The Plymouth Rock Breeders thread

[tniron]

I would like opinions on which is the best meat bird. APA standard bred Barred Rocks or APA standard bred New Hampshires. Which has the fullest breast? I know this is the BR thread but I am sure some of you have experience with both.

 

[LindaB220]

Kraig Shafer

Oops. Wrong post

 

[speckledhen]

The problem with these black chicks is that their mothers are my blue Rock and splash Rock hens who do not have great leg color. Their Stukel side does, of course. I'm not keeping any of them, only perhaps the barreds that are hatching now. Dottie has 5 chicks now. Will see how the last one is in the morning. It had a rough time getting out, being a large chick and seems more exhausted than it should.

 

[dreamofglory]

cool another buffy ;-) how old is she? The buffs I have are a bit too 'fluffy' but have fairly nice color on most of them. Surprised a judge in Jan; he came in expecting some hatchery birds and got a surprise. I know we have a long way to go to compete against the whites and barreds tho. Have two sets of eggs in the bator now; one set for me hatching next weekend and another set for my partner to hatch the weekend after. Then we will grow them out and go from there.

she is about 5 months old.

 

[speckledhen]

Ended up with 3 BR chicks (2 of Dottie's and 1 Wynette's) and 2 BLACK Rock chicks, ack! At least after the end of the month, when my splash Rock hen leaves with my friend to go to KY, there will be no more issues with mistaking her egg for someone else's in that group.

If you go by general BR sexing rules, all three look pullet-y to me, but there is quite a bit of glare this morning. Do you see any obvious males among the 3 BR chicks? The one time I'd welcome a cockerel,one that I need to progress in my program, if I'm going to get anywhere, I may not get one.

(this is becoming my most used emoticon, it seems).

I recall when raising their own mothers that the black wash down the leg fronts was not as big of a factor as with hatchery stock in sexing the chicks. The pullets didn't have as much as I'd had in the past years of raising lesser quality Rocks, so I'm stuck with down color and head spots and "wait and see".

Gotta love the 100% hatch rates of the broodies.


This one with its back to the camera is a suspect, maybe, for my male, but still, not a huge head spot. They all have pretty dark down color.

 

[DMRippy]

None of those chicks came from your splash hen. They would be blue and they are all black. No way they were here eggs.

 

[speckledhen]

They have to be from the splash hen. There's no other hens in that coop that can produce a black chick, no blue Rocks in that group. There are only the BRs plus a Delaware colored pullet and a BR X pullet, both of whose eggs are very small and easily distinguished and an older red hen who is BLRW x Blue Ameraucana and also has very distinct eggs. A splash is just a black hen with two blue genes so why can't she produce a black chick, depending on what she is bred with? I think I got another black chick out of her when I was collecting only from the blue and splash Rocks for the D'Anver broodies.

Question: Can the single factor barred male over pure Barred Rock hens produce ANY black chicks at all? Doesn't seem possible. But, if it is, that means I didn't mess up on my egg collecting, lol.

 

[DMRippy]

It is your roo with one copy of the barring gene. Hens pass it off to just roos roos pass off to all chicks and since he just has one copy only half are getting the starring. Those are pullet if all the hens are barred. But you are getting some males so must have some none barred hens too. Splash can ONLY make blue chicks. No blacks ever from a splash.

 

[tigercreek]

They have to be from the splash hen. There's no other hens in that coop that can produce a black chick, no blue Rocks in that group. There are only the BRs plus a Delaware colored pullet and a BR X pullet, both of whose eggs are very small and easily distinguished and an older red hen who is BLRW x Blue Ameraucana and also has very distinct eggs. A splash is just a black hen with two blue genes so why can't she produce a black chick, depending on what she is bred with? I think I got another black chick out of her when I was collecting only from the blue and splash Rocks for the D'Anver broodies.

Question: Can the single factor barred male over pure Barred Rock hens produce ANY black chicks at all? Doesn't seem possible. But, if it is, that means I didn't mess up on my egg collecting, lol.

A single barred male over a barred hen can produce blacks because the hen is also single barred....

 

[Egghead_Jr]

.

Question: Can the single factor barred male over pure Barred Rock hens produce ANY black chicks at all? Doesn't seem possible. But, if it is, that means I didn't mess up on my egg collecting, lol.

Yes it does. A single factor barred male will only give barred to the pullets 50% of the time. Therefore the one barring gene placement a pullet can carry is either barred or not. 50% of the time it will be blank so pullet will be black.