The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[cmom]

Quote:
I started out with Production Reds. After going to several poultry shows and seeing the Heritage RIR's I decided too that I wanted to raise them. I bought some birds from a specific line and bred them. I have shown them but didn't place well originally. After several selective breeding's, my birds began to improve at the shows. I have since purchased more birds that are descendants of the same line my birds are descendants of. Hopefully at future shows my birds will do better. I love showing and have met so many wonderful people. I show my Heritage RIR's and Rose Comb RIW's. I have gotten Best of Breed, Best Variety, Reserve Breed and Reserve Variety. No championships yet but working on it and carefully paying attention to the advice others give on breeding and the Standard of Perfection.

 

[RedRidge]

Yep... pic above is a production red...
Here's my old production red roo named Rodney who I used on my production red hens for a couple of years...
Very different from HRIR
And he was a jerk to boot... didn't even taste good after 2 days in the crock pot.

 

[Pozees]

Very good point. How do you know what are average strains and the better strains? In fact some strains may take five to ten years to get to the level of the top strains. Of course you can always cross strains and see if you hit the lottery or not.

What does a beginner do?

Sure glad I am not starting all over again.

Then think about the colored chickens that look so pretty in the catalogs that every buddy wants to have.

You can see why there are so few breeders left anymore. Its very tough to maintain and or upgrade a strain of fowl.

http://showbirdbid.proboards.com/thread/5893/inbreeding-serama

Here is a article I found today that hit a home run. This can apply to any breed and I thought you might enjoy reading it its a classic and that's why I be leave in getting the best stock you can then roll up your sleeves and hammer away in line breeding and or Inbreeding. Make these unwanted genes come to the surface and skim them off and in no time you will have a uniform strain of birds that look like peas in a pod.

I wanted to thank you for sharing this link, this is an excellent article.

 

[catdaddyfro]

Yeah, Sally, I saw the crooked comb, but my post took that into account. Eat the cockerel, take the table eggs from the pullets. Neither of us will be choosing any breeders out of these anytime soon anyhow. LOL

I love my layer flock. I love everything about layers. Always have.

So this is a production type chick? I just ***- U-MEd it was a "H" type real RIR beings this thread is dedicated to such, and figured if so that the little one could possibly be the best thing that came along since sliced bread. If not so then, yeah I'd not think twice about chopping its head off and putting it(cockerel) in the skillet then when the time comes or keep it(pullet) for an egg-layer too or sell it or whatever.

Still bottom line you can't tell what its gonna be yet as its still to early to sex or to cull for much other than what I mentioned whether its a production/factory red or a real one.

Jeff

 

[Fred's Hens]

So this is a production type chick? I just ***- U-MEd it was a "H" type real RIR beings this thread is dedicated to such, and figured if so that the little one could possibly be the best thing that came along since sliced bread. If not so then, yeah I'd not think twice about chopping its head off and putting it(cockerel) in the skillet then when the time comes or keep it(pullet) for an egg-layer too or sell it or whatever.

Still bottom line you can't tell what its gonna be yet as its still to early to sex or to cull for much other than what I mentioned whether its a production/factory red or a real one.

Jeff

Jeff, since Sally didn't specifically say, I also assumed a true bred bird, given the purpose of this thread. Nonetheless, the principle remains. Eat all inferior cockerels and put the pullets in the layer house. But, like you, I'm not altogether sure I'd even bother feeding out most production males as there isn't that much to them, really. But there's no harm in doing so.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Quote:

Quote:
It is a HRIR chick that is about 3 weeks old. It is from Ron's line but not from Ron. Over all I'm loving my HRIR chicks. I just keep reading these posts on here that express concern about us newbies breeding the line into hatchery condition. I don't want to do that. I also don't want to waste money feeding a bird that is not very useful.
Since it looks like it is something for the chick to grow out of, I'm even happier with these little guys. The 5 chicks I got from Ron are already getting so nice and large. They love my yard and bugs. Super fun to watch and really really dark. They are about 7 weeks old.
The other 6 HRIR from Ron's line are wonderful too but don't have all of their feathers yet so still in the not so cute phase.

 

[FOGELLY]

So this is a production type chick?  I just ***- U-MEd it was a "H" type real RIR beings this thread is dedicated to such, and figured if so that the little one could possibly be the best thing that came along since sliced bread. If not so then, yeah I'd not think twice about chopping its head off and putting it(cockerel) in the skillet then when the time comes or keep it(pullet) for an egg-layer too or sell it or whatever.

Still bottom line you can't tell what its gonna be yet as its still to early to sex or to cull for much other than what I mentioned whether its a production/factory red or a real one.

Jeff

I believe this chick is HRIR. I am pretty sure of where she got them.
The comb on this chick most likely won't be crooked. However only time will tell. I have learned and continue to learn, to wait on these birds to mature and show themselves.
These RIR strains may not be for those who want to start culling very early to save on feed. I only cull early for very obvious defects, and rarely have any of those.
To lower my feed bill I started raising less birds and got rid of any freeloaders, like the BW Ameraucana my son talked us into a couple years ago.

Ron

 

[Fred's Hens]

Hey Ron, good to see you here.

Got a question for you. Have you notice the cockerels at 7 weeks still need feathering on the backs, while the pullets feather in quite good bit earlier? I'm sure on the sexes, so it isn't a question about that, but about feathering speed difference between males and females.

 

[catdaddyfro]

I believe this chick is HRIR. I am pretty sure of where she got them.
The comb on this chick most likely won't be crooked. However only time will tell. I have learned and continue to learn, to wait on these birds to mature and show themselves.
These RIR strains may not be for those who want to start culling very early to save on feed. I only cull early for very obvious defects, and rarely have any of those.
To lower my feed bill I started raising less birds and got rid of any freeloaders, like the BW Ameraucana my son talked us into a couple years ago.

Ron

Yeah I agree Ron and that was my point too. LOL that it is still a little too early to condemn it to the soup pot(as previously stated) already unless it had a serious enough defect/fault or you just had an absolute washtub full and couldn't afford to feed them for 10/12+ months to see what you may have, is all. Sometimes my points are a bit murky/clear as mud though and I understand how-come confusion could be evident from some of my post.

I know what I'm meaning, I sometimes just don't type it out the way I think it. Shucks, sometimes there aren't even words(descriptions) for some of my mindsets or images in my head, LOL

Jeff

 

[catdaddyfro]

Hey Ron, good to see you here.

Got a question for you. Have you notice the cockerels at 7 weeks still need feathering on the backs, while the pullets feather in quite good bit earlier? I'm sure on the sexes, so it isn't a question about that, but about feathering speed difference between males and females.

I thought of this too on some NHs I raised up by going by feather developement esp wing and tail feathers I was sure the faster growing ones were surely the pullets. Well some were, most not, as I ended up with a 70%/30% cockerel to pullet ratio which is just about on par for me. In other words my theory on that batch did not hold water.

Jeff