The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[Chris Herzog]

I am not an expert on this, but here is my thinking.
When you line breed you always have to think in terms of which birds blood will be most prevalent. If you breed to cure pinched tails from your hens and breed one of their offspring back to them they will now be 3/4 hens blood and would set their traits.
I would look to breed their cockerels to others in the family that display the trait you are working to or vise versa. Then phase the original hens out of your line.

Pinched tails is a difficult trait to fix, but I would surly not go outside of your strain to fix it.

I am a little spoiled when it comes to this.The hens in my strain has some of the best tails I have seen.

Ron

Ron,
I think you and I are on the same page with this.

Chris

 

[Fred's Hens]

Ron,
I think you and I are on the same page with this.

Chris

I am not an expert on this, but here is my thinking.
When you line breed you always have to think in terms of which birds blood will be most prevalent. If you breed to cure pinched tails from your hens and breed one of their offspring back to them they will now be 3/4 hens blood and would set their traits.
I would look to breed their cockerels to others in the family that display the trait you are working to or vise versa. Then phase the original hens out of your line.

Pinched tails is a difficult trait to fix, but I would surly not go outside of your strain to fix it.

I am a little spoiled when it comes to this.The hens in my strain has some of the best tails I have seen.

Ron

Ron and Chris

This is precisely my thinking. I am so grateful to Jimmy for the infusion of the two new birds. Same line. Jimmy's parent birds of these chicks have great tails and these chicks look to have great tails. But at my age, I don't want to screw this up.

I have 6 pullets (2013) of our family of this line. (no 2013 cockerels seem worthy). So my choices are, it seems to me:

1. Obviously, breed that new pullet under that cockerel.

2. Try Jimmy's cockerel over my pullets see what happens, if anything good come of it, cull hard and try a second generation. Nothing to lose in trying, but if it doesn't work, scrap our portion of the line entirely going forward and just keep Jimmy's line going.

 

[Robert Blosl]

Thanks for the reply.

Some background is in order. Our birds are Kittle birds from many years ago. They were pen "bred" (propagated, really) for years, without a plan, by the previous owner, but never outcrossed. The poor tails are their bad feature. Since we took them over, other very fine traits have re-surfaced, as I mentioned earlier. Very pleased.

With the addition of two birds from Jimmy, birds that look to have very nice tails,(too soon to judge) we'll be seeking to make this improvement. Jimmy's birds and our birds have been apart for a very, very long time, which is a good thing.

But now, this next crossing is crucial, to my mind. I got a male and a female from Jimmy. Here's a photo I posted earlier. I just really would be grateful for guidance on this next step. Don't want to screw this up.




Now, Here is a shot of some of the pullets in our pen. The flash washed out the front birds. The lower, back birds are more indicative of their true color. The pullet on the right is on alert and standing on one foot. But they really all are clones of the bird on the left

Fred are these Kittle pullets? Is the tails your worry?

Mr. Kittle contacted me a few years ago desperately trying to get some of my old Reds as he said he needed some to improve I cant remember what. He told me he had some from I think Radamaher and someone else. It sounded like he was trying to get new blood to improve what he had. I never thought he had his dads old line from the 1930s.

When you make crosses of other peoples strains sometimes you can get a fault that haunts you like tails. Even with the cross of the Illinois and Florida Mohawks we had issues with pinched tails. However, the half and half's carried the dark quill color from the Florida line that the Illinois line kind of lost. I once had black quills or dark blood quills on al my large fowl.



Matt 1616 did get a pullet with a injured leg which we nicknamed knock need. When I was in her pen looking at her she walked away from me and I about fell off the roost I was sitting on. What a tee pee tail she had. She was brick shaped like my old girls use to be years ago yet had still excelled feather quality over her back or good even webbing not stringy like I had 20 years ago when I started.

This female and her off spring I think will pull the good tail from the ones that we got which where half and half with what I call pinched tails. I got three pullets right now that are from a trio of half and halfs and they seem to have a pinched tail but I am going to raise them up to laying age anyway just to study the other good faults. I was planning on crossing them onto a Rose Comb male and start a new line of Rose Comb Mohawks if I can ever get the long bodied male I want.

So all you can do is find a male with a good tail and mate them to him to try to get a more fanned out tee pee look. It may take three to five years to accomplish. If these Kittle birds have mixed strains in them it will take a long time to level off the mixed up genes from all the other strains if the story is what I think it is on this strain.

Be patient until they are seven months old put them on the ground like a lawn let them run naturally for 20 minutes then take some pictures of the side and the rear for us to look at. Then the final acid test can be made on the outcome of these pullets. Hope this helps.

 

[Fred's Hens]

OK, I went out and threw down some kernels so they would "pose" a bit for me. These are 19 week old pullets and super nice birds. My concern is the tail fault that is in this family, as I discussed above. Thought I'd just show you what I'm up against here.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Thanks so much Bob. To me, the birds are so lovely, otherwise, in laying, personality, and vey nice backs with no cushions at all. They have so many positive attributes, but the tails just aren't right. The bunch are positively level. They're not showing a wild swing of attributes at all, which one might expect if they'd be criss crossed. I know for a certainty that they've not been outcrossed to anything in 12 or 13 years now. They are as consistent a bunch to hatch as I've ever seen. I put 70 chicks on the ground this spring and they are clones, clones clones. Of the good and the bad.

 

[Robert Blosl]

These birds remind me of the old Lester Thompson strain of the 1920s before he died. The color of these females is difficult to tell but when they get their full primary and secondary feathers or adult feathers then we can look at them on surface color. Black in the tails should be 100 % beetle green on the outside and hopefully almost green in the inside of the main tail feather.

If you remember a few threads ago a person had a picture of a R I Red bantam pullets about 5 months old next to some production reds. She was very dark in surface color or true to R I Red Standard color.

Thanks for the pictures it is nice to see so many people who have Large Fowl Rhode Island Reds this year. It will be fun to look at them when they are fully mature for color and type.

 

[Fred's Hens]

These birds remind me of the old Lester Thompson strain of the 1920s before he died. The color of these females is difficult to tell but when they get their full primary and secondary feathers or adult feathers then we can look at them on surface color. Black in the tails should be 100 % beetle green on the outside and hopefully almost green in the inside of the main tail feather.

If you remember a few threads ago a person had a picture of a R I Red bantam pullets about 5 months old next to some production reds. She was very dark in surface color or true to R I Red Standard color.

Thanks for the pictures it is nice to see so many people who have Large Fowl Rhode Island Reds this year. It will be fun to look at them when they are fully mature for color and type.

Wasn't Mr Lester Thompkins the old mid-westerner who liked a reddish garnet bird? Wasn't it he who fought like crazy, even against the wishes of his son, Harold, to darken them? Hahaha. But, didn't he sell a ton of birds back in his day?

I'd rather like to think that old Mr Wilfred Kittle, now at age 97 I believe, would have liked Lester Thompkins.

Edited: I guess the Thompkins were from the east coast, not the midwest. Likely from Rhode Island itself??? Do I have that right?

 

[RedRidge]

Matt 1616 did get a pullet with a injured leg which we nicknamed knock need. When I was in her pen looking at her she walked away from me and I about fell off the roost I was sitting on. What a tee pee tail she had.

Robert... is it possible you have a picture of this tail? I would love to see an example...
I am trying hard to learn more about the proper structure characteristics and I am very visual...
Appreciate the help

 

[RedRidge]

Thanks SO much for the pictures...

Now a pic from Bob? comparing would help us newbies a lot..

Thanks guys... very educational discussion

 

[immyjay54]

Thanks SO much for the pictures...

Now a pic from Bob? comparing would help us newbies a lot..

Thanks guys... very educational discussion

I'm not 100% sure on this but I think that this is the tee pee tail. I know that this hen has the red lacing around the black feathers but I just wanted to show this picture and see if this is the spread that we're looking for. This picture was taken last Nov. It's putting down rain here right now so I couldn't go out and take pictures. lol If this is not right, let me know. These girls were going through molt at the time of this picture.
Jim
Fred, sorry I had beetle green on here. I edited it. Guess I was thinking of the cock birds. I know the hens tails are black. lol Sorry