The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[RedRidge]

 


Why?

Matt

I'm not sure which of my three sentences you are questioning so I'll respond for all.

1.  I'm on the fence about hatching pullet eggs.

I've read/heard both pros and cons (did you want me to list them?) for hatching eggs from pullets as soon as they start laying through waiting up to 2 years to select breeders.  Most of it is anecdotal.  Right now I am planning to select breeders at 12 - 14 months.  It's not easy to wait sometimes, but experience has taught me when I've been most in a hurry for results was typically the time I should have exercised patience.

I'm guessing this varies from breed to breed. The HRIR I've seen don't begin laying until 26 weeks old and then their nutrition for show quality feathering is being diverted to eggs. So picking breeders from pullets seems to be easiest right about 26 weeks. The cockerels begin to weed themselves out all along but the finalists don't really mature until they are a little older... 9 -10 months.
So... If you hatch in the spring you should be able to pick your breeders pretty easily by the first of the year.
Now... That said... even the most beautiful hen/cock combination does not assure gorgeous offspring. But I personally don't want to feed them an extra year to learn what I want to know about how they produce. Some will make it back to the breeding pens the 2nd year and some will not.

 

[Laingcroft]

Thanks Sheri. You've given me yet something else to consider.

When do the Underwood reds typically have their first moult? Recent posts seem to indicate a line or two may have white feathers as juveniles. Would want to make sure they mature without white feathers before breeding. Also, I remember reading some of Bob's breeding articles re: dark quills and black bits in other feathers (secondaries? primaries?) as desirable for deep color. I can't recall off the top of my head whether they are present in pullets/cockerels or after the first moult.

Then again there aren't a lot of "heritage" RIR breeders in my area so I'd be taking the most promising to the fall show for other eyes to look at.

Then on the flip side, there is the chance that a favored bird could be lost (somehow the predators always seem to know which is your favorite) an opportunity missed by waiting.

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

maybe I'll just sit here on the fence awhile longer. I've got time.

 

[cmom]

Quote: I'm guessing this varies from breed to breed. The HRIR I've seen don't begin laying until 26 weeks old and then their nutrition for show quality feathering is being diverted to eggs. So picking breeders from pullets seems to be easiest right about 26 weeks. The cockerels begin to weed themselves out all along but the finalists don't really mature until they are a little older... 9 -10 months.
So... If you hatch in the spring you should be able to pick your breeders pretty easily by the first of the year.
Now... That said... even the most beautiful hen/cock combination does not assure gorgeous offspring. But I personally don't want to feed them an extra year to learn what I want to know about how they produce. Some will make it back to the breeding pens the 2nd year and some will not.

I have a serious broody. I thought since she is so very determined, I would give her some eggs. The older girls are not laying as well right now. The pullets are around 9 months old and are laying very nice size eggs. I cracked a couple open to see if they were fertile, they were and I ate them. I am anioux to hatch a few. When the older girls start laying better I will fire up my incubator. I will put both pullet eggs and my hen's eggs in and marking the eggs so I know which is which. After they hatch they will also go into separate brooders. Currently the birds are getting show feed. They have been on high protein feed. They all get to free range. They don't wander far from their coops. The birds are separated in different coops and pens so I know who is breeding who. The eggs should start hatching on March 2nd.

 

[immyjay54]

Thanks Sheri. You've given me yet something else to consider.  

When do the Underwood reds typically have their first moult?  Recent posts seem to indicate a line or two may have white feathers as juveniles.  Would want to make sure they mature without white feathers before breeding.  Also, I remember reading some of Bob's breeding articles re: dark quills and black bits in other feathers (secondaries?  primaries?)  as desirable for deep color.  I can't recall off the top of my head whether they are present in pullets/cockerels or after the first moult. 

Then again there aren't a lot of "heritage" RIR breeders in my area so I'd be taking the most promising to the fall show for other eyes to look at. 

Then on the flip side, there is the chance that a favored bird could be lost (somehow the predators always seem to know which is your favorite) an opportunity missed by waiting.

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

maybe I'll just sit here on the fence awhile longer.  I've got time.

Hi,
If you go to my site and click the Underwood line RIR scroll down to 2/5/13 you will see my young Underwoods that hatched 11/10/12 You can see by the feathers all over that they are definitely going through their molt. lol Also, I have not had the problem with the white feathers in the Underwood's. Not saying that it can't or won't happen. Also, on my RC Underwood page, the picture of the wing/quill feathers was taken 7/28/13 and these birds were hatched 11/10/12 Those quill on these feathers were deep dark all the way to where the quill went into the body.
Go to my RC Underwood babies page and the first paragraph 7?21/2013, you will see that I had chicks hatched out of birds that were 8 months old. It depends on the line ( I think ). Shoot some of these lines don't start laying before 10/11 months old. lol
Jimmy
Oh, on the white feathers, IF they would have one and do not molt out those feathers they are gonners. Some may think me crazy but I really don't care. I never have and wil not pull a feather out and use that red bird for a breeder. You all can do as you please, this is just my practice. If it is a DQ at a show then I'd guess there is a reason for this.

 

[RedRidge]

Oh they are so cute right after they hatch... 12 of the 16 in last night's group have hatched and at least one more is pipping. No, if my Rhodebars will hatch in another 9 days... these power outages have really messed things up here...
Day old RC Underwood line



Two RC and the top one is a Rhodebar x RIR (an F1 for my Rhodebar project)

 

[newfromMN]

Cute!!

 

[SallyinIndiana]

It is raining here. So much better than snow. But the temps are being predicted to change back to very cold next week. I keep wanting to put my RIR out in our tractors but not with nightly temps below 10F.

My brooders are starting to have a few little dark HRIR chicks running around in them. The only thing is, about half of them appear to be of all things roosters.

 

[cmom]

It is raining here. So much better than snow. But the temps are being predicted to change back to very cold next week. I keep wanting to put my RIR out in our tractors but not with nightly temps below 10F.

My brooders are starting to have a few little dark HRIR chicks running around in them. The only thing is, about half of them appear to be of all things roosters.

That's a chicken rule, when you hatch you get 50/50.

 

[JohnsonHomested]

This may have been covered earlier in this thread but there are 707 pages... Does anyone know where I can get a few Heritage RIR in the Central Texas area? Everything I run into seems to be production. I would like to hand raise a cockerel but the age of the hens isn't so important. I kinda want something that could one day be show quality. I don't want to show them myself but I think it would be fun to breed. I don't have a incubator but I have some hens that go broody from time to time so I hatching might be an option. I just can't order chicks in that amount unless it's nearby where I can pick them up.

 

[melroseladi]

I went out to the SC coop this morning to find my mama hen dead and her baby running around the coop cheeping her head off. The hen was completely stripped of feathers down her entire neck, completely all the way around the neck. The feathers started in the rabbit hutch her and the chick sleep in, down the ramp, and a couple of spots in the coop and then where I found her body. I did not find any signs that something had gotten into the coop and all the other chickens and rooster are fine. I did catch the chick and put it in my brooder with my Rhodebar/Red F1 project chicks and it is eating and drinking fine so far. I am sure it had to have been majorly stressed.

Could one of my other hens have done this?

Penny