The Rhodebar thread!

[RedRidge]

I suspect I have more grow out room than most people but at this point I do not have a lot of adult birds. I have 10 HRIR (2 cocks and 8 hens), and 4 RB (2 cocks and 2 hens).
I am hatching HRIR for other people so have quite a few of those in the bators.
One of my 2 setting bators is experiencing a much lower hatch rate than the other. Hmmm. I may switch to just the one bator.
So for RB I have one of those cocks is with 4 HRIR hens, the remaining trio is together and I have hatched a few in hopes of hatching am improvement over the parents, and also for different genetics since they are unrelated. I have 18 F1s on the ground and another 20 eggs set but... they are in the "not so good" bator. I suspect I will end up with about 40 F1s.

I have a LOT of egg and meat customers, so I never worry about raising cockerels out IF they are decent carcasses. And the non breeder pullets go to the production layer group where the 3 yr olds get slaughter each year. This is my main motivation for RB improvement to begin with. I'd really like to be able to put the same carcass on the table as i do with my Hrir. We have 50 acres and move livestock daily so if they will give me a good carcass by 7-8 months they have earned their stay. My HRIR are great dual purpose birds... i want the RB to be the same. I know the first few generations won't do that but... At least I have the room for some BC1 and other generations.
However, I am anal (software engineer), and I like to deal in facts. So going back to RB every other generation may be slower, but the results should be easier to identify... so I'm toying with the same crosses you are. Although with a few more adults I may toy with another cross as well if my anal mind is up to it this fall. I realize that while this project does not require a lot of grow out pens right now it will as we get another generation or two down the road.

As an aside... My RB cocks have been very easy to deal with - which is nice. My HRIR cocks are quite pleasant, it's one of the many things I love about them. But... When I went to move all 18 F1 chicks from heat lamp to heat plate last night, one of the little light headed ones reached out and took a hold of my finger. He apparently didn't like me reaching into that brooder. LOL Brave little bugger for being so young. I will keep an eye on him but... No matter how wonderful he may begin growing out I will not hesitate to cull for temperament. I like to easily be able to walk along my males even during breeding. A 2 day old who already thinks he is tough stuff could be trouble. ;-)

Penny, ate you going to breed F1s this fall or wait til next spring?

 

[melroseladi]

Sheri I so wish I had that much property, but I know it is a lot of work for you. I am hoping to do crosses as soon as they are old enough to lay eggs and breed. I think I am going to try an F1 cross then do a BC next year, and do a BC from the F1's to my RB cockerel, of course that is going to depend on how many females I end up with. I am seeing in my lighter F1's from first hatch a lot of barring, pretty birds so far. I am going to go back and restudy the UBC study that was done on their Rhodebar and RIR crosses. They documented the different coloring and markings at hatch to determine gender. Much more complicated then getting head spots but I think it might help me in determining gender in the F1's.

I am going to get another heat plate, love, love, love them so that will make brooding much easier. The outside brooder is 4x8 that I am going to divide for younger and older chicks. If the weather ever breaks I will be able to finish that up and get these older ones moved out.

I don't have any issues with my RB rooster or either of my HRIR roosters other then they do fence fight each other. I love the temperament of the HRIR roosters, so mellow. My RB rooster is not human aggressive thus far but he is not as mellow as my HRIR roosters. That is a trait I would like to see passed on to the RB. I do have to take turns free ranging them though or they would fight.

I had 2 surprise pips from my RC HRIR eggs yesterday. One made it out the other didn't. I am hoping that this one survives, I love my RC pair and really want to increase that flock.

Penny

 

[RedRidge]

Do you havea link to that study?

 

[melroseladi]

Do you havea link to that study?

Let me see if I can find a link. I have the pdf saved to my computer.

Okay this is the link, scroll to the bottom of page and click on files in this item

https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/41519?show=full

Penny

 

[RedRidge]

I will pm you my email if you wouldn't mind sending it to me

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

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

I am with you I think. I have other breeds and keep building pens and it's getting out of hand. While I appreciate alllllll the information recently about F1 BC to HRIR, the difficulties with the autosexing/genotype ID will likely prevent me from that. I agree it will be slower, but using really great HRIR hens and then backcrossing to the RB will still give me a better bird than continuing to breed the inferior RB alone. That is my hope anyway. I'm arranging to get a few HRIR from a WA breeder that has really nice stock so the experiment will commence this spring.

I had 3 RB hatch yesterday from my (inferior) pair. There's a nice female, a light male, and a who-the-heck-knows light chick with a faint shadow of some striping and a little dark snip on the head. I'll get some photos when the phone charges up. MUCH different than the previous hatch.

 

[melroseladi]

I am with you I think. I have other breeds and keep building pens and it's getting out of hand. While I appreciate alllllll the information recently about F1 BC to HRIR, the difficulties with the autosexing/genotype ID will likely prevent me from that. I agree it will be slower, but using really great HRIR hens and then backcrossing to the RB will still give me a better bird than continuing to breed the inferior RB alone. That is my hope anyway. I'm arranging to get a few HRIR from a WA breeder that has really nice stock so the experiment will commence this spring.

I had 3 RB hatch yesterday from my (inferior) pair. There's a nice female, a light male, and a who-the-heck-knows light chick with a faint shadow of some striping and a little dark snip on the head. I'll get some photos when the phone charges up. MUCH different than the previous hatch.

Isn't it odd how same parents can produce such different chicks batch to batch. Most of my first batch of F1's have nice beak color, not so much in the second batch.

Penny

 

[nicalandia]

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

Oh Thanks... I truly appreciate this, now as for keepers, I would say 3a and 3b are the ones to keep as grou 1 and 2(a and b) are too wheaten to my eyes... you can see pure HRIR that some times show some striping, but not many of them do now, seems some of those old time HRIR were based on eb or recessive wheaten, so for the sake of the autosexing project I would keep the chipmunk striped ones(3a and 3b groups).. even if all of them were females.



here is a post from the H. RIR thread. source: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/407294/the-heritage-rhode-island-red-site/3560#post_11069692

Okay folks. Question for some of the old timers. lol Many many years ago when I was just a kid, my parents always had RIR's. Not from hatchery but from other local farmers. Dad and mom always let the hens set and raise chicks to replenish the flock because we butchered both hens and roosters. When our chicks were first hatched they looked like little chipmunks (ground squirrels). They had really black stripes back both sides of their backs and on their heads. I haven't seen this for a long long time. Even in hatchery RIR's. In the last 2 years I have probably received over 250 eggs/chicks from other breeders. Never have I received a chick like the ones I mentioned nor have I ever hatched one from others eggs or my own eggs. All of a sudden, this past weekend I hatched chicks from my Don Nelson line (these are dinahmoe and NYREDS females and dinahmoe cock bird. These are all pure Don Nelson lines. I had 3 with the really dark lines described above and 1 with the lines just not as pronounced. The other chicks are all just like what we all see all the time from the RIR's. Could it be that I have a hen that lays the golden egg? Do any of you breeders that breed a lot of these birds ever come across this or do any of you have comments. I think I will band these chicks so I know which ones they are as they grow and see how they turn out. This really has me confused. I couldn't see the striping until they totally fluffed up.

Including pictures taken today. These were hatched Saturday.






The chcks in the top and left in this photo is what most of our RIR chicks look like.

 

[nicalandia]

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.

wow.. so nice and so Dark... nice chicks, all of them are keepers... do any of your pure HRIR looked like that when they hatched? because some HRIR may have some faint stripping,

 

[melroseladi]

wow.. so nice and so Dark... nice chicks, all of them are keepers... do any of your pure HRIR looked like that when they hatched? because some HRIR may have some faint stripping,

I have 2 batches of HRIR. The hens that are in with my RB are from this batch:





Penny