The Rhodebar thread!

[call ducks]

RedRidge, That's awesome!

I am going to be putting a lot of work into rhodebar's. These next few years. I have 3-4 dozen pure rhodebar eggs coming and a couple dozen production RIR eggs coming. I should have at least two lines maybe another two to three. lines

 

[RedRidge]

I am only breeding one trio of pure this year. All the rest got culled except the cockerel I am putting over the HRIR. That boy got added to all his HRIR today so... Hopefully I will have some F1s by the end of Feb.
He was impressed by all the lovely ladies when I put him in their double breeding pen. The girls? Not so much! LOL

 

[call ducks]

I am only breeding one trio of pure this year. All the rest got culled except the cockerel I am putting over the HRIR. That boy got added to all his HRIR today so... Hopefully I will have some F1s by the end of Feb.
He was impressed by all the lovely ladies when I put him in their double breeding pen. The girls? Not so much! LOL

Hehe I bet.

With luck this year I am purchasing a 24 X 24 green house to use a year round shelter. I will need to have hardware cloth ~3-4 up the sides though (mink, and racoons) all the way around.I will divide that up into two 12 * 12 sections and that means I can have 72 birds per 12 * 12 section (up to anyways). So that means I can have bigger breeding flocks

The stock that I am obtaining this year - will not be culled as ruthlessly as the next generation will be. For the next few years I will be using two pens and having to just produce rhodebar pullets ( rhodebar cock over rhode island reds) as a way to boost rhodebar numbers and add some much needed diversity.

 

[malndobe]

As promised here are some photos in better light. Unfortunately they were taken through the fence, it was the fence or the tangle of branches I have in the grow out pen so the smaller ones (currently the RB) have a place to hide from any bigger ones picking on them. They have only been in the pen for about 24 hours and things are already settling down so hopefully I will be able to get more shots once they are out and about.

2 of the cockerels, the one on the left is the only one without a fair amount of black in the chest.



The third cockerel


My funky feathered "partridge Rhodebar"


One of the pullets (bottom right) with funky feathers and 2 cockerels in the background.


The other pullet

 

[RedRidge]

Ok... who else is doing RB over HRIR hatches this season. I'm anxious to see pics of the various chick down everyone is getting.

I well be setting a couple dozen eggs next Wed as soon as the bator has room (had to get a bunch of HRIR hatched first). I plan to totally separate off any yellow/wheaten chicks at hatch. I will be toe punching and banding in groups according to color patterns (I will simply have too many F1 chicks over the next few months to band them each individually until they are old enough to put numbers on, but want to make sure each group is well documented from day 1.

My main concern is that I will have no wheaten since my HRIR line is so dark red at hatch. So, I will be bombarding the group with pics at each hatch to get help making sure each chick is classified correctly. Then I will match those pics to feathered out birds so we can see just how things come together. Hopefully by fall i will have an excellent group of F1 to begin picking from for breeders for next season. I won't post each pic unless the chick classification is questionable, but each group will have down pic documentation so that should I decide to sell some F1s this summer the new owners will know for certain what they are getting. I'm hoping I will have so many that I will have some F1 available for a few folks who are really interested in genetic improvement in this breed. I will have unrelated cockerels too, so will be selling trios.

Any other advice or recommendations as to how to begin to track these? I will be hatching approximately 25-60 every 15 days.

Spreadsheets and camera are ready... let the hatching begin.

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
Wow... that sound an exceptionally good breeding plan you have laid out, I approve of such a plan and would love to see the pics of those chicks, one thing, wheaten does not always means yellow, as you already know the RIR hatch with a chestnutt color to them, that because Mahogany an other redenhancers do their job well, the RIR X Rhodebar F1s will vary on chicks down(some looking like RIR, some looking like wildtype and some looking right in the midddle) even if all of them are e+/eWh, now this birds as adults will have the same appearance so identifying them at early age is a must, thanks for your efforts, keep us posted and I will assist you as much as I can

 

[RedRidge]

So here's a strange question... thoughts for the day...

Suppose you spend several years developing a good line of Rhodebars and you finally have some nice ones with heavy HRIR influence that are now totally auto sexable.
All of my breeding plans F1, F2, F3, B3A, etc don't mean a thing I have breed myself into a corner. At that point you do not want to breed back to the beginner parents obviously. So apparently breeding in new HRIR blood periodically may be the only way to go.

Of course developing parallel lines along the way would be a great solution, but seriously not practical from both a space and money perspective for most folks.

So has anyone really thought down the road about the best way to practically breed these improved Rhodebars without being yourself into a corner.
It's a little mind boggling to think about but that part of the long term breeding plan is a little to much of a mystery right now and I need some brainstorms as to how to most efficiently and cost effectively handle that.

 

[nicalandia]

So here's a strange question... thoughts for the day...

Suppose you spend several years developing a good line of Rhodebars and you finally have some nice ones with heavy HRIR influence that are now totally auto sexable.
All of my breeding plans F1, F2, F3, B3A, etc don't mean a thing I have breed myself into a corner. At that point you do not want to breed back to the beginner parents obviously. So apparently breeding in new HRIR blood periodically may be the only way to go.

Of course developing parallel lines along the way would be a great solution, but seriously not practical from both a space and money perspective for most folks.

So has anyone really thought down the road about the best way to practically breed these improved Rhodebars without being yourself into a corner.
It's a little mind boggling to think about but that part of the long term breeding plan is a little to much of a mystery right now and I need some brainstorms as to how to most efficiently and cost effectively handle that.

why would you breed back to beginner parents its beyond me.... IF you are able to achieve Autosexable RIR then you have reach the final goal or any breeding program.. now what to do next? well get yourself a separate line of HRIR and go from there so you have two lines and more genetic material to work with

 

[RedRidge]

So here's a strange question... thoughts for the day...


Suppose you spend several years developing a good line of Rhodebars and you finally have some nice ones with heavy HRIR influence that are now totally auto sexable.

All of my breeding plans F1, F2, F3, B3A, etc don't mean a thing I have breed myself into a corner. At that point you do not want to breed back to the beginner parents obviously. So apparently breeding in new HRIR blood periodically may be the only way to go.


Of course developing parallel lines along the way would be a great solution, but seriously not practical from both a space and money perspective for most folks.


So has anyone really thought down the road about the best way to practically breed these improved Rhodebars without being yourself into a corner.

It's a little mind boggling to think about but that part of the long term breeding plan is a little to much of a mystery right now and I need some brainstorms as to how to most efficiently and cost effectively handle that.

why would you breed back to beginner parents its beyond me.... IF you are able to achieve Autosexable RIR then you have reach the final goal or any breeding program.. now what to do next? well get yourself a separate line of HRIR and go from there so you have two lines and more genetic material to work with

Precisely... I would not go back. But the thought of starting all over again is daunting so I'm toying with going ahead and running two strains next year.

 

[call ducks]

If you hatch large enough numbers (more than a few hundred) and cull hard enough, and start with a wide range of genetics you should never breed yourself into a corner.