The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[Fred's Hens]

The mention of beetle green in the female tail confuses me. The SOP says.......

Female
Tail: Main tail Black.


Does this matter a whole bunch, one way or the other?

 

[NYREDS]

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,
Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings but these pullets would end up in soup here. You will never produce proper tail colour out of them. Beyond the tail colour they're very pinched in the tail as well. I'm not familiar with the name Kittle but if these birds are representative of the strain I know why I'm not.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Fred,
Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings but these pullets would end up in soup here. You will never produce proper tail colour out of them. Beyond the tail colour they're very pinched in the tail as well. I'm not familiar with the name Kittle but if these birds are representative of the strain I know why I'm not.

Bill, thanks. No thin skin here at all. It would be unfair to say they are representative of Mr Kittle's birds. We got the birds 3 years ago from a person who flock bred them with no selection (pasture propagation) for well over a decade.

I've been fussing with them for just three generations. From the beginning, I've not no illusions as to whether their sober faults could ever be corrected. For just flock layers, they have been very nice birds to have around.

 

[NestingHillsSC]

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

Yes they do!! All my girls so far as young as they are have very nice BIG wide tails. If I can just keep that up. lol

 

[Wyandotte96]

Hatched 1 sc bantam my hens are sitting on some to so hopefully more chicks.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Ron Fogle's chicks have proper tails and type oozing out of them while still in the brooder.

I cannot wait to see how they mature over the summer. It's going to be fun to watch. I'll try to post some pictures when they get put on the ground in a few weeks and have more feathering.

As nice as his birds are, I'm not sure Ron would want his name put on them 15 years after they were out of his hands and carelessly bred for that long.

 

[RedRidge]

OK... related but different question...
At what "ages" do you folks evaluate your chicks for an accurate representation of how they will mature?

For instance... in dogs who go through funny "growth patterns" you don't want to evaluate structure at certain ages... rule of thumb for pups is look at them at 3 days, 3 weeks and 3 months. I used to think that was a joke but it's really pretty accurate.

Can anyone tell me when the best ages are for your HRIR?

 

[NestingHillsSC]

Ron Fogle's chicks have proper tails and type oozing out of them while still in the brooder.

I cannot wait to see how they mature over the summer. It's going to be fun to watch. I'll try to post some pictures when they get put on the ground in a few weeks and have more feathering.

As nice as his birds are, I'm not sure Ron would want his name put on them 15 years after they were out of his hands and carelessly bred for that long.

Yea right. That's why he gets text messages from me sometimes. Even though I'm far away from starting to breed them I like to know things in advance. I thank him for his patients with me. Answering my questions etc. Very nice guy.

They are so fun to watch grow. You can just see them progressing into nice birds. They are very rich in color (even though pics always makes them look 50% lighter

), with very black bills, type I think is going to be VERY nice. Out of 10 chicks I got from him I know 2 are roos. One is a bit small but the other one is HUGE already. All the girls like I said have HUGE tails. I think there going to be very big birds. There bodies just don't fit there legs at this point.

There just big bodied, weather that's good or bad. I think good.

 

[NestingHillsSC]

OK... related but different question...
At what "ages" do you folks evaluate your chicks for an accurate representation of how they will mature?

For instance... in dogs who go through funny "growth patterns" you don't want to evaluate structure at certain ages... rule of thumb for pups is look at them at 3 days, 3 weeks and 3 months. I used to think that was a joke but it's really pretty accurate.

Can anyone tell me when the best ages are for your HRIR?

Ron told me that sometimes you don't know what you have until 8-9 months. He said don't give up on them till then.That's all I know at this point.

 

[RedRidge]

Ron told me that sometimes you don't know what you have until 8-9 months. He said don't give up on them till then.That's all I know at this point.

OK... to us females... that's like being pregnant all over again. ROFL

My 22 RC Underwoods are 5 days old... I'm already picking favorites but it's all intuition not fact based. LOL
And personality of course...