The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[Fred's Hens]

We have spells, up here, of sub zero weather in January and we usually have a few nights of similar polar vortex type weather in February as well. This makes early breeding and hatching up here far too challenging.

So, we start in the mid-south and we'll do hatching later in March and April up here. Our cooler, less humid April and May allows us to continue when the weather in the mid-south is turning far too hot and humid. So, it all works out. We all just have to work with the weather given us.

 

[Rancher3535]

Several of you have asked about my Warren Carlow birds. I am really liking these birds for several reasons. First off as chicks they feathered out a lot faster than my Underwood line. They started to lay sooner. But both lines have that great Rhode Island Red personality of being very friendly and easy to work with and be around.

The first two pictures are of my first choice male. The back line on him is very good although the pictures may not show it. He is wide and follows the width all the way from shoulder to end of tail.



This is my second choice for males. I could not get him to hold still long enough to get a really good picture but this will give you an idea of him. In the second pic he is at a really bad angle.



Critical comment are always welcome.

Thanks...Rob

 

[debp]

I know there is huge variation in laying rate among lines. They claim the production lines of Rhode Island Reds that are sold at hatcheries might get 70% lay. I realize that birds selected to standard are not selected to maximize egg production, but can anyone give me an estimate of what percent lay I might expect if I got RIR bred by a breeder who is breeding to SOP? Are we generally talking half that of hatchery RIR, or better than that?

Also, if I wanted to get started on some better quality RIR, would hatching eggs be a good way to start? Are they even available? I don't have any RIR yet - only other breeds. But, I want to switch to RIR, I think, because I am especially interested in a heritage bird that lays very well and is not so likely to fly a 6 ' fence as is a leghorn.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

I recommend starting out with started chickens so you know what you are getting, females and males. If you are wanting them just to have on the property then chicks might work too but end up costing almost as much as the adult birds by the time you factor in shipping and feeding them for months.
If you are planning to show them I would start with a trio or a quad. Most of the breeders will tell you they narrow down their hatches from a very large number to a select few for breeding. If you get a dozen chicks there are no promises that they will be the best of the best show quality.

 

[Fred's Hens]

I know there is huge variation in laying rate among lines. They claim the production lines of Rhode Island Reds that are sold at hatcheries might get 70% lay. I realize that birds selected to standard are not selected to maximize egg production, but can anyone give me an estimate of what percent lay I might expect if I got RIR bred by a breeder who is breeding to SOP? Are we generally talking half that of hatchery RIR, or better than that?

Also, if I wanted to get started on some better quality RIR, would hatching eggs be a good way to start? Are they even available? I don't have any RIR yet - only other breeds. But, I want to switch to RIR, I think, because I am especially interested in a heritage bird that lays very well and is not so likely to fly a 6 ' fence as is a leghorn.

Jim Rankin had just about all the lines and evaluated them on his site. http://jimspetsandpoultry.weebly.com

The RI Reds are one of the "heritage" birds that honestly lay very, very well. Our birds do. Will they lay like a Red Sex Link or a Leghorn? Probably not, so if eggs, eggs, eggs are one's thing, then Bobl Blosl, this thread's founder, used to often say, "Just go get some production reds and enjoy them". Bob was right.

The keeping and breeding of true bred birds isn't about owning RSL or Leghorn type layers. It's a much more deeply felt purpose, to be honest.

Again, check out Jimmy's sorting out of the various egg laying abilities with the strains he had. I can assure you that our true bred Reds are excellent layers, much better than our true bred Plymouth Rocks. They lay earlier, they lay heavier. They are less fussy about climatic changes as well. Frankly? If your strain of Red ISN'T a good laying strain, they've been bred down somehow. The RI Red is a layer, a good 180 egg per year layer and sometimes, even a wee bit more than that.

 

[debp]

Thanks for the thoughtful and honest reply, Fred. I have been asking myself why I'm drawn to heritage birds, given I want them for eggs much more than meat (though I do butcher and eat my birds, too). Thanks also for the advice on starting birds, Sally. I am not planning to raise them for show. I do think I want to eventually raise my own birds and make good birds available locally, so having good foundation stock made sense to me, but what is good? I'm too new to this to know how hatchery stock compares to heritage birds in terms of longevity and health. I didn't really want a system in which my hens decline rapidly after 18 months.

Sounds like the RIR would lay enough for me - even the heritage birds. But, it wouldn't be worth the hassle if they were not superior in other ways than the adherence to SOP and known heritage genetics. Function must follow form to some degree or you all wouldn't be so passionate about preserving and improving these breeds, right?

 

[immyjay54]

Hi all,
Been a little ( a lot ) lax on here for quite a while. I read all the posts but sometimes a few days late of the posts. I do remember reading a while back where someone else had asked about the laying ability of the true RIR's. In 2012, I had published a page on my computer for 2013 and kept one full ;year of the egg laying of 3 different lines of birds that I had at the time. It was a lot of work but I really did enjoy it. Somehow (by error) I deleted the page last year but I can tell you that the egg production from my Nelson, Underwood and Reese birds was way beyond what I thought that it was going to be.
Right now I have 5 pullets in one pen and 5 in another pen, these are 2 different lines and when each group hit just a little over 6 months they started laying. I've been getting from 3 - 5 eggs each day from each pen. I do have lights on in this building from 5 AM until 9 PM daily. My RC Underwood girls that are coming 3 years old are still laying 1 - 3 eggs daily which I only have 3 of these older girls. They have no lights on them and the only time that they don't lay is when they are going through molt. My older girls which are in two different pens without lights stopped laying around the end of October and haven't started laying yet but I expect them to start in the next week or two.
If you have decent birds, my experience is that you will get 4 or more eggs per week per bird other then when molt.
These are super duper birds (most any line), some a little better in one way and others in another way.
Bob was a very good friend mine through emails and instant message and really did disturb me a lot when he passed but he and I didn't see eye to eye on the egg production. To me, if a hen doesn't lay well, she will not be on my place. I sell eating eggs to folks to help defray the cost of the feed and if my girls are not helping out then they go.
I don't know if it is the feed, weather, or just getting accustomed but chicks that I bot 2 years ago that were hatched in March did not start to lay until the following February. The chicks that I hatched from these birds last year are some of the ones that started laying at just a few days past 6 months.

There is a wealth of informative pages on my web site that you can read. I haven't done a lot with the site in the past few months but hope to update a lot of info on there in the coming weeks. Waiting for the weather to break so I can put pictures of a couple of my super duper cockerels that I raised this past year.
I hope this helps with answering some of the questions about the egg production and just the Reds's in general.
Jimmy

 

[cmom]

I recommend starting out with started chickens so you know what you are getting, females and males. If you are wanting them just to have on the property then chicks might work too but end up costing almost as much as the adult birds by the time you factor in shipping and feeding them for months.
If you are planning to show them I would start with a trio or a quad. Most of the breeders will tell you they narrow down their hatches from a very large number to a select few for breeding. If you get a dozen chicks there are no promises that they will be the best of the best show quality.

I know there is huge variation in laying rate among lines. They claim the production lines of Rhode Island Reds that are sold at hatcheries might get 70% lay. I realize that birds selected to standard are not selected to maximize egg production, but can anyone give me an estimate of what percent lay I might expect if I got RIR bred by a breeder who is breeding to SOP? Are we generally talking half that of hatchery RIR, or better than that?

Also, if I wanted to get started on some better quality RIR, would hatching eggs be a good way to start? Are they even available? I don't have any RIR yet - only other breeds. But, I want to switch to RIR, I think, because I am especially interested in a heritage bird that lays very well and is not so likely to fly a 6 ' fence as is a leghorn.

I agree with SallyinIndiana. I would start with a trio or a quad too. If there are any poultry show in your area you could contact a breeder and make arrangements to get them at a show. Once you find a breeder you may want to partner with him/her so down the road you can get more birds so you won't be in-breeding. I line breed. I have 2 families so I can put males with one with females from another family. All the birds are from the same line so I am probably breeding cousins to cousins. I don't want to breed bother to sisters. Bob Blosl the starter of this thread passed away a little over a year ago but did leave us with some very good information. This is what he wrote for raising the LF RIR. http://bloslspoutlryfarm.tripod.com/id67.html. My birds are the Reese/Mohawk line. Do check out Jim's website http://jimspetsandpoultry.weebly.com. My older birds do lay very well except in the winter. For the past month I have not getting many eggs from them. They are taking a break. They have just started to lay but aren't laying very well yet. My pullets have just started laying and they are laying very well. Good luck and have fun...

 

[Fred's Hens]

Hey Jimmy, sorry you lost that data, but you gave good, straight from experienced reporting and that's about all one needs.

I also track egg laying, as this is a farm. We too sell a few excess eggs to help defray the feed costs. I LOVE our Reds as they are extremely intelligent, fun to be around, are very human "interface" oriented, at least ours are. They are simply a good bird to have around this farmstead.

I can speak about three lines, as we've had them long enough to judge. The Bates/Fogle line is a good laying line. The Kittle/Horstman birds are incredibly good layers, but we're moving away from them only because we are now appreciating the finer points of birds that are more "polished" you might say, or truer to the standard.

Finally, we've had the Nelsons for a couple of years and they are very, very good layers as well. We just don't have any poor laying Reds. There are some differences, perhaps, but again, I would say all are good layers.

Finally, once you've bred the birds for a year or two? And, let's say someone else bred them for 4 or 5 years before you got them? A little less focus needs to be on the old "Name" of the line and a whole lot more emphasis should be put upon the fact that YOU have been doing the selecting and YOU have been doing the breed matchups, and YOU are doing the feeding and care.

What am I saying? The birds become YOUR birds and to a large, large degree, they are the birds you have bred them to be, for better for for worse. Select for good laying and you'll maintain and even improve on laying.

 

[debp]

Such helpful posts, Fred, Jimmy, cmom. I read through your 2012-2013 notes on the RIR you were trying out, Jimmy, and that was great info. I can see they become one's own birds over a few generations of selection, but comparing the hatchery birds to the pictures I see of you breeders' RIR, I don't think you could ever select for some of the good heritage traits (besides laying) starting with hatchery stock, right? But, you could select for laying (& health, vigor, temperament) starting with true RIR, assuming the laying isn't too low - which it sounds like it isn't usually. Although Jimmy's notes did mention birds that were very late to start laying and didn't lay much at all. That would be frustrating for me, if I ended up with expensive pretty birds that didn't lay well.