The Plymouth Rock Breeders thread

[Fred's Hens]

They're absolutely gorgeous birds and no photo can capture their huge size, fine feathering and intricate detail of near perfection. Just cannot. If you've never seen a top bred White female in person? You just cannot imagine the difference in what you'll see versus a hatchery stock bird.





I love this particular sub strain I got from Ken Weaver. I would like to see these females show a bit more thigh definition, but that's being picky.

 

[Yard full o' rocks]

They're absolutely gorgeous birds and no photo can capture their huge size, fine feathering and intricate detail of near perfection. Just cannot. If you've never seen a top bred White female in person? You just cannot imagine the difference in what you'll see versus a hatchery stock bird. I love this particular sub strain I got from Ken Weaver. I would like to see these females show a bit more thigh definition, but that's being picky.

Fred I love the white female in the pix with the barred pullet. She has very nice length of back AND a proper tail. Very nice!!

 

[uphilljill]

Lovely Whites, Fred. And how are your BRs looking?

 

[Fred's Hens]

Lovely Whites, Fred. And how are your BRs looking?

My partners are carrying the freight on the Barred Rocks, as i an only do justice to so many birds, here, at one time. Normanack, aka Anne, has really done an outstanding job on them this year. Anne stopped by last week with a couple of pullets for me. I'm keeping the one to enjoy and evaluate through the winter, logging her growth curve and laying.

But, in late winter, she's going back to Anne. We've already discussed some breeding match-ups. The line bred "family" that Anne has is simply spectacular. They been shown have done very well at decent sized shows. Be that as it may, I am so grateful for Anne's work with this line. I am so glad that you, Jill, have also been doing such good work with them. If you get a chance? Please post of pics of this year's juveniles coming to maturity. It would be my joy to see them.

 

[Fred's Hens]

I shouldn't even post this, as it was just a quick little click when she arrived. Since then, she's settled in and just sashays around for me every time I come into the barn. I'll post a better photo. Ok, those of you who know me? You know darn well this one has already stole my heart. I always choose one bird in the barn that is allowed to be my pet. hahahaha

 

[uphilljill]

As you know, I started out with one pair. I hatched 8 pullets and 37 cockerels from them this year. I culled the cockerels heavily last week and our freezer is full.

I still have 5 cockerels and all 8 pullets and I'll probably do a final cull in early December. Right now I am looking at keeping the original hen, 2 pullets, and 2 cockerels.

Below are pics of the 2 best pullets and a cockerel taken this morning.







Despite a terrible male/female chick ratio, I am really happy with the progress the flock made this year. I need to spend more time with them before making final decisions, but am already looking forward to next breeding season.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Jill, your female line looks just the line should. Your making females that are peas in a pod to my own. Good for you!!! They're just gorgeous. This line is heavily slanted as being a pullet line, there's no mystery in that. The K you're showing here is too dark and too short of body.

Getting decent males out of this line is tough. You've got to raise out 20-25 of them just to find one that's fairly decent. In my view, if you push too hard for fancy males, you risk screwing up your heart stopping good pullet line.

That's not to say you cannot make a decent male now and again, but you've got to hatch out and GROW OUT a ton of little K's to find one. That's just my experience with this line over the years.

But choose longer backed females this year, if you can, to give their sons more length perhaps.

 

[uphilljill]

I'll have to get photos of all 5 cockerels posted this week. One is lighter. I will have to take a second look at length. Thanks!

 

[uphilljill]

So, moving forward: I have the 2 pullets shown above, 2 more with cushions, and 4 that are longer but they tend to narrow towards the tail. Does cushion usually mean a short back? And the 4 that are longer but narrow...perhaps they'd be an ok match for shorter bodied cockerel shown above? He is ridiculously wide throughout.

Just trying to learn what people look for in breeding matchups and how to correct certain traits. Any tips are welcome.

 

[Fred's Hens]

You certainly do not need to use more than two females, so make them your best two. At most, use three females.

Then, have intentionality about your matings. The King of Barred Rocks, Mr EB Thompson wrote that he would make a two-sided sheet of paper on his clipboard and go sit among his birds. He'd single mate.

Take your best male and study him. What does he need? Length of back? depth of front? width through the tail area? Width between his legs? Write down his faults on the fault side of the ledger.

Study the two or three good females you do have. Which could provide the compensation for his fault(s)? Obviously, you cannot compensate for ALL his faults, but choose the focus on a couple major faults. Mr Thompson would select the female he thought best to compensate and that mating pair was placed into Pen A.

Then, taking his second best Male, he re-start the process. He'd list on positive side, all the strong, good features of this male. Then, he'd go through his females again searching for females that would benefit from that male's strong points. He'd catch up a couple of those females and put them, along with #2 male into his breeding Pen B.

Thompson probably single mated 20 pairs at his breeding zenith. I wouldn't expect you could do that, Jill. But you sure could single mate in pen A and have a breeding trio in pen B, for example. The idea was to make compensatory match-ups whereby the offspring were improved.

This is just one aspect or possibility to consider. Here's another. If your records from last year show that a particular female produced superior chicks than any other female in your flock? Then, go find the very best cockerel she threw. Use that cockerel back over his mother and incubate about every egg she lays in February and March. Hope this helps.