The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[RedRidge]

I used to work on a Black Angus breeder farm in NE Colorado one of the main ingredients in the daily concoction of show steer feed was barley it was used for conditioning it was about the only difference(ingre.) in the mix the rest of the cows and bulls got. Maybe something to this(barley) in your feeding rations?

Jeff

Jeff that is interesting. I learned a few years ago that Alfalfa leaves are a secret endangered for chickens as well. Puts some good yellow on the legs of White Rocks and it puts a great finish on Reds Feathers as well. So if you can till up a spot and plant these seeds this is the best grass type food for them to feed on in my view.

Below is a classic example of the most popular Rhode Island Reds in America. Notice the surface color on these girls. See how its golden or faded in the color of the original Rhode Island Red. Do you see the Rhode Island Red bantam. Do you see how dark she is at five months of age. She is almost black. That's the true color of the Rhode Island Red that we try to promote on this site. It is nice now and then to see pictures of the popular Production Reds that every buddy owns in America. I bet there are at least 50,000 of these on the yards of back yarders today in America.

You asked how the Original Rhode Island Red became so endangered well one reason it is so easy to throw twenty or thirty of these light colored Production Reds into a large pen with three males and flock mate them and hatch chick after chick and sell them to customers in feed stores and farm improvement stores like Tractor Supply. There is no breeding towards a standard for color or shape just get these girls to lay 250 eggs per year and the public will be happy and they will think these are Rhode Island Reds because you say they are. They put pictures in their Catalogs that show the true Rhode Island Reds yet the public just turns their heads and ignores it. In the past forty years there has only been maybe six to ten breeders of real Rhode Island Reds at one time. In the past 20 years there has only been maybe two or three breeders who stood out as the top true to type breeders of this breed at leading shows in the USA. In many shows around the country there have been few shown and so many say what has happen to the once popular Rhode Island Red. If you think this is said to hear how about the Rose Comb Rhode Island Red. They are very very rare today. But its funny if you goggle Rose Comb Rhode Island Reds into the computer you will find a few pictures of them but no bleached out Production type birds with little black in their tails. If you go to Bing.com and type in the name you may surpised.

In a nut shell it is very hard for any chicken person breeder to make it to the Ten Year mark with large fowl Reds. Most of them who try screw up and fail and have so many faults at the five year mark they throw their hands up in the air and say I give up. It will take me twenty years to correct what they caused.

Number one reason for failure is crossing strains. They love to do it. About 80 percent who start out do it. I know a older Judge who did it for about five years. He is getting out of what he has and buying a strain of chicks from a old time breeder. He wasted five good years doing this.

The secret is to find one good strain that works well on your soil and your climate and set your plow deep and plow straight ahead. This is a old saying from Arturo Schilling. Do you know who he was??

Hope this helps you some on this. For the beginner do not panic. Get a good line which it sound you all have done. Work with them breed them for type only the first three years. Learn this then work on color the next three years. In about six to eight years you will have one of the top lines in the USA.

These are the secrets of the old men I interviewed twenty years ago. They passed their secrets onto me. I try to pass them on to you. They are a great all around dual purpose breed. You will have a nice bird to eat if you wish to eat them. They lay a good amount of eggs per year the VIGOROUS ones lay up to 190 eggs per pullet year. Then you have Beauty and pretty chicken to look at and if you are one of the very RARE ones you can show them and win big at the large fowl poultry shows.

Now people are telling me the rare bird in this group is becoming the WHITE PLYMOUTH ROCK. This is a bird that is going out of popularity more than large Reds. So easy to breed and raise and no color issues to worry about and if you get them right you can when and even beat a good Red at a show. Its just a cycle we see chickens go into. The harder the color to breed for the rarer they are to find.

Hope this helps the LURKERS. Got to love you guys. You will be the future breeders some day. Be patient. Read , study and then make your move. bob

Excellent post! Thank you for taking the time to post it!

 

[monnie662]

I believe I may have posted this earlier, but this year I have access to spent grain from a very small brewery in my little town here in Colorado. I give my birds a splash of that every evening in addition to free choice 16% layer feed from a local mill. I assume there is little actual feed value left in the spent grain, but the birds look better this year than they ever have. It seems like the hens in the breeding pen are keeping their feathers better than they did in the past, and they seem to be laying better than last year as well. Another friend of mine is feeding some of it to his prize bull and says he has a shine that he has never seen before. I think there is something to the fermented feeds.

Hmmm. A small town close to me has sold an old building that is going to house a craft beer brewery. Might just have to find out about the spent grain.

 

[four h lover]

Does any one have a bantam cock for sale I want to breed mine but I can't because mine are all brothers and sisters and that doesn't work very well

 

[Fred's Hens]

Mr. Kittle's Donaldson Mohawk male bought in 1945.

Thank you for this picture. Love it!!!! Great to hear that Mr Kittle still has 5 pens going. That's just great.

 

[ChickMagnet207]

I don't know if its a small chair or not but look at the size of this guy compared to that chair! WOW!

 

[NestingHillsSC]

Quote: Hence the Delawares. They are such a great dual purpose bird. But because of the color issues and leg color issues people don't want to try to breed them to the SOP. Along with my HRIRs going to try to breed these also. Got 26 chicks from Paul Harter. Gives me something to strive for.

 

[catdaddyfro]

Does any one have a bantam cock for sale I want to breed mine but I can't because mine are all brothers and sisters and that doesn't work very well

Sure it will unless they both have a common fault/trait you would not want to instill into their genetic makeup. Study up on line breeding and inbreeding there are a lot of cases where multiple generations of siblings being used in the breeding pens.

Jeff

 

[Robert Blosl]

I have breed brothers to aunts nephews to aunts mothers to sons and daughters to sires. If all you have is a brother to use why not mate the brother to his nieces next year.

You can breed brother to sister is it worse than getting a male from a unknown strain and cross onto him?

Are you breeding these red bantams to show or to the standard or just for pets?

If just for pets it wont hurt either way.

I would rater breed my birds to their own relatives than get a strange bird from another strain like Calif or Minn or Flordia.

Hope this helps.

What strain of Red Bantams do you have or did you get a male from one person and some females from another person?

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Just curious, but is there a growth chart for the HRIR showing stuff like a picture of a chick at different stages of growth about every 2 or 3 weeks?

 

[immyjay54]

Just curious, but is there a growth chart for the HRIR showing stuff like a picture of a chick at different stages of growth about every 2 or 3 weeks?

If you are just wanting pictures of different ages/dates, go to my site click on the Gary Underwood pages and you'll see pictures of mine from day old up to 5 months. Just click my user name and you'll see the site address.
Jim
Maybe this is what you are looking for. lol