The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[mississippifarmboy]

Getting close to culling day here on the RC Reds. Seems the hatching went heavy to cockerels this year.


Just my luck.

Oh well. Fried chicken, Santa Fe chicken, mushroom chicken, chicken noodle soup, chicken salad, grilled chicken, baked chicken, barbecue chicken..... But not many to feed through the winter.

 

[Matt1616]

Chris, I need that bird. I'm going to start a line of strawberry eggers. Bob is doing the cherry eggers so I'm doing strawberry eggers.

 

[immyjay54]

Chris, I need that bird. I'm going to start a line of strawberry eggers. Bob is doing the cherry eggers so I'm doing strawberry eggers.

Hey Matt and Chris,
You guys are sure keeping a smile on my face. Sure am glad that I got my RIR's from Paul when I did. lol
Jim

 

[Robert Blosl]

I saw a tread where you said you are getting some good reds at Lucasville and was confused whay they would sell there birds there. Don Nelson use to come to Columbus and people had money falling out of their pockets to buy his birds. He would take some of his show birds back home with him.

Many of our birds have mini or defects in comb, color or something that we feel we dont want to breed from. Like I had last year a five point red ckl and his brother was a four point ckl. Bot where like twins. I gave this ckl to a friends son and he and the hen and the pullet produced about nice chicks. Two of them had a blue mouse colored chick down color which is a very rare bantam GOOD gene to have for color. I have only seen one chick like this 25 years ago. Its a lost gene and the only way we can find out who produced it is put the females in the pen separately and hatch the chicks and see who is the female that gave us the blueish down colored chicks.

I would not worry about what you are getting at the Lucas ville show Ask the breeder to help you put together a breeding trio or pairs for you.

I wrote a article and its on my web site about going to a breeders home and picking his culls that he was selling and mating them up by their faults. Its a great way to get started in Reds.

I think the article was How to get stated in Rhode Island Reds part one.

I want to let you guys read a email I got from the Sectary of the Rhode Island Red Club of England. Look through his message and see if you can find the parts WHY PEOPLE FAIL with RHode Island Reds in ENGLAND. Its about the same as we have in the USA.

I posted some of his pictures on here or on the other Thread for Heritage Large Fowl.


Hi Robert I do have some reds which are slightly shorter legged I will try and get you a picture. I think they are more leggy over here because they were used as a laying breed mainly and the dumpier birds would probably not be as good for laying. The barred rock strain came originally from a man who was well known over here for rocks called Dr Clive Carefoot who is regarded as the best breeder of rocks there has ever been over here. Have you heard of him?

The Rhode island red club has about 80 members at present and we are normally around that figure. The problem with reds is people buy good birds and then have a bit of success but when they breed they don’t know which to keep and soon end up with poor birds then give up and go onto another breed.

On the subject of Reds I have started getting black in the neck of some of my cockerels the last couple of years. Do you know how to get rid of it?
Regards Richard

Found another question How do I get rid of black in the neck of some of my cockerels????


Does any one remember me telling you the number one reason why people get in trouble with color in Red Large Fowl???


I will let you think about it and then see if you have the anwer. Of the laws of breeding Red Color its the number one Law or rule to succecd or fail.


bob

 

[Chris Herzog]

Hey Matt and Chris,
You guys are sure keeping a smile on my face. Sure am glad that I got my RIR's from Paul when I did. lol
Jim

Hey there Mr Jim! Maybe if your lucky, Matt will send you some started chicks from this guy when he gets some.

All your birds should be getting some size to them by now! Things getting tight yet! lol!!!! I have about 30 that I will be taking to a local sale in about 2 weeks just to give me some more growing room. I'm also getting close to start culling all my Heritage birds and that will give me a bunch more room as well. I do like my reds though....both the ones from Matt and the ones I got from Paul.

Chris

 

[immyjay54]

Hey there Mr Jim! Maybe if your lucky, Matt will send you some started chicks from this guy when he gets some.

All your birds should be getting some size to them by now! Things getting tight yet! lol!!!! I have about 30 that I will be taking to a local sale in about 2 weeks just to give me some more growing room. I'm also getting close to start culling all my Heritage birds and that will give me a bunch more room as well. I do like my reds though....both the ones from Matt and the ones I got from Paul.

Chris

Good hearing from you Chris,
My first group of Don Nelson reds are really getting nice. I've picked out the cockerel that I'm keeping out of the 3. He looks like a tank. lol Also 4 of the 6 pullets are really nice. Real dark and nice yellow legs, long bodies, broad backs and heads. Unless they change, I think they will be nice for breeders.
The others aren't mature enough to say to much about. I'm not rushing anything with any of these, I don't want to make mistakes on keepers. lol
Will PM you sometime soon.
Jim

 

[catdaddyfro]

Boy I was out this morning looking at my Horstman reds. Man it seems like in the past few days those guys have really turned it on the girls too but a couple of those cockerels are really starting to stick out above and beyond the others. I saw something like this just a little while back ago in my GSBR pullets one day they just look different.bigger, prettier, and that's what I'm going after.

Growth spurts or spells(got to love'um) as I can remember my Mom saying as a child esp. trying to keep this lunking foot of mine in shoes.

Jeff

 

[henpeckedmuch]

Quote: I have no idea but a friend is having the same trouble and was told that "it was better to have too much black in his birds then too little".

When he told me, what was told to him I thought, the answer given him was probably true but, not really an answer to his question.

So, what is the answer?

 

[melroseladi]

Crossing strains, I believe.

 

[Robert Blosl]

Your Problem: I have started getting black in the neck of some of my cockerels the last couple of years. Do you know how to get rid of it? I have the scoop below.

Hi Richard: I think I have a article for your year book and its on color the devil enemy in breeding for color. The black in the neck feathers.

The secret to breeding color by four old time breeders that I interviewed 25 years ago before they died was the color in the neck feathers. One old time breeder told a writer and club president Charlie Naguel back in the 1950’s the secret to breeding color was to set goals to breed your females to have ticking or no ticking at all in the neck feathers. The reason Charlie's said that in his view was black, yellow, blue and red was the make up of the Rhode Island Red color spectrum. The yellow factor was in the color pattern and this was controlled or held back by the color of the neck feathers. If you have females with stripes of black then the yellow factor will be held back and then you will have black show up into the neck area of your males. Once your males get black fixed into their neck feathers then you will have difficulty getting the black in the wings correctly and the green in the tail section. You will loose your dark quill color in your birds in the back, saddle or over the kidney area. So select birds over a five year period that has no black in the necks in the males and ticking in the females hackle feathers. Don’t kill the birds all off but do this over a five year period and you will evenly see improvements. The point cut for black in the neck area should be a two to three point cut. Many judges ignore it there for the breeders see no reason to worry about it as long as they can win but in the long run wanting to win trophy's will evenly ruin your strain. This is not breeding and showing by the Standard of Perfection.

I don’t know in England what the color is in the neck area but we in the USA call it ticking. It should be a small beetle green color on the tip of each female hackle feather. When you hold the female and look at her neck from above her neck should look like a beetle green neck less going around her neck. Her sons should have no black in their hackles when they are ten months old. So in a nut shell this is the most important secret to breeding color in Rhode Island Reds from the forefathers of our breed and most of all Harold Tompkins the greatest Rhode Island Red Breeder we ever had. If only people would breed like he did which was a simple system we would all have a more uniform strain of colored Rhode Island Reds.

Here is my email back to the Secetary of the Rhode Island Red Club of England.

Dont kill your birds because they have lots of black in thier neck feathers. This is breeding 103 in color you should learn first to breed for good type then after that work on this devil issue.