The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[Beekissed]

I kind of agree too, and lets face it, the whole point of domestication was to the end of use. And the vast majority do not show. I have some problem with the breeding to standard at the detriment of the chicken being useful otherwise. The inbreeding that is necessary for this doesn't create a stronger longer lived line. I am a middle of the road sort of person that loves the beauty of hen that best resembles what we have determined to be the standard of perfection, but really have no use for the bird myself if it isn't productive to some point. I love the docile nature of the reds I have, the fact that they are under foot when I am doing things that would put some birds to flight, but of course that is the more natural reaction than the assumption that I am not about to step on them. My line is also laying rather well which is the only way they are existing in my backyard. yard ornaments laying other ornaments.

I agree with this 100%. A good looking bird is only good as a good looking piece of meat can be. The real accomplishment, I believe, is breeding both a good looking bird and a functional one. If function follows form~which I'm finding out is far from the case~then, if one can achieve good form, it should follow that they have good function. Since that isn't the case, I'll have to plan for function first and form later, if that can even be achieved.

For me, a breed isn't worth much conserving if it doesn't produce food efficiently and cannot reproduce its own kind reliably. The SOP judging used to have criteria gauged towards judging for performance also but they got away from that. I'd like to see that come back. Perfection, for a chicken, just can't be achieved if they no longer can perform the function for which they were bred in the first place.

Might be a harder row to how but worthy all the same. I am too frugal to feed chickens that don't lay well, be they pretty or not.

 

[Fred's Hens]

The reality is that a mutt bird isn't a good layer just because it's a mutt and a standard bred bird sin't a poor layer just because it is standard bred. While that may be commonly accepted as truth here, sometimes reality comes in and knocks those widely held beliefs to pieces.

Folks, it is all what the bird is bred for. Humans have bred birds that we now know as the 9 week wonders, the CX type broiler. Humans have also bred the uber high production 330 eggs per pullet year commercial layer who lives out her very short life in a battery cage.

They have nothing in common, these two types of birds, yet they are gallus gallus and the same specie and all birds are ultimately related to every other bird on the planet.

So, it is simply what you breed for. Period. You can indeed breed a Red so that it's egg laying is minimal. In my universe? Shame on you. The breed not only has a standard for physical description but also has a historical standard, if you will, of good, note, good egglaying. It is a dual purpose bird so it was never designed to compete with either the flightly egg layer in the battery cage, nor the hulking CX broiler. It was to have balance, to strike a balanced approach for the farmer for whom the breed was developed at the dawn of the last century.

If your "Real" Reds don't lay? Shame. Get to work.

 

[Fred's Hens]

"Show birds don't lay well". Yeah, I've heard that old saw a thousand times. Somebody sure forgot to tell my birds that.

These were two pullets my grandson and I showed at the Red National in Knoxville last week. A 4000 bird show and a field of 107 Reds entered. Top breeders, top birds. The best of the best. All "show birds". Don Nelson (Nelsons), Matt Ulrich (Reese/Mohawks), Steven Gribble, Dennis Meyers, and host of other breeders cooped in birds.

These two both laid before I packed them up on Wed. On Thursday, the long drive day, they both laid in the travel box. Cooped them in on Friday and they both laid again. They got judged early Saturday morning and before the judge who handled them had finished judging the aisle, they both had laid again.

Just not sure what to say. We donated all the eggs to the show secretary. Didn't have a way to deal with them.

 

[bluebirdnanny]

The reality is that a mutt bird isn't a good layer just because it's a mutt and a standard bred bird sin't a poor layer just because it is standard bred.  While that may be commonly accepted as truth here, sometimes reality comes in and knocks those widely held beliefs to pieces.

Folks, it is all what the bird is bred for.  Humans have bred birds that we now know as the 9 week wonders, the CX type broiler.  Humans have also bred the uber high production 330 eggs per pullet year commercial layer who lives out her very short life in a battery cage.

They have nothing in common, these two types of birds, yet they are gallus gallus and the same specie and all birds are ultimately related to every other bird on the planet.

So, it is simply what you breed for. Period.  You can indeed breed a Red so that it's egg laying is minimal.  In my universe?  Shame on you.  The breed not only has a standard for physical description but also has a historical standard, if you will, of good, note, good egglaying.  It is a dual purpose bird so it was never designed to compete with either the flightly egg layer in the battery cage, nor the hulking CX broiler.  It was to have balance, to strike a balanced approach for the farmer for whom the breed was developed at the dawn of the last century.

If your "Real" Reds don't lay?   Shame.  Get to work.  

So true Fred. It is the color, temperament, great egg laying, meat, form etc.... all purpose...that I remember and why I am working on this breed. I have also found of all the fowl I have raised this one is a good meat quality longer in life than those hatchery birds for eggs. And mine do free range which some people say makes them scrawny!!! They sure are NOT scrawny birds!

 

[Fred's Hens]

Talked to a good number of the Reds breeders in Knoxville last weekend. It is interesting to listen to them. Some are quick to tell you that they are very, very focused on competitive exhbitions. That's their "thing" and hey!!! Those are their birds and it's a free country. They can do as they wish with them. As long as the females lay enough eggs so they can set enough during hatching season? That's fine with them.

There are others who do focus not only on the exhibitions but on meat or eggs or whatever. Again, this is their choice. Their ballpark, their rules. It's all good. Not every person needs to have precisely the same goals in keeping them. But, all of us want the real McCoy's, as Bob called them. We wouldn't be here otherwise. We'd just go get some Cinnamon Queens or production reds, or Golden Comets and get a whole bunch of eggs to eat and sell and we'd be over on other threads talking about Fluffy the hen and her "roo" or something.

So, this thread is in the Standard of Perfection section for a very good reason. Whatever your personal motivation for owning true bred Reds, lawn art, exhibitions, farming/homesteading or your own personal combination thereof, the birds we talk about on this thread are the true bred, standard bred birds, descended from long lines of high quality, dark, rich red birds that are bred to the Standard of the breed.

 

[Beekissed]

"Show birds don't lay well". Yeah, I've heard that old saw a thousand times. Somebody sure forgot to tell my birds that.

These were two pullets my grandson and I showed at the Red National in Knoxville last week. A 4000 bird show and a field of 107 Reds entered. Top breeders, top birds. The best of the best. All "show birds". Don Nelson (Nelsons), Matt Ulrich (Reese/Mohawks), Steven Gribble, Dennis Meyers, and host of other breeders cooped in birds.

These two both laid before I packed them up on Wed. On Thursday, the long drive day, they both laid in the travel box. Cooped them in on Friday and they both laid again. They got judged early Saturday morning and before the judge who handled them had finished judging the aisle, they both had laid again.

Just not sure what to say. We donated all the eggs to the show secretary. Didn't have a way to deal with them.

I LOVE this story!!!! Think about it.....not only are they daily layers as pullets but they don't let a little thing like thousands of strange chickens and people put a hitch in their gitty up and they didn't need a quiet, private nest for laying. Eggs must come and they must come out NOW.

Now THAT'S a chicken!

I'm betting those folks who got those eggs took them straight home and placed them in a 'bator. That's what I would have done!

 

[Fred's Hens]

I LOVE this story!!!! Think about it.....not only are they daily layers as pullets but they don't let a little thing like thousands of strange chickens and people put a hitch in their gitty up and they didn't need a quiet, private nest for laying. Eggs must come and they must come out NOW.

Now THAT'S a chicken!

I'm betting those folks who got those eggs took them straight home and placed them in a 'bator. That's what I would have done!

You nailed it. They do what they're bred to do. Plain and simple.

Now, I'll give you all just a little peek into my soul. I can bend over just pick thesse "girls" (yeah I know they're pullets, not girls, but just hush a minute.) any time I wish. They handle in and out of a show coop with an absolute joy. They coo and purr in your arms. They love getting their bath for the show. They are simply the best dog gone birds to have around. My life with birds would be much poorer without them. They're simply different from anything I've ever raised. Very easy keepers. Love 'em.

 

[Matt1616]

I think that the topic of a birds being good layers is misunderstood sometimes. I think that a lot of people's first experience with chickens is with Hatchery/Feed Store birds and those birds are not pure bred no matter what they call them. Those birds are bred to lay eggs and basically be sort of the same color as the breed that they call it. From all the research that I have ever done the original RIR's layed 200-250 eggs per year. That is not an exceptional layer but a good layer.

Throughout the history of the breed there has always been people that were going to breed their RIR's to be superior layers especially in the early 1900's because in that time there were huge laying contests that gave big prizes for the people that had the hens that would lay the most eggs in 365 days. This is where the Production Red and the Pure Red meet. The people that bred their Reds for high egg production lost the type, color and size that the Pure Reds had. It is very difficult to breed to standard and also observe an egg requirement. This holds true in colored egg layers as well as high production layers. One reason the Marans breed struggles so mightily in the show ring is because you have to breed the birds based on how dark of an egg they lay. It is nearly impossible to breed birds to meet the standard unless type is paramount in your breeding strategy.

That being said...I am one of those people that breed my Reds for exhibition but it is also important to me that my birds lay a sufficient amount of eggs. I'm not looking for 320 a year out of them but 200-250 will work. I had a line when I first got started that were poor layers because of long term linebreeding so I crossed them on another group from the same strain and the offspring layed like gangbusters. Most of my show birds are decedents of that cross. If I had a pen of show birds that was only laying 50-100 eggs per year I would certainly get rid of them. I primarily breed from pairs or trios so I need my pullets and hens to lay very heavily when I am hatching as to not extend the hatching season any further than necessary.

Fred is correct in saying that everyone has their idea of what is the correct chicken and you are the one that has to feed them so my suggestion would be to pick a direction and try your very best to breed your birds for a purpose whatever that might be. Don't just breed chickens to breed chickens.

Matt

 

[Fred's Hens]

I'm betting those folks who got those eggs took them straight home and placed them in a 'bator. That's what I would have done!

Well, you'd a been disappointed at candling time I'm afraid. Just eat the eggs.

The show aisles had eggs, everywhere. Incubating them would be foolish however, because folks don't have their males and females together except for breeding season. I sure don't. I sure don't want my females ridden hard before a major exhibition.

If these folks taking eggs from cage floors or from off storage boxes below the cages think they're gonna "steal" some good DNA, well, they're sure gonna be disappointed.

 

[Beekissed]

Do people actually DO that?