The Rhodebar thread!

[hillfloweranch]

Well I'm getting 12 day old chicks from GFF tomorrow so I will take pictures when they get here to see what I get.

 

[RedRidge]

Well I'm getting 12 day old chicks from GFF tomorrow so I will take pictures when they get here to see what I get.

congrats. Can't wait to see them.

 

[RedRidge]

For nicalandia and any others who haven't kept up with the happenings at GFF since they imported...
We all know there were suspicions and rumors of some strange out crossings.
Well now apparently they are advertising on their website that those our crossings were done on purpose and were done with hatchery Reds.
I think this explains a lot.
It explains why some folks are getting cockerels who are single barred and pullets who are laced and not barred - especially since they likely used some single barred cocks by the looks of it (not sure what breed was introduced to cause the lacing). It also explains the strange leg colors and some of the orange tinting we are seeing in some lines. And most importantly it explains the wheaten looking chicks some folks are getting.
Now don't get me wrong... This cross could be great for egg production... If that's your goal. But... I suspect most people have no idea what they really have, they have no idea how to cull what they get, and they have no idea how to perpetuate and improve the better ones. I predict a massive loss of autosexing traits in this breed over the next few years.
This really creates a frustrating mess for a lot of people... If they learn enough to become frustrated that is.

Those who got stock several years ago are probably less likely to see these negative effects as drastically as those more recent buyers.

I think if we could only give one piece of advice to new buyers it would be to never breed any bird that want easily autosexed with the correct barring. At least everything else can be worked with from there.

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
wow, Thanks, let me check it out and I'll post my coments.. without a sound breeding plan I can see alot of culls being sold as pure rhodebars, and the pullet on their website appears to have a crest, seems like at some point they crossed the Legbars to improve autosexing on one of their lines, proof of this was that some member of this thread reported their rhodebar pullets laying green eggs.. source of page> http://greenfirefarms.com/store/category/chickens/rhodebar/ Edit. the male chick on the website appears to be a e+/eWh heterozygote and really does not look like a rhodebar male

 

[malndobe]

Is it possible to get auto-sexing chicks with a Rhodebar and another barred bird, of a different breed? Like a Cuckoo Maran or Barred Rock? I have more roosters than I am going to want to keep. I don't mind eating them but a friend was interested in possibly taking one and was asking if the chicks from him and her hens would be auto-sexing.

 

[melroseladi]

For nicalandia and any others who haven't kept up with the happenings at GFF since they imported...
We all know there were suspicions and rumors of some strange out crossings.
Well now apparently they are advertising on their website that those our crossings were done on purpose and were done with hatchery Reds.
I think this explains a lot.
It explains why some folks are getting cockerels who are single barred and pullets who are laced and not barred - especially since they likely used some single barred cocks by the looks of it (not sure what breed was introduced to cause the lacing). It also explains the strange leg colors and some of the orange tinting we are seeing in some lines. And most importantly it explains the wheaten looking chicks some folks are getting.
Now don't get me wrong... This cross could be great for egg production... If that's your goal. But... I suspect most people have no idea what they really have, they have no idea how to cull what they get, and they have no idea how to perpetuate and improve the better ones. I predict a massive loss of autosexing traits in this breed over the next few years.
This really creates a frustrating mess for a lot of people... If they learn enough to become frustrated that is.

Those who got stock several years ago are probably less likely to see these negative effects as drastically as those more recent buyers.

I think if we could only give one piece of advice to new buyers it would be to never breed any bird that want easily autosexed with the correct barring. At least everything else can be worked with from there.

GFF has always said they crossed their RB line with both production and standard Reds to increase egg production. If you go back in this thread and look at pics of chicks that came directly from GFF in early 2012 you will see even then their birds were not uniform and it was the luck of the draw if you got anything decent.

Problem is, as I see it, people that purchased those birds did not know what to look for (other then blue/green eggs) to improve the RB's they had purchased and paid a great deal of money for. If I am not mistaken pullet chicks back then were being sold for almost $100 a piece.

I have been going to websites of people that are selling RB chicks and eggs and looking at pics of their stock which most came from GFF as chicks and you see everything from dark red with no visible signs of barring to orange pullets and roosters that are nearly solid black and white with tails pointing to the sky.

I am beginning to believe that as hard as it would have been to start from scratch with a black sex-linked male over HRIR females, in the long run it would have been easier then dealing with the unknown genetics of GFF stock.

Penny

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
not more than the Original Barred birds, Barred Rocks should be semi-autosexing, meaning most of the time you can tell the lighter colored males from the darker colore females, both have heaspots.. why would they look like barred chicks? well Extended black is dominant over wildtype e+ so the chicks would be E/e+ B/B, indistinguishable from E/E B/B

 

[RedRidge]

For nicalandia and any others who haven't kept up with the happenings at GFF since they imported...

We all know there were suspicions and rumors of some strange out crossings.

Well now apparently they are advertising on their website that those our crossings were done on purpose and were done with hatchery Reds.

I think this explains a lot.

It explains why some folks are getting cockerels who are single barred and pullets who are laced and not barred - especially since they likely used some single barred cocks by the looks of it (not sure what breed was introduced to cause the lacing). It also explains the strange leg colors and some of the orange tinting we are seeing in some lines. And most importantly it explains the wheaten looking chicks some folks are getting.

Now don't get me wrong... This cross could be great for egg production... If that's your goal. But... I suspect most people have no idea what they really have, they have no idea how to cull what they get, and they have no idea how to perpetuate and improve the better ones. I predict a massive loss of autosexing traits in this breed over the next few years.

This really creates a frustrating mess for a lot of people... If they learn enough to become frustrated that is.


Those who got stock several years ago are probably less likely to see these negative effects as drastically as those more recent buyers.


I think if we could only give one piece of advice to new buyers it would be to never breed any bird that want easily autosexed with the correct barring. At least everything else can be worked with from there.

GFF has always said they crossed their RB line with both production and standard Reds to increase egg production. If you go back in this thread and look at pics of chicks that came directly from GFF in early 2012 you will see even then their birds were not uniform and it was the luck of the draw if you got anything decent.

Problem is, as I see it, people that purchased those birds did not know what to look for (other then blue/green eggs) to improve the RB's they had purchased and paid a great deal of money for. If I am not mistaken pullet chicks back then were being sold for almost $100 a piece.

I have been going to websites of people that are selling RB chicks and eggs and looking at pics of their stock which most came from GFF as chicks and you see everything from dark red with no visible signs of barring to orange pullets and roosters that are nearly solid black and white with tails pointing to the sky.

I am beginning to believe that as hard as it would have been to start from scratch with a black sex-linked male over HRIR females, in the long run it would have been easier then dealing with the unknown genetics of GFF stock.

Penny

And I'd like to add that I posted this for information and education purposes. .. Not to criticize. I mean no offense to GFF. I understand why they did what they did, I just suspect some of the wrong genetics slipped through the cracks when culling.
And as Penny pointed out... too many folks now have unknown genetics.

Two things... First, I suspect the older our genetics is the less likely to have adverse hidden genetics.
Second, I think if we can encourage folks to cull properly at hatch and then identify correct barring, those two cull factors will go a long way.

 

[melroseladi]

On an up-note after researching and researching I found a post about bars not displaying on chicks from Hambar over wheaten females. It was said that sometimes the bars are hard to see and to look at the feathers at the top of the thigh. I was able to see under one of my females from first hatch that are showing no visible signs of barring and low and behold there is barring on the feathers between her legs. So I may be in luck after all.

Penny

 

[melroseladi]

And I'd like to add that I posted this for information and education purposes. .. Not to criticize. I mean no offense to GFF. I understand why they did what they did, I just suspect some of the wrong genetics slipped through the cracks when culling.
And as Penny pointed out... too many folks now have unknown genetics.

Two things... First, I suspect the older our genetics is the less likely to have adverse hidden genetics.
Second, I think if we can encourage folks to cull properly at hatch and then identify correct barring, those two cull factors will go a long way.

Problem is Sheri that GFF has been cross breeding them from the start so even our older lines are carrying goodness knows what. All we can really do, new or old, is do selective breeding, cull, cull, cull, and not pass on those genes.

I also understand the why behind GFF crossing them but with the amount of money they had invested to import they should have brought in a genetic expert to help them with their crossings. It would have been money well spent, imo.

Penny