The Rhodebar thread!

[RedRidge]

That's the reason I thought I'd post. I believe two of my really dark striped chipmunk are male.

Fascinating comment. .. Regardless of their down they are feathering very similar. We knew this on paper but watching them feather the same from different down is really rather mind boggling... like you were drinking a coke and accidently picked up someone's root beer and your brain goes "wrong, wrong, wrong! " ROFL

LOL. My daughter just came in and saw pics of your birds and wanted to know what pen they were in. She thought they were pics of my F1's, lol.

Penny

LOL. There's a reason for that. ;-)

 

[TNBEARCHICK]

Absolutely! And while I agree i seem to have no suggestions.
Now that there are so many problems out there that are being perpetuated out of lack of knowledge, it appears that it is proving very difficult to put the cat back in the bag.
The other dilemma I suspect we have is that we are preaching to the choir. I suspect those who are perpetuating the problems have no idea the are problems. Any suggestions for addressing that elephant in the room would be greatly appreciated.

We were terribly glad when it was pointed out that our one Rhodebar hen had lacing instead of barring. We just hadn't noticed/paid attention to it. So we pulled her and went though all of our chicks and juveniles and pulled tags off of all of her offspring and relabeled them as culls. They will still be great pullets but not Rhodebars.
I don't know of an answer on how to fix this problem, because most people don't get it and some don't care. Then others don't have the info. It is like trying to explain to someone that you have a heritage bird not hatchery bird. They just don't get it.
People paid a lot of money for their birds and don't want to cull them. We thankfully had 2 other hens to breed off of and 3 roosters to work with.

So no I don't have an answer.

 

[malndobe]

Some updated pics of my Rhodebars, they are 5 months old.

This is the best of the 3 Roosters, he's my biggest and also has the least black in the body. As far as body type goes they are very similar. When calm the tail set is lower, he saw another Rooster coming down the hill and was starting to puff up.


One of the pullets

Same rooster with my other pullet in the foreground. In the background is the pullet that is from the same hatch but ended up laced instead of barred. She was the only one in the hatch that also couldn't be easily autosexed.

And this is my mystery bird, she is not a Rhodebar but I am thinking someone on this thread might have a clue to her genetics. She's a mix breed, but none of her possible parents are barred. The possible fathers are a Buff Orpington/Jubilee Orpington cross Rooster who showed some mottling at 3-5 weeks old, but by 6 months was a solid dark red/gold color. The other possible father is a mix breed of unknown origin who looks like a New Hampshire. The possible mothers are a Black Jersey Giant and a Production Red


Same bird around 6 weeks old

Any chance if I bred her to the Rhodebar rooster I would get autosexing chicks?

 

[melroseladi]

That rooster looks like a single barred Rhodebar to me and that mystery pullet looks barred to me. Hopefully Marvin will jump in with his expertise.

Penny

Edited to add: I wanted to add that he is super pretty and if he is double barred I would breed the heck out of him over some HRIR.

 

[Makomd]

That rooster looks like a single barred Rhodebar to me and that mystery pullet looks barred to me. Hopefully Marvin will jump in with his expertise.

Penny

Edited to add: I wanted to add that he is super pretty and if he is double barred I would breed the heck out of him over some HRIR.

She looks barred to me as well, but could be some mottled from Jubilee.

 

[malndobe]

That rooster looks like a single barred Rhodebar to me and that mystery pullet looks barred to me. Hopefully Marvin will jump in with his expertise.

Bummer. My other two are the same in terms of how dark their colors are, but they have a lot more black in the chest. Maybe that explains the laced bird, if the parents weren't correctly barred to begin with.

Mystery looks barred to me also, which is the mystery LOL Is it possible for a solid color to hide a barring pattern? I didn't think it was but ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by melroseladi

Edited to add: I wanted to add that he is super pretty and if he is double barred I would breed the heck out of him over some HRIR.

Unfortunately I don't have any HRIR. Been trying to find some, I was going to get some eggs shipped but my incubators are "down" (house is on the market, don't want to set eggs now) so I need to find chicks or try to time getting eggs with a hen going broody. I wasn't really looking for a project though, just a breed with autosexing chicks.

 

[malndobe]

This is one of my other cockerels, the photos were taken a couple of months ago and posted earlier in this thread. He's one of the ones with heavier black. Does he also look single barred?

 

[melroseladi]

This is one of my other cockerels, the photos were taken a couple of months ago and posted earlier in this thread. He's one of the ones with heavier black. Does he also look single barred?

Now that one looks double barred to me. Again, I am a real novice still at this so just take what I say as my own interpretation. Also even if your first one is single barred and you have barred hens you can work towards a double barred cockerel. I would also take that mystery hen and put her under one of your barred roosters to see what you get. If they turn out to be autosexing then you can still sell them just don't market them as RB.

In my project the females certainly did not improve as much as the males did (RB over HRIR) so I am going to take a few of the females and put them back to the RB. I won't market them as RB but since they will be autosexed I can still offer people pullets instead of just straight run. I will keep crossing back to the HRIR until I see improvement and then put them back to RB before selling any as actual RB.

Penny

 

[malndobe]

Now that one looks double barred to me. Again, I am a real novice still at this so just take what I say as my own interpretation. Also even if your first one is single barred and you have barred hens you can work towards a double barred cockerel.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way my first rooster could be single barred is if the person who owned the parents has a single barred rooster, correct? Or if the rooster was double barred, but the hen wasn't barred at all?

In my project the females certainly did not improve as much as the males did (RB over HRIR) so I am going to take a few of the females and put them back to the RB. I won't market them as RB but since they will be autosexed I can still offer people pullets instead of just straight run. I will keep crossing back to the HRIR until I see improvement and then put them back to RB before selling any as actual RB.

Anything I sell would be sold as barnyard mixes unless/until I was positive they were breeding true. My main goal is autosexing so I can easily figure out if I have pullets or cockerels, but most chicks will be kept "in house" since I feed a lot of eggs to my dogs, and will either eat the cockerels or feed them to the dogs also. Extra pullets will be sold just to help offset feed costs. But I don't plan to have many extras, I am not incubating anything else this year, but just letting any hen that goes broody raise a clutch. I will just control what eggs she sits on, either some of my Wyandottes, the Rhodebars, or some duck eggs.

 

[RedRidge]

That rooster looks like a single barred Rhodebar to me and that mystery pullet looks barred to me. Hopefully Marvin will jump in with his expertise.

Penny

Edited to add: I wanted to add that he is super pretty and if he is double barred I would breed the heck out of him over some HRIR.

I believe he is double barred. The barring is too sharp for single. What does @nicalandia think?