The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

I like this male. He's not really a show specimen, given his comb, (has too many points) but he's free of black in the hackles and THAT is huge for our program going forward. He's not as long as I'd like, but paired with a couple of super long females, which I have, I believe it will work out OK. Not ready to make any breed pen decisions, of course, but my mind is always thinking, "What would this help?" "How could use this effectively?"

There is another younger cockerel I like as well, but he's quite a bit younger, as Nancy hatched him out in May. He has no show future this fall, given his late hatch date, but if he's got "pieces and parts" that meet our needs? He'll stick around. Long, long way to go yet.

Can't tell about the length, but he seems to have good width. Yep, compensation with a long-backed female should throw some nice chicks. It does help to try to stay one step ahead, doesn't it?

 

[onarres]

 

[GruveyChickens]

Some pictures for you, Fred...

The "blue" cockerel... in the process of molting so looks a bit disheveled...





...and a pullet, finally getting her tail feathers!



And I'm posting this one just for fun - it's the gangly production red I posted a while ago. He didn't have any horn color on his legs but has developed some around his ankles as he's grown (not really visible in the photo). Not a fine specimen for a Red, but a quirky (he's quite high strung compared to my heritage Reds) guy who's quite entertaining to watch!

 

[Fred's Hens]

Hi @GruveyChickens

The male looks pretty good. I hope he flatten out that back as he matures and stand correctly. But otherwise? Yup. That's our basic male. 95% look exactly like that at that age. They usually very well behaved too. Just keep an eye on those back lines. FWIW, although it is too early, way too early to judge them too harshly as photos can lie. Snap shot moments of awkward poses by awkward juvenile males. Impossible to pose them well.

The female is from our "homesteader" line. She is a Wilfred Kittle line bird. The reason I thought you'd appreciate her is for her egg laying. The line isn't a show line, but they are very good egg layers.

Enjoy and have fun.

The production red male will be very tasty with dumplings. Yikes.

That's a major squirrel tail thing happening there.

Edit to add: If you need another female for some reason, drop me a line. I've got a couple of nice ones I won't be keeping.

 

[teaton]

Does anyone know of a heritage rir breeder that is also on th NPIP that is also tested for MS and MG? I am having to cull my flock of production reds due to buying a flock of MS and MG infested chicks from a seller. Needless to say im also taking this opportunity to start a heritage breed as I like many others was mis guided by a hatchery of what rhode island reds were. However i will not go through what i have gone through again if i can help it!
The department of AG told me to look for NPIP breeders and specifically MS and MG tested ones, since not everyone is. But Im having a hard time finding one. Id like hatching eggs since I will have to disenfect my premisis and coop for months anyway. Thanks

 

[Fred's Hens]

The term "heritage" is a wonderful concept, but it very freighted with marketing goals and has been so misunderstood and so leveraged by those who's purpose is to merely sell lots of birds or eggs. The question that needs to be asked is, "are the birds bred to the standard?" If so, are the birds judged on a regular basis to verify that the birds are not merely being propagated but continually bred to carefully conform to the American Poultry Association's breed standard for the Red.

Ebay, Craig's list, etc are filled with folks selling "heritage" this and that. 95% of the sellers don't own a Standard, don't know the Standard, and are only producing eggs/chicks to sell for the profit involved, such as it is. Sad. The birds are often atrocious. Very sad.

Again, you want Standard bred Rhode Island Reds, bred by reputable breeders, breeders we all know and can verify that they have good birds. This community of Reds breeders is quite small and fairly close knit.

To de-contaminate your place is a good thing. Bio security folks often forbid bringing in live bird in this situation and only allow re-population through hatching of eggs. I do understand. October is not a month during which true fanciers have their breed pens together and fertile eggs are not to be found. Winter is coming. If you see fertile eggs being sold on Ebay this time of year, it is dead give away that the seller is merely a mass producer and egg seller.

The mating/ breeding pens will be re-assembled in late winter/early spring. I would suggest staying active here or on the official Rhode Island Red's Club members only social media site. Members only assured you of a committed person. Join the Red's club. It's only a few dollars a year and opens the doors to you to communicate with the real deal people in this fancy who love the breed and truly protect it. Welcome to this thread and we're here to help in any way we can.

 

[teaton]

Thank you for that information.
I was just looking more less for a list of breeders, and then more specifically a list of breeders that are also NPIP and Microplasma free -that is a must to me! I dont mind waiting, I have to wait anyways.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Thank you for that information.
I was just looking more less for a list of breeders, and then more specifically a list of breeders that are also NPIP and Microplasma free -that is a must to me! I dont mind waiting, I have to wait anyways.

As I stated, your search might best be conducted through the Red's club. Best regards and best to you in recovering from this setback.

 

[teaton]

Thank you

 

[ejcrist]

The term "heritage" is a wonderful concept, but it very freighted with marketing goals and has been so misunderstood and so leveraged by those who's purpose is to merely sell lots of birds or eggs. The question that needs to be asked is, "are the birds bred to the standard?" If so, are the birds judged on a regular basis to verify that the birds are not merely being propagated but continually bred to carefully conform to the American Poultry Association's breed standard for the Red.

Ebay, Craig's list, etc are filled with folks selling "heritage" this and that. 95% of the sellers don't own a Standard, don't know the Standard, and are only producing eggs/chicks to sell for the profit involved, such as it is. Sad. The birds are often atrocious. Very sad.

Again, you want Standard bred Rhode Island Reds, bred by reputable breeders, breeders we all know and can verify that they have good birds. This community of Reds breeders is quite small and fairly close knit.

To de-contaminate your place is a good thing. Bio security folks often forbid bringing in live bird in this situation and only allow re-population through hatching of eggs. I do understand. October is not a month during which true fanciers have their breed pens together and fertile eggs are not to be found. Winter is coming. If you see fertile eggs being sold on Ebay this time of year, it is dead give away that the seller is merely a mass producer and egg seller.

The mating/ breeding pens will be re-assembled in late winter/early spring. I would suggest staying active here or on the official Rhode Island Red's Club members only social media site. Members only assured you of a committed person. Join the Red's club. It's only a few dollars a year and opens the doors to you to communicate with the real deal people in this fancy who love the breed and truly protect it. Welcome to this thread and we're here to help in any way we can.

I totally agree on the use of "heritage" everywhere. I'm almost done building a multi-coop with attached runs for breeding. I've never done any breeding before and in fact I've only been raising hatchery Barred Rocks and White Leghorns since the beginning of this year. At first my idea was just to raise them for eggs and manure for my vegetable gardens but I quickly became enamored with them and started devoting a lot of time to learning about chickens. Like most things I learned an awful lot from doing my homework and now I really have a desire to breed lines as close to the original dual purpose chickens and also Brown Leghorns. The next big thing I learned was that it's very difficult to locate good breeders of what I thought were common breeds like the Barred Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, and Leghorns. So I'm still working on that. I joined the APA and Livestock Conservancy but so far everyone I contacted on the ALBC's breeder list for the breeds I'm interested in have told me they no longer breed chickens, so the search continues. I sent Dick Horstman an email regarding RIR's and I have a line on two Barred Rock breeders but I've had absolutely no luck at all on finding a Brown Leghorn breeder. I even tried to join the Brown Leghorn club but apparently they're in limbo per the head of it - I found that out from their Facebook group. So I'll just keep on truckin' until I get there. I'm hoping Dick Horstman gets back to me. In the meantime I have my membership application to the Rhode Island Red Club of America ready for the mail tomorrow morning. Hopefully maybe I can get in touch with a RIR breeder there. The original dual purpose RIR is such a beautiful bird that I'd really love to successfully breed them and help keep them going.