The Plymouth Rock Breeders thread

[DMRippy]

Quote:

... he also claimed they would be sexable by the spots... NO!!!! I can't do that with correctly barred BR much less with single factor roos. I can't tell you how many little cockerels I have sold HOPING for pullets only to turn into cockerels with the tiniest of head spots. Experience is more helpful there with breeding. You also have to know what works in your flock too.... you might see a pattern with breeding your birds that will not hold true for another flock.

Don't feel bad, I just feed em until I can figure out what they are.

I don't... If someone wanted me to sex them I told them it was just a guess. I don't even try anymore..... I do feel bad they have to find homes for roos when they can only have pullets/hens in town.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Some White Plymouth Rocks hatch out looking every bit like Peeps candy.



While other White Plymouth Rock chicks hatch out with silver-pearl colored fuzz.

 

[speckledhen]

It kills me to read a genetics post telling matter of fact info when they have never breed the birds. For example..... Someone posted about a cross with a barred male.... all the offspring would be barred.... he also claimed they would be sexable by the spots... NO!!!! I can't do that with correctly barred BR much less with single factor roos. I can't tell you how many little cockerels I have sold HOPING for pullets only to turn into cockerels with the tiniest of head spots. Experience is more helpful there with breeding. You also have to know what works in your flock too.... you might see a pattern with breeding your birds that will not hold true for another flock.

You can't do that reliably with anything less than two pure/normal BRs, and even then, the heritage ones are harder to sex, partly because the dark leg fronts of pullets mostly apply to hatchery types and the heritage pullets don't have that as much. I'm calling it on the three one week old chicks I have right now whose mothers are the pure Stukel BRs and the sire is 1/2 Stukel BR and 1/2 Delaware and I'll see if I'm right on their sexes, if the sexing is anywhere near reliable at this point. At least two of the three look like pullets, per tiny head spot alone; one has a slightly larger more scattered spot, but NONE have dark leg fronts like I'm used to on BR pullets. Could have 3 males for all I know!

Sexing straight BRs is usually about 90-95% accurate going by head spot, plus leg fronts, plus down color-can't do it by head spot alone. BUT, there's always a few that don't read the rules. And when I got the Stukel BRs, it was not nearly as easy as I'd always found it to be! There are old documents I have pdfs for that tell about the sexing of BRs but those heritage types just are not as black and white (ha, pun alert!) as what I started with.

Don't feel bad, I just feed em until I can figure out what they are.

Now, you touched on that foolproof sexing method, the "Wait and See Method".

 

[Fentress]

Sharp barring comes from slow feathering birds. You found a quote of mine from nearly a year ago. What we're trying to do in our project BR is to determine how fast is fast? How slow is slow?

Is the only way to endure 8 weeks of near nakedness and must all high quality Barred Rocks produce pullets that go 36 weeks before beginning of egg laying? I do not universally find those features on top quality Rocks of a century ago. I've studied and re-studied the literature and forgive me, but I remain skeptical. I suggest some of these issues are the result of selection. I'm not sure we know what the variety could be if pushed and selected for greater utility. One pitfall in breeding, it seems to me, is that we can fall prey to selections of slower, and slower and slower birds for the sake of other priorities.

How much slowness must we endure? These are the questions I've asked myself. I don't know if we're any closer to answers, but we're working on them. We're three, almost 4 years into this and so much still lays ahead.


.

So, slow feathering also equates to slow overall growth? When the barring gene turns on and off, the whole body, in terms of growth, is turning on and off with it? I don't care about when they feather, but I am not willing to except an exceptionally slow bird.

 

[DMRippy]

Quote:
The on off is just related to the feathers nothing else..... well it might have something to do with them being a little slower to mature but not sure. I don't think it really effects the size of the bird. They get big..... just nekkid!

 

[Fred's Hens]

So, slow feathering also equates to slow overall growth? When the barring gene turns on and off, the whole body, in terms of growth, is turning on and off with it? I don't care about when they feather, but I am not willing to except an exceptionally slow bird.

My point, I guess, earlier was that the terms "slow" and "fast" are relative terms. Slow as determined how?

How slow is slow? I'm not being coy. I've posted ages to feather out and age of point of lay several times on this thread, betraying my own thoughts as to what I consider slow, slower and too slow. But each person may have different goals and thus different tolerances to what slow means to them.

 

[Fentress]

My point, I guess, earlier was that the terms "slow" and "fast" are relative terms. Slow as determined how?

How slow is slow? I'm not being coy. I've posted ages to feather out and age of point of lay several times on this thread, betraying my own thoughts as to what I consider slow, slower and too slow. But each person may have different goals and thus different tolerances to what slow means to them.

Alot of different aspects to consider when deciding if the overall performance is what you want, including of course,how they look and how much you enjoy them.

 

[Tumbleweed Farm]

Hi all you wonderful Rock breeders. See my new avatar? It's because now I have real Rocks. From eggs I got 4 silver penciled from D Horstman and 4 Columbian from Scott! All 8 are vigorous and healthy and cannot believe how much they eat. They are 2 weeks old and 4 days old. Little chowhounds

My favorite of all the Rocks are the Barred. I have 4 of Fred's in lockdown due Thursday. Holding my breath.

 

[racertomtom]

As for feathering, the slower the feathering? The sharper the barring, in my experience. If someone can get quick feathering, with that On/Off gene present and produce crisp barring? They'd be miracle workers in my eyes. I dunno. Fast feathering and sharp, crisp barring just doesn't seem to play nice together. Just my experience. Sloooooooow feathering doesn't quite capture it.

Don't know about an on/off switch, but there is a slow feathering gene K. It is also a sexlink gene and most RIRs have it too. In barreds it will clear any smuttiness between the black and white bars making a very clean separation of colors and of course, the bird will feather very slowly. That's pretty much all it does. I also believe the slow feather gene destroys type over time, especially the tails.

10 or more years ago a had a line that feathered quickly and still had pretty darn good barring, just not fantastic. As far as the utility breed that jumped out of the standard, that was it. Of course like all show breeders, I put weight and a long back on the birds, lost some utility and turned it into my pullet line. Last year I combined my two lines out of necessity. Looking back, I screwed up the best line of barreds I've seen by improving it for show. Selective breeding might separate the gene pool some, don't know.

The point of the story, it is possible to have good looking barreds that feather quickly, it just has to have the right combination of genes to do so. Like most other standard rocks, those birds still took 13 months to be in there best condition but they were in full feather and form at about 7 months.

 

[Beekissed]

Hi all you wonderful Rock breeders. See my new avatar? It's because now I have real Rocks. From eggs I got 4 silver penciled from D Horstman and 4 Columbian from Scott! All 8 are vigorous and healthy and cannot believe how much they eat. They are 2 weeks old and 4 days old. Little chowhounds

My favorite of all the Rocks are the Barred. I have 4 of Fred's in lockdown due Thursday. Holding my breath.

Congrats on the good birds!!! It's exciting, isn't it? Did you ever find out what happened to those other chicks in the hatch?