The IMPORTED ENGLISH Orpington Thread

[jeremy]

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WOW!

He's magnificent!

Thank You Jeremy, temperament to match! I bet your new splash boy looks just as good!

I hope he will one day.

He's still a big baby right now. He's a goofball, all akward around the girls and gets spooked still easily.

 

[tazcat70]

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Buff did you mention where you were buying from?

 

[tazcat70]

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Kathy, I am so glad to hear that she is doing better.

 

[tazcat70]

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Very nice!!!

 

[tazcat70]

Katy- Which one of your jobs are you talking about? You have about 10.

 

[Katy]

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HA! Fortunately or unfortunately they're all here at home on the farm so they all blend together.

 

[buffbeauty]

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Buff did you mention where you were buying from?

Ok. At Joys suggestion, I got oils at soaperschoice.com. And got colorants and fragrance oils, etc at brambleberry.com. Joy sent a wonderful email with lots of links, etc. I'm sure she would share or I'll pass it along if she doesn't mind. See ya on the soapers thread!!

About the genetics question... I'm waiting for approval to share with you a wonderful article on breeding to maintain longterm genetic safety. Peter Merlin wrote it for the Faverolles fanciers newsletter. He is an APA Master Exhibitor and has a Grand Master Award for Salmon Faverolles. Maybe it will help with your concerns on inbreeding

 

[buffbeauty]

Ok. Are y'all ready for this?? Peter just wanted me to preface this by saying to make sure that you read the part that says "anyone may do something different". Enjoy.

Thoughts on Breeding for Long Term Genetic Safety
By Peter F. Merlin 2010
There is a book I have that references a thought for any flock of any breed of chickens. I am going to start my current thoughts on breeding by using a sentence from it. “Start with what you have and go from there”. No one at all has to agree with this writing. I can only tell you of my personal experience and what has worked for me.

This applies in several case scenarios with reference to a person’s ability to form a flock of breeding birds that may not have a background of discernable lineage. Example: If you’ve been able to get eggs or chicks from a breeder/hatchery where no lines used to create the eggs or chicks are specified to you this will require for you to “start with what you have”.

This is one scenario of which there are many different facets of any flock one may look at and try to make a marked improvement on using a one generation time frame:
If you are breeding large fowl and see the need to firstly and mostly increase the size of your large fowl ignore most of everything you see where major faults are concerned, well within reason. In the case of Faverolles I am not suggesting that you use four toed birds to continue on with unless you have no other choice and everything else about that birds characteristics are good.

“Go from there” Take the largest birds you have and put them in one breeding pen regardless of relation and plan to hatch as many as you can with consideration given to the amount of room you have that will accommodate the birds without them becoming harmful to each other. After your hatching is done cull any bird from this first generation you have that does not meet breed requirements. But, keep the male and a few females from them because you will use them in the next step.

With this type of breeding you will want to cull very hard for breed characteristics when your chicks hatch as when you don’t know what’s in their lineage, just about anything can and will show up. Wrecks abound in this generation.

Now that you have grown this second generation to adulthood you will probably need to breed one generation of mother to son and father to daughter utilizing the few birds you have kept from your originals. If you can, form two different breeding pens, as from here on in you will want to establish two distinctly different lines for your personal use for future breeding. Creating these two lines will allow you to continue breeding each line for a seven year period without bringing any new blood into either line. The creation of three different lines can even be brought into existence utilizing a trio. In that case you will have no other choice but to breed mother to son and father to daughter.

Run two breeding pens. Work your male bird between the two pens and make sure you mark your eggs in some way so you will be able to hatch in different trays and keep the resulting chicks separate by toe punch, colored bands or even different colors of food dye on the back of the chicks. Since we’re dealing with yellow down chicks food dye offers the least amount of stress on the chicks. I learned that neat trick from Dick Boulanger. I still use it today.

You are now going into breeding generation three. They will become the offspring of your mother to son and father to daughter breeding. From this hatch it becomes important to keep multiple males and females that you can identify as full siblings in your specific two distinct lines.

Take a cockerel back to his mother and same with the father to his daughter one more time. Keep the number of chicks that you feel you need from that final cross of direct line breeding. You are now set up to do in-direct line breeding utilizing uncles to nieces and nephews to aunts. In some cases, well in most cases you will be breeding at least half sibs. That’s ok for the start of it.

Remember you have kept at least two brothers and probably multiple sisters from the final cross of mother/son, father/daughter. You will use the second full brother that made that cross to put onto his brothers daughters. You are now using the uncle to niece breeding. Utilize the same thought on the females using a nephew from the final father/daughter breeding.

Yes, you have some direct line breeding in your birds. However, that does help set type and characteristics that you will now see in the in-direct line breeding you will be doing here on out. It also will allow you to start culling and breeding away from some of those characteristics you may not like or vice versa.

I know this seems convoluted but once you get it going you can go about keeping your two distinct lines separate for the seven year period. Use your other line you have created on the eight year or generation which ever your doing one time and go right back to your distinct two different lines. Reapply the same method without utilizing son/mother, father/daughter breeding and you will still be using in-direct line breeding.

I hope this helps some people. Again, there are other ways to breed, this has been my formula for many years now and it has worked.

 

[RisingStar]

I couldnt wait to share!!! Yesterday morning I got my beautiful BAMA chicks. I took pics of each one as I put on their leg bands. But I wont post all of them, as that seems like a little over board. But here are a few of them. I have never seen such huge babies, healthy happy and having a ball. Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I do.

This is one of 5 Splash chicks

A few of the blues

Is this one Blue or black do you think?

Another Splash..

Arent they simply stunning????

 

[fifelakelooper]

Rsng....those chicks are very pretty...glad to hear they all arrived so perfectly. I've got 24 English/American hatching eggs in the incubator as we speak....can't wait to see how mine will look and how many will be roos!