The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[catdaddyfro]

Bob, if your talking about the picture of the cockeral that henpeckmuch posted, it doesn't look anything like the ramey line, and there are plenty of pictures posted recently of cockerals and pullets from Gary rameys line. I also see nothing harch about a opinion coming from someone who is a judge. Why are so many people so sentitive about their bds?ir They should never, and I mean never post pictures and ask for opinions!!!!!

He was commenting on jims post on the 4-H kid that had just gotten into showing reds those are from the Ramey line as stated in Jim's post.

I didn't see any harshness either on the comments from the Red breeders that are steeped deeply in the knowledge of breeding good RIRs. I don't think any meant it harshly as though sometimes it may seem so esp. if you wear your feelings on your sleeves anyway. If ya'll people don't want to hear the good and the bad(they go hand in hand IMO) don't post pics up for anybody to critique/evaluate (remember there is positive criticizing as well as negative) also too remember pics don't always do justice, either, esp. since not everybody's monitors /or cameras are of equality, or on even kiln, too. And as was commented on too you can't read in expression or voice tone on a black and white typed message, maybe we need little pink and yellow ribbons and rainbows with frolicking Unicorns under waterfalls but we just get these for now

I think instead of sensitve it should read SERIOUS as that's what most are that post here on this thread seems to me.

I shall hush up my mouth now

and give back the soapbox/pulpit and let someone give me a blasting out now,

Jeff

 

[202roosterlane]

This is the post that was directed at Bob. And no. No where on here does it say you HAVE to PM someone if you want to ask just one person a question on this thread. And if you felt the need to jump in there with your expert opinion great. But leave it just that. You should not make it personal. When you added the comment " CERTAINLY NOTHING I WOULD HAVE ANY USE FOR. All I am saying is NYred, you come very rude in a lot of your posts. No one asked if you would have use for it.
Again another rude post: Nothing in either post suggested the question was for Bob only.
I do sometimes forget where I am and assume people who ask for a critique actually want an honest one. Since this is BYC where every bird is beautiful & "SQ" [although that often appears to stand for soup quality] I suppose I should have said he was the best Red I ever saw.

You are a Judge right? Surely you do not tell people this bird is a piece of crap, soup quality during Judging? I would expect that a Judge would give a professional opinion without personal rude comments. And for everyone jumping on the band wagon, "HE'S a JUDGE of 50 years".....great but wouldn't you expect more professionalism from a Judge of 50 years.

I totally get this is a Heritage thread but I thought the point was to share knowledge and encourage new people to raise heritage birds. If very time you raise a chicken long enough it's ready to be looked at for an opinion, and then someone slams you and makes you wonder why you even tried. There is a difference between giving a friendly expert opinion that will help guide someone, encourage them to continue with their birds and just being offensive and a chicken snob.

Mr R. Blosi I'm the fellow you were helping from NC I'm very interested in your critic of this bird. Here is the 2nd picture.

 

[NYREDS]

Rate of spur development varies from strain to strain but the length of your cock's spurs suggest he's probably at least 4. Harder to guess on a female but her legs look pretty smooth so I'd assume she's younger.
If you're referring to the crooked middle toe on the female that's not a result of having been "treated bad". She hatched that way. Crooked toes can be genetic but are usually the result of temperature fluctuations during incubation.
If you don't mind I'll use the picture of your cock bird to illustrate another point. For various purposes people will sometime cross single combed & rose combed birds within a breed. Your cock bird's comb is the result of such a cross as evinced by the raised central ridge. Most often such a cross is used to improve type in the rose combed line. It generally helps with this but leaves rose combs that take a few generations to correct.

here are my RIR RC BANTAMS. How old do u guys think they are?? i forgot on the roo and the hen was a rescue

if u look at the 2nd photo u can see the roos spurs. the hens feet are messed up cus she was treated bad
srry bad pics

 

[chickenpickens]

You are a Judge right? Surely you do not tell people this bird is a piece of crap, soup quality during Judging? I would expect that a Judge would give a professional opinion without personal rude comments. And for everyone jumping on the band wagon, "HE'S a JUDGE of 50 years".....great but wouldn't you expect more professionalism from a Judge of 50 years.

I totally get this is a Heritage thread but I thought the point was to share knowledge and encourage new people to raise heritage birds. If very time you raise a chicken long enough it's ready to be looked at for an opinion, and then someone slams you and makes you wonder why you even tried. There is a difference between giving a friendly expert opinion that will help guide someone, encourage them to continue with their birds and just being offensive and a chicken snob.

As a lurker...AMEN, AMEN AND AMEN.

 

[IowaHeritage]

Interesting thread, and no;.... rudeness is uncalled for.

I am still seeking opinions, so judge away.... Show or Soup ?


I Appreciate all input.

 

[NYREDS]

Thank you all for your comments including those that seem to be harsh. Without honest opinions I couldn't learn. I always think there is truth in what two or three people say about any one thing. The birds aren't production red's though. They are Duanne Urch / Turnlund birds from Minnisota. I don't think the pictures do them justice. The angle of the sun's reflection makes their dark mohogony color seem lighter. Even their legs in the picture appear to be almost white rather then yellow. The 2nd picture he is walking at an angle and makes his body appear much shorter than reality. That said, he is my first bird and without good honest critics / judges I will not have the ability to better understand what is required to produce the quaility birds I want to. It is the same reason that I'm entering birds in shows, to learn. And yes I've read the standard, but without practical experience it doesn't help much. So, again thank you all. I have 25 chicks of another line of birds from Greg Chamness coming and will keep both lines until I decide on which I like better.

Everything I've seen that came from Duane has been stock worth working with so this bird may in fact be better than those pictures made him appear. That's the problem with trying to judge birds from a picture. You can't work a picture the way you do a bird in a cage.
Try for a picture straight on from the side with his head up. I know they're often not cooperative when you're trying to photograph them.
I expect you'll get something useful in your chick order from Greg but don't make the mistake of immediately blending the 2 lines. Thatapproach usually ends badly.

 

[Robert Blosl]

On that post my name was hidden in the right bottom corner. I did not see it on my computer and could not figure out why I was suppose to make a comment. When I saw the bird I thought this was a fellow who I tried to help from the Carolina's who went to Mr. Rameys house and got chicks. It might have been someone else who got birds from Mr. Urch.

Mr. Urch has a pretty good strain of Reds and has been raising them for about 30 years. He is about the only person I know who can get you in the Reds with chicks as most good breeders don't fool with folks like us with EGGS. That is a dirty word to a Master Breeder because he knows the hard to come eggs will be destroyed in the mail. You will be lucky to get 15% to hatch and he or she does not have time to pack these eggs. They have jobs and don't have the time.

Mr. Ramey has a old strain that he told me he got in California about 40 years ago they came from a Estate Sale and where given to him by my guess the auctioneer.

I know there where some great breeders years ago when I was a kid in California one was Roy Brown. To me they looked like his old line.

So sometimes when we see a picture the bird may not have been raised with the best feed or grains. He looks rough or not finished.

When you go to see Mat ts bird they look like they have been raised with the best feed and care and ready for the show room. And they do. He uses a new FEED by FRM out of GEORGIA
called Show Feed. I am using it and man on man what a finish it puts on the feathers.

I have to be nice to some of these folks who send me pictures as I don't want to turn them off to get out of their breed but I try to come back to help them with the faults I see and what I would do to correct them. There is a post on another Chicken board under the Rhode Island Red Club about the appearance of some large fowl Reds in the New Paper we get every month. The backs of these females has a cushion and a bump. I have seen this for three or so years and we are seeing the same bump in the middle of the back pop up on the males. I have a friend who I talked about this from Oklahoma who says he thinks its poor feather quality. So here we have one of the top three lines of Rhode Island Reds in the the USA with a fault in it. How did it get there I don't know. but I know how to fix it. So I tell these folks what I would do and encourage them to keep breeding the old strain.

There are some folks and you saw them on here who think their light colored reds are the subject of this thread. They he and haw and soon leave us alone. This in natural they think their high eggs brown egg reds are HERITAGE and they are but I know what the make up is on those birds and that is not what I want to see in a STANDARD RHODE ISLAND RED.

Keep the pictures coming. New York Reds is one of the top Red Judges alive right now. So if he tells you what have take a deep breath and then ask what can I do to improve it. I am trying to learn how to fish for large Sea Trout or Speckled Trout down here in the Gulf Coast. I am going and interviewing masters of this hobby to try to see if I can be one of the chosen ones who catches some of these monster large female fish in the summer. I have to take some criticism from them to get me to the level that they are. They may have 20 years experience on me but I am willing to learn and improve.

We as beginners in Rhode Island Reds must do the same. We need to always raise the bar up each year and try improve and then if you make it past your third year you will be on your way to becoming a good breeder. Then can you make it to Ten years then twenty years. Not many do. They give up in the first two years. I know why and try to tell you what they as loose rs have done.

Some of you have fair to good strains some have better and some are getting what I feel are the top strains. But don't let your one year of experience with a fair strain make you feel you waisted the year raising them. I spent five years raising white call ducks just to learn how to hatch them and get them to four weeks of age. Then when I Mastered that hard trait I got me some Gray Calls and am trying to learn how to breed them for color. It will take me another 5 years in my view. Heck it took me 20 years to shrink a Mohawk Rhode Island Red down to a Bantam. It can be done only a few have the make up to do it. I am looking for just five people in the next five years to keep breeding my old line of Rhode Island Red Large fowl. Be for I leave this planet I know I did what I pro missed the ten Master Breeders 25 years ago when I asked them for the Secrets of breeding Rhode Island Reds. I will pass them on two these people. Then its up to them to do the same. Got to see if the NEW YORK Reds cockerel and his pullets gave me some eggs today Have a great day. bob

 

[NYREDS]

Interesting that the person I was responding to doesn't seem to have much of a problem with what I said & yet you do.
You say rude, I say direct. After 3,500 posts I think everyone knows that my posts won't leave anyone wondering what I think.
As to how I comment on birds in a show it depend to some extent on the nature of the show. In 4-H or youth shows, which I judge several of, I always first stress the positives. Apparently I do this well as I've more than once had fairs reschedule their poultry shows for a day I could come rather than contacting another judge.
In open shows, dealing with adults, I tend to be pretty direct. I have in fact more than once suggested that soup would be the best use for a bird someone has asked me about. If the bird has no quality that would make it useful for show or as a breeder how would I be doing anyone a service by encouraging them to keep working with the bird?
You certainly are entitled to your opinion about how I respond to questions, although I didn't ask you. Fortunately I don't feel any need for your approval to shore up my self-worth.

This is the post that was directed at Bob. And no. No where on here does it say you HAVE to PM someone if you want to ask just one person a question on this thread. And if you felt the need to jump in there with your expert opinion great. But leave it just that. You should not make it personal. When you added the comment " CERTAINLY NOTHING I WOULD HAVE ANY USE FOR. All I am saying is NYred, you come very rude in a lot of your posts. No one asked if you would have use for it.
Again another rude post: Nothing in either post suggested the question was for Bob only.
I do sometimes forget where I am and assume people who ask for a critique actually want an honest one. Since this is BYC where every bird is beautiful & "SQ" [although that often appears to stand for soup quality] I suppose I should have said he was the best Red I ever saw.

You are a Judge right? Surely you do not tell people this bird is a piece of crap, soup quality during Judging? I would expect that a Judge would give a professional opinion without personal rude comments. And for everyone jumping on the band wagon, "HE'S a JUDGE of 50 years".....great but wouldn't you expect more professionalism from a Judge of 50 years.

I totally get this is a Heritage thread but I thought the point was to share knowledge and encourage new people to raise heritage birds. If very time you raise a chicken long enough it's ready to be looked at for an opinion, and then someone slams you and makes you wonder why you even tried. There is a difference between giving a friendly expert opinion that will help guide someone, encourage them to continue with their birds and just being offensive and a chicken snob.

 

[greathorse]

I do not yet consider myself a breeder or top notch judge of assessing how close birds come to meeting the standard of perfection, but I do know that if I get an opinion from an expert that has been both judging and breeding for a very long time I pay close attention. In the horse world (Belgian Draft horses for me) we refer to folks giving too much credit to their own horses qualities as being barn blind. The same happens far too often in the chicken world. They are ours so they must be good.
If you got an opinion from NYREDS you got a "proffessional opinion. Whether or not you approve of the delivery has nothing to do with the expertise in judging a bird. If I am going to have surgery I will take the guy with vast experience and skill with questionable bedside manner over the smooth rookie every time. "Just Sayin"

I have a few of the Mohawk line. I got my start from Greg Chamness. I would like to get a few more but he seems to be booked already.

I am with Bob, I have no idea why folks want to either ship or have eggs shipped to them. I have spent tons of money on eggs with very poor results. I do ship some chicks when I have them availalble and would never consider disappointing folks with trying to pack and ship eggs to them. Too many bad things occur in shipping. For one I am sure the air pressure changes in the plane make for the bad air cells that are so frequently a problem.

If we want to keep this a pure bred strain we need to be able to take the critics serious and thank them for the input.

 

[Chris09]

Quote:
First I'm not jumping on anyone's "band wagon" never have and never will.
I would also like to say that more people in the poultry will respect a judge that gives there honest answer more than one that candy coats there answer and don't tell you faults of a fowl.



Chris