The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[Pozees]

For the Fogle family - Blue Cochin hen and the RIR chick she hatched - 2 days old and out foraging with Mom, cloudy and 50 degrees out.

 

[cmom]

Many people use different feeds and many want a non commercial type feed as I guess they think the feed has bad stuff in it and if you eat the eggs or the meat this will harm you ect. All I know is this. If you go to a chicken show with your Rhode Island Reds and compete with the top breeders you can beat on Finish alone. The feed you give your birds to put a finish on them is paramount in showing your birds.

I have seen people spent $300 or more to just drive and stay in Hotel Rooms and don't win nothing and they think they got good birds and the reason is they tried to save a dolor or two on the feed sack or try to make their own feed.

I tried going the cheap route a few years ago lost the whole breeding season to no fertile eggs went right back to my super expensive Game Bird Feed and starter and will never go back to anything else. Some are caught between a rock and a hard place. The feed that they have to use is all they can get some add cat fish feed which has good protein. Others may use other stuff heck if you had to using crickets a meal worms would be a good supplement. One of the best methods to put a finish on a Red is free Range. Then you have to watch out for varmints during the day and dogs.

However, as Maurice Wallace once wrote in the Rhode Island Red Chronicle in the 1960s there is no alternative for free range. He lived in Canada and had them running around in his apple orchards. If you live in the northern states and can plant alfalfa that is a great greens to give to your birds and will put a good finish on your chickens.

Now I mentioned about showing your birds to get a good finish. Many don't show their Reds and that is fine but when you take pictures of your birds the eye can tell how they look and how they feathers. We are all judges to some degree. So I don't want to push showing down your throat. I myself have not showed much and its not the cost but the way judges pick their birds that turns me off. If I want to show Red Rocks I would get me some but I raise old fashion R I Red Bantams and it just hurts to much to get beat by a Red Rock so I would rather stay home.

I often wonder how many new people got large fowl Reds this year. If you post on this thread could you tell us how many chicks you got on the ground. If you got Ten just say ten that's a good start. If you got 40 that is fantastic.

I have thee pullets and one ckl that I saved. I am trying to get a Radamaher Rose Comb male or female to cross onto my old line. Does anyone have this line other than Arian the Club Secretary in Texas.?

Quote: I was feeding my birds ADM Advantage Poultry Pellets which are 22% protein with Animal Protein Products. ADM makes the PenPals feed. It is more expensive and quite a drive to get it. The place I was getting it at stopped carrying it and another place I found that would special order it for me was hit and miss and I got tired of sometimes it would come in and often times when they told me it would be in it didn't come in so I switched back to Game Bird Breeder which is 20% with Animal Protein Products. I also free range my birds. I am very happy with the results. Every once in awhile I put bales of nice alfalfa in the pens and the birds go crazy and eat all of the little green leaves off of it. They also get plenty of greens from our gardens. One of their favorites is collards.

 

[NestingHillsSC]

All my flock from day old to layer get fermented feed from day one. They are all thriving on it. I ferment chick starter for the hatch-lings until four weeks. Then they go on All purpose ferment for the remainder of their life. I'm not a feed expert but mix my mash with what works for my birds. They all free range from four weeks on.

My recipe:

Day old to four weeks Four weeks for life

All Purpose Crumble
Game Bird Grower
Chick Starter Crumble
Unpasteurized Apple Cider Vinegar Same as chick
Ground Pumpkin seeds
Flake dried Oregano fresh garlic and herbs
Powdered Cayenne
Powdered Garlic
Greek yogurt added twice a week
Minced raw beef liver once a week

I fill feed pans in the morning all they can eat until its gone within a half hour. All are turned out except brooder chicks all day. I feed again before they go in the barn for roost.

I have not lost any chicks except for one accidental drowning. All my birds are growing and thriving in good health. I want to show some birds in the Fall shows. Those birds will go on conditioning ferment when they get closer to the date.

I keep my ferment buckets in the house in the winter. They will go into the barn when the weather warms up a bit more. I feed and care for sixty chickens and six Blue Slate poults with this routine. I won't change anything about it since it is working.


The red pullets are Production breeding and five months old. That dark little pullet in the middle is a five month old bantam RIR hatched from Roslyn Pickens egg. Hanging out after foraging in the garden all morning.

Some of my dark red Ron Fogle hatched chicks taking a drink from the garden pool. I am outside with my flock when they are. Which is nearly every day.

They really seem to like the fermented feed. They eat and eat. LOL I just started with chick feed with ACV and warm water. Then just keep added feed to the bucket every other day. The bucket stays in the bator/brooder room in the house. TOO hot in the summer outside here. I feed them just enough so there is nothing leftover at the end of the day. REALLY cuts down on the waste. Even if they stay in the bowl they can't scratch it out all over the ground. Much better to me.

 

[NestingHillsSC]

The Video is ready!

RIRs from Ron Fogel at 6 weeks old:

 

[NestingHillsSC]

I was feeding my birds ADM Advantage Poultry Pellets which are 22% protein with Animal Protein Products. ADM makes the PenPals feed. It is more expensive and quite a drive to get it. The place I was getting it at stopped carrying it and another place I found that would special order it for me was hit and miss and I got tired of sometimes it would come in and often times when they told me it would be in it didn't come in so I switched back to Game Bird Breeder which is 20% with Animal Protein Products. I also free range my birds. I am very happy with the results. Every once in awhile I put bales of nice alfalfa in the pens and the birds go crazy and eat all of the little green leaves off of it. They also get plenty of greens from our gardens. One of their favorites is collards.

Bales of alfalfa might be a good idea. Mine are outside ALL day every day. But they have stripped the land. People think goats are bad.

RIGHT! I tried the alfalfa pellets, soaked it in warm water to soften it up , but took them days and days to eat it. They didn't care for it. I will through straw down and they scratch through that immediately. I will give the alfalfa bales a try. They eat a lot of bugs but no grass. I have too many trees to even try to ground grass here.

 

[RedRidge]

I have a question about fermenting and soaking for those who have done this...
I am grinding and mixing my own grains... however I do have a problem with the mix I prefer being too powdery and easy for them to sort.
I worry about them sorting and not getting everything they need.
I milk cows and sheep and have access to a LOT of whey... I have toyed with pre-soaking each batch the night before in whey.
I am so anal about wanting to know the exact amount of protein, etc, that each group is getting that I haven't done this.
Has anyone used whey as a pre-soak?
I'm not sure I want to delve into fermenting because I have so much livestock that I'm concerned that would be a little overwhelming,
but I think I could handle a "night before" pre-soak.

I probably need to get over being so anal about it.
Right now I have a premix of Nutribalancer, limestone, and several other ingredients that are powdery depending on the management group such as fish meal and kelp
I grind non-gmo corn, field peas and oats, then add the premix.
If I soak the grains and then drain them the next morning and then add the premix, will this give me the consistency I'm looking for to bind things together?

Would love advice from those who have "been there, done that"
Thanks

 

[NestingHillsSC]

I have a question about fermenting and soaking for those who have done this...
I am grinding and mixing my own grains... however I do have a problem with the mix I prefer being too powdery and easy for them to sort.
I worry about them sorting and not getting everything they need.
I milk cows and sheep and have access to a LOT of whey... I have toyed with pre-soaking each batch the night before in whey.
I am so anal about wanting to know the exact amount of protein, etc, that each group is getting that I haven't done this.
Has anyone used whey as a pre-soak?
I'm not sure I want to delve into fermenting because I have so much livestock that I'm concerned that would be a little overwhelming,
but I think I could handle a "night before" pre-soak.

I probably need to get over being so anal about it.
Right now I have a premix of Nutribalancer, limestone, and several other ingredients that are powdery depending on the management group such as fish meal and kelp
I grind non-gmo corn, field peas and oats, then add the premix.
If I soak the grains and then drain them the next morning and then add the premix, will this give me the consistency I'm looking for to bind things together?

Would love advice from those who have "been there, done that"
Thanks

Only used ACV with Mother in the soak with hot water. Protein levels,

. All I know is fermented food is suppose to make the proteins levels higher. By how much, I have no idea. But would be interesting to find that out.

 

[greathorse]

I believe I may have posted this earlier, but this year I have access to spent grain from a very small brewery in my little town here in Colorado. I give my birds a splash of that every evening in addition to free choice 16% layer feed from a local mill. I assume there is little actual feed value left in the spent grain, but the birds look better this year than they ever have. It seems like the hens in the breeding pen are keeping their feathers better than they did in the past, and they seem to be laying better than last year as well. Another friend of mine is feeding some of it to his prize bull and says he has a shine that he has never seen before. I think there is something to the fermented feeds.

 

[catdaddyfro]

I believe I may have posted this earlier, but this year I have access to spent grain from a very small brewery in my little town here in Colorado. I give my birds a splash of that every evening in addition to free choice 16% layer feed from a local mill. I assume there is little actual feed value left in the spent grain, but the birds look better this year than they ever have. It seems like the hens in the breeding pen are keeping their feathers better than they did in the past, and they seem to be laying better than last year as well. Another friend of mine is feeding some of it to his prize bull and says he has a shine that he has never seen before. I think there is something to the fermented feeds.

I used to work on a Black Angus breeder farm in NE Colorado one of the main ingredients in the daily concoction of show steer feed was barley it was used for conditioning it was about the only difference(ingre.) in the mix the rest of the cows and bulls got. Maybe something to this(barley) in your feeding rations?

Jeff

 

[Robert Blosl]

I used to work on a Black Angus breeder farm in NE Colorado one of the main ingredients in the daily concoction of show steer feed was barley it was used for conditioning it was about the only difference(ingre.) in the mix the rest of the cows and bulls got. Maybe something to this(barley) in your feeding rations?

Jeff

Jeff that is interesting. I learned a few years ago that Alfalfa leaves are a secret endangered for chickens as well. Puts some good yellow on the legs of White Rocks and it puts a great finish on Reds Feathers as well. So if you can till up a spot and plant these seeds this is the best grass type food for them to feed on in my view.

Below is a classic example of the most popular Rhode Island Reds in America. Notice the surface color on these girls. See how its golden or faded in the color of the original Rhode Island Red. Do you see the Rhode Island Red bantam. Do you see how dark she is at five months of age. She is almost black. That's the true color of the Rhode Island Red that we try to promote on this site. It is nice now and then to see pictures of the popular Production Reds that every buddy owns in America. I bet there are at least 50,000 of these on the yards of back yarders today in America.

You asked how the Original Rhode Island Red became so endangered well one reason it is so easy to throw twenty or thirty of these light colored Production Reds into a large pen with three males and flock mate them and hatch chick after chick and sell them to customers in feed stores and farm improvement stores like Tractor Supply. There is no breeding towards a standard for color or shape just get these girls to lay 250 eggs per year and the public will be happy and they will think these are Rhode Island Reds because you say they are. They put pictures in their Catalogs that show the true Rhode Island Reds yet the public just turns their heads and ignores it. In the past forty years there has only been maybe six to ten breeders of real Rhode Island Reds at one time. In the past 20 years there has only been maybe two or three breeders who stood out as the top true to type breeders of this breed at leading shows in the USA. In many shows around the country there have been few shown and so many say what has happen to the once popular Rhode Island Red. If you think this is said to hear how about the Rose Comb Rhode Island Red. They are very very rare today. But its funny if you goggle Rose Comb Rhode Island Reds into the computer you will find a few pictures of them but no bleached out Production type birds with little black in their tails. If you go to Bing.com and type in the name you may surpised.

In a nut shell it is very hard for any chicken person breeder to make it to the Ten Year mark with large fowl Reds. Most of them who try screw up and fail and have so many faults at the five year mark they throw their hands up in the air and say I give up. It will take me twenty years to correct what they caused.

Number one reason for failure is crossing strains. They love to do it. About 80 percent who start out do it. I know a older Judge who did it for about five years. He is getting out of what he has and buying a strain of chicks from a old time breeder. He wasted five good years doing this.

The secret is to find one good strain that works well on your soil and your climate and set your plow deep and plow straight ahead. This is a old saying from Arturo Schilling. Do you know who he was??

Hope this helps you some on this. For the beginner do not panic. Get a good line which it sound you all have done. Work with them breed them for type only the first three years. Learn this then work on color the next three years. In about six to eight years you will have one of the top lines in the USA.

These are the secrets of the old men I interviewed twenty years ago. They passed their secrets onto me. I try to pass them on to you. They are a great all around dual purpose breed. You will have a nice bird to eat if you wish to eat them. They lay a good amount of eggs per year the VIGOROUS ones lay up to 190 eggs per pullet year. Then you have Beauty and pretty chicken to look at and if you are one of the very RARE ones you can show them and win big at the large fowl poultry shows.

Now people are telling me the rare bird in this group is becoming the WHITE PLYMOUTH ROCK. This is a bird that is going out of popularity more than large Reds. So easy to breed and raise and no color issues to worry about and if you get them right you can when and even beat a good Red at a show. Its just a cycle we see chickens go into. The harder the color to breed for the rarer they are to find.

Hope this helps the LURKERS. Got to love you guys. You will be the future breeders some day. Be patient. Read , study and then make your move. bob