third row has a little more mahogany around the end, and the forth row only has a small amount of black and are mostly mahogany. On the other hand, some of my hens have one or two rows of black/greenish tail feathers and the remaining feathers on their tail are all mahogany.
Which of these two occurances are more desirable?

Without a clear photo it's hard to tell, but the SOP calls for the tail of a pullet to be;

Main tail - Lustrous greenish black, the two top feathers may be edged with dark red.

Don't know if that helps, but it's the best I can do.

 

[mshuey1]

drool!!!!!

 

[mshuey1]

Is anyone selling hatching eggs from these beautiful chickens!

 

[immyjay54]

Is anyone selling hatching eggs from these beautiful chickens!

I personally could not help you, my RIR's are juveniles and won't be laying before winter/spring. I might be mistaken but I think most of the breeders have their breeder pens broken up for the summer. I think it will be later (towards winter) to get fertile eggs.
Jim