The Rhodebar thread!

[sjcshawna]

What kind of incubator do you have?  I have a good system for a cabinet style.

 

[sjcshawna]

I have a regular Styrofoam incubator

 

[nicalandia]

This is what I picture in my head for the RB chicks to look like, female with dark striping and male lighter but still distinguishable markings (not the hodge podge coloring we have seen in male RB chicks) and of course head spot. If my thinking is correct then I should only be keeping F1's regardless male or female that show the distinctive chipmunk stripes and then the head spot will come when crossing back to Rhodebar. Is this correct or have I misthought this?

Penny

if you plan on crossing the F1s back to Rhodebar I would keep the F1 females, they would be e+/eWh s+/s+ B/- so when crossed with RB male this would produce 50% pure Rhodebars that are of a better type, but only a little bit, maybe darker and better type, but I would do another Back cross to HRIR witht he best e+/e+ B/B males you get from the backcross..

 

[nicalandia]

You mentioned that it would be easy to cull the wheaten chicks just like we did with F1s, but so far we have not culled any F1s. I divided mine into 6 groups of colors and patterns but haven't determined anything more than that. Am I missing something? Are there some groups we can immediately eliminate?

thats because all of the F1s are e+/eWh but some of them will not look pure wildtype..and I am sure pure Wheaten eWh/eWh would look different than most e+/eWh would look like making them easy to pick...

now can you post pics of the rest of the 5 groups of chicks? so far I have only seen the ones that look like pure wildtype

 

[RedRidge]

now can you post pics of the rest of the 5 groups of chicks? so far I have only seen the ones that look like pure wildtype

Sorry Marvin,
I should have put all 6 groups in one post... I am calling them Group 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b

Group 1a


Group 1b


Group 2a


Group 2b


Group 3a and 3b - the lightest of these with no beak horn color are 3a, the remainder are 3b

 

[melroseladi]

if you plan on crossing the F1s back to Rhodebar I would keep the F1 females, they would be e+/eWh s+/s+ B/- so when crossed with RB male this would produce 50% pure Rhodebars that are of a better type, but only a little bit, maybe darker and better type, but I would do another Back cross to HRIR witht he best e+/e+ B/B males you get from the backcross..

Thanks Marvin, that is the plan I was hoping to use. That way I can do more selective breeding of the BC1 offspring to the HRIR. I really want to be selective in matching up faults and assets of each pair to better improve the line rather then just flock breeding.

Penny

 

[melroseladi]

I ended up with 13 F1's out of this hatch. I had to move them into a kiddy pool since the heat plate did not fit in the brooder I was planning on using, and my earlier hatch are all still in the big brooder. I snapped a few pics with my cell phone so they are not the best but you will get a good idea on the markings.





In the pic below the bottom center chick with the cross on her head is very light, almost a buff color.


In the pic below the chick at the bottom left is a very dark mahogany color. You can see the stripes on her back but her red coloring is very deep like the HRIR


In the pic below the middle chick on the left is a burgundy color, not as deep a color as the mahogany color.

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

I have a regular Styrofoam incubator

You could try putting a plastic berry basket upside down over each egg (unless you're running totally full). This way each chick is with its eggshell in a little "jail." I have never used a tabletop incubator so I don't know how much room there is from the bottom to the lid. Boisterous chicks can pop the basket off when they get dried off and rested unless there is just enough room to prevent this.

 

[RedRidge]

I ended up with 13 F1's out of this hatch. I had to move them into a kiddy pool since the heat plate did not fit in the brooder I was planning on using, and my earlier hatch are all still in the big brooder. I snapped a few pics with my cell phone so they are not the best but you will get a good idea on the markings. In the pic below the bottom center chick with the cross on her head is very light, almost a buff color. In the pic below the chick at the bottom left is a very dark mahogany color. You can see the stripes on her back but her red coloring is very deep like the HRIR In the pic below the middle chick on the left is a burgundy color, not as deep a color as the mahogany color.

They look like mine... No surprise there. How are you going to track them?

 

[melroseladi]

They look like mine... No surprise there. How are you going to track them?

Sheri at this point, since I have limited space, I am thinking of just keeping females to cross back to Rhodie, but that could change, lol. I am thinking that taking that route may take me a little longer to get to good type but I should be able to tell gender from the start and that will give me the ability to cull what I don't need right from the start, which financially will be much better for me. I may do a F1 cross as well and then a BC and see how that turns out. I am only keeping the darkest striped ones at this point, but I am thinking that I may keep that little burgundy and mahogany one to see how they grow out.

Most of this second batch have good striping on them but beak color is not nearly as nice as the first batch.

I am going to try to get some pics of my older batch. The ones that hatched out with the darker stripes are much darker then the ones that hatched with lighter stripes. The barring is much less evident on the darker ones then on the lighter ones. The lighter ones are really pretty with their barring where as the darker ones, while pretty look a lot like the mixed breeds I had hatched out last year with a black cockerel over production reds. It looks like most, if not all, of the lighter ones are male, and the darker ones are mostly female, except 1 that is looking and acting rooish but I am still not sure about that one.

Since I don't have as many birds as you or hatch out as many as you it is a little easier for me to track them.

Penny