The Rhodebar thread!

[JamesA]

Rose combed rhodebars will be interesting. I am working on rose combed legbars because as my birds proved, the huge single combs will not work in my climate.

What path are you taking to get rose comb legbars?

 

[Chilifur]

Jumping in:

I have been looking through this and other threads and am a bit bothered by this assumption that, because someone did it before, Rhodebars are little more than a hybrid and it would be easy to recreate them. Sigh.

People, just about everything started as a cross, certainly. BUT... The Rhodebars were developed *from* Brussbars, Rhode Islands, etc - they are a PURE BREED that took many years to get where they are. Even the assumption that crossing a male to a female Rhode Island and then crossing that offspring back to a Rhodebard will produce a PURE Rhodebar... NO! You will get sex-links, but you just lost your purity. It doesn't come back that quickly. Especially if the quality of that RIR isn't up to standard for the OLD-TIME birds, and is a modern commercial creature. Do the math:

RH x RIR = 50%, RH/RIR x RH = 75%, 75% x 100%... See the pattern? Yes, there is already RIR within the Rhodebar makeup, but it's NOT the same thing. You need about 4 generations before you can securely call that offspring a pure Rhodebar.

Egg color: Any one that has a Rhodebar laying a green egg does not have a purebred Rhodebar. Period. Since it is a genetic impossibility for a pure, brown egg-laying Rhodebar to produce a green or blue egg, I strongly suspect that there was an HONEST mixup of Legbars and Rhodebars at some point. Only a Legbar has enough of a similar genetic makeup for this to happen and not be recognized right off the bat.

By the way, if anyone is looking for some, I have two dozen babies available (hatched 10/29)! These are from the original Cheryl's (Omelette Ranch) Rhodebar Flock. All light brown layers and there are no black, white, or off color babies.

 

[jeremy]

Technically speaking, you can have auto-sexing offspring after as little as 2 generations.

Rhodebar X Rhode Island Reds = F1, single factor barred cockerels and pullets.

Cull the single factor barred cockerels from this breeding and then breed the single factor barred pullets back to their Rhodebar father.

Rhodebar X F1 pullets = F2, double factor barred cockerels and single factor barred pullets… a.k.a auto-sexing birds. The gender of these chicks will be identifiable at hatch.

From there you can breed back to the Rhodebar father again or breed the F2 offspring together and continue to get auto-sexing offspring. What many will consider pure Rhodebars.

Now I think I understand what you’re saying, these birds aren’t technically “pure” Rhodebars because they are genetically ½ Rhode Island Red, or ¼ Rhode Island Red. But they are still auto-sexing.

If you continually breed back to the Rhodebar cock bird eventually you will have offspring that are almost pure Rhodebar again, however you may be propagating faults from your original cock bird. In order to correct type, color, size, shape, etc. of the Rhodebars that were imported by Greenfire Farms they need to be outcrossed to true Heritage Rhode Island Reds, this is the only way you will be able to improve your line. Outcrossing to production/hatchery stock Rhode Island Reds will do nothing for your line except perhaps boost productivity. The birds imported by Greenfire Farms are no where near perfect and need a lot of work to fit within the British SOP for the Rhodebar. Outcrossing is a must.

Does that mean that the offspring of these birds should be called something other than a Rhodebar? I think that’s a topic for debate. I say no, they shouldn’t be. The Rhodebar might have been created from a Brussbar and countless other breeds but it was created to serve the purpose of producing an auto-sexing bird that could be used for both meat consumption and egg production. The outcrossed birds I’m sure will fit this description and will adhere to the SOP for a Rhodebar more closely.

ETA: I remember seeing pictures of an F1 pullet from a Rhodebar X RIR breeding that Cheryl had and was using for breeding in her Rhodebar flock. You said you purchased her stock, are you using the F1 pullet for breeding? Do you consider her offspring pure Rhodebars?

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

What path are you taking to get rose comb legbars?

I crossed my legbar rooster with a rose comb light brown leghorn. That gave me all crested, rose combed birds that are basically crele looking. I was lucky enough to hatch out a good ratio (1 male/2 female ratio). I hatched out about 30 chicks and culled down to one cockerel (just to see how he turns out) and 6 pullets. On the pullets, the main thing I looked for was good tails and good combs, the crest can mess with the rose comb some and make it look funky so I selected only birds with good spikes.
These pullets should be better layers than the pure legbars, and my legbar hen is laying eggs that are more green than blue so crossing back to leghorn should clean the color up some. I will be crossing these pullets back to a legbar rooster which will give me the F2 that will produce autosexing chicks like Jeremy pointed out. For me, I got the legbars as a production bird. We sell lots of pullets for layers and the sexlinks can be annoying since we always have to get new hens (we use wyandottes, ameraucanas, and barred rocks for our sexlink makers). These rose combed birds will look like my ideal legbar and lay better with a rose comb that will fare our cold winters much better.

I think I am about to throw my hands up on my buckbar type project that I was going to do, I can't find any red hens and my buckeye hen I was going to use is taking forever to lay. I figure I might try to find some rhodebar eggs in the spring and breed those to buckeyes to get a peacombed version of them. Rose combed will be pretty nice looking, I know Duane Urch had some nice RC RIR birds a few years back, we had a flock but they weren't good layers so we sold them on

 

[Chilifur]

Technically speaking, you can have auto-sexing offspring after as little as 2 generations.

Rhodebar X Rhode Island Reds = F1, single factor barred cockerels and pullets.

Cull the single factor barred cockerels from this breeding and then breed the single factor barred pullets back to their Rhodebar father.

Rhodebar X F1 pullets = F2, double factor barred cockerels and single factor barred pullets… a.k.a auto-sexing birds. The gender of these chicks will be identifiable at hatch.

From there you can breed back to the Rhodebar father again or breed the F2 offspring together and continue to get auto-sexing offspring. What many will consider pure Rhodebars.

Now I think I understand what you’re saying, these birds aren’t technically “pure” Rhodebars because they are genetically ½ Rhode Island Red, or ¼ Rhode Island Red. But they are still auto-sexing.

If you continually breed back to the Rhodebar cock bird eventually you will have offspring that are almost pure Rhodebar again, however you may be propagating faults from your original cock bird. In order to correct type, color, size, shape, etc. of the Rhodebars that were imported by Greenfire Farms they need to be outcrossed to true Heritage Rhode Island Reds, this is the only way you will be able to improve your line. Outcrossing to production/hatchery stock Rhode Island Reds will do nothing for your line except perhaps boost productivity. The birds imported by Greenfire Farms are no where near perfect and need a lot of work to fit within the British SOP for the Rhodebar. Outcrossing is a must.

Does that mean that the offspring of these birds should be called something other than a Rhodebar? I think that’s a topic for debate. I say no, they shouldn’t be. The Rhodebar might have been created from a Brussbar and countless other breeds but it was created to serve the purpose of producing an auto-sexing bird that could be used for both meat consumption and egg production. The outcrossed birds I’m sure will fit this description and will adhere to the SOP for a Rhodebar more closely.

ETA: I remember seeing pictures of an F1 pullet from a Rhodebar X RIR breeding that Cheryl had and was using for breeding in her Rhodebar flock. You said you purchased her stock, are you using the F1 pullet for breeding? Do you consider her offspring pure Rhodebars?

Jeremy, yes - they are autosexing, I said as much - that isn't the point, is it? They aren't "pure" Rhodebar - but you wouldn't be able to tell, would you? That's what frustrates me - people getting a bird, outcrossing it, and selling the F1's as purebred. The autosexing feature is just a feature, it doesn't make the breed.

The impression I am getting is that people think it's easy to just "recreate" it - I believe Chris stated something very much like (paraphrasing here), "Why pay for imports when we can just recreate here in the States?"


Getting this overwhelming feeling you are reading FAR too much into what I wrote:

• I never said outcrossing wasn't necessary.
• Another name? Why would you suggest something like that? It's a project until it's pure. You should know this already.
• Never suggested crossing back to the SAME cock over and over again - that's ridiculous.
• Obviously, I don't consider an F1's offspring pure. That's part of the point of my post, isn't it?

Perhaps it is unintentional, but that last bit asking if I'm using the F1 for breeding is on the verge of antagonistic. What's your point, Jeremy?

 

[Chilifur]

At the risk of coming off really cranky (just replied to Jeremy), I really do want to understand why folks are posting *here* about hybrid mutts.

Please don't misunderstand - I'm as much a Dr. Frankenstein as the rest and have my own little projects all the time; however, this is the RHODEBAR thread. Right? Are me and my little purity-sensibilities in the wrong place?

 

[melroseladi]

What makes the Rhodebar breed is the RIR. Rhodebars are auto-sexing barred RIRs and the features of the Rhodebar should be that of a barred RIR. Not everybody used Brussbars when they were developing their strains of Rhodebars. UBC developed their strain from RIR and BPR, if I understand it correctly.

So while all the auto-sexing barred breeds are their own breeds they are supposed to be auto-sexing barred versions of what ever the parent stock is and should represent that breed, such as the RIR, unless I totally misunderstand the purpose of the Rhodebars (and the other auto-sexing barred breeds).

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

I started posting here because I wanted rhodebars but I don't like the state they are in so I was going to make my own using what I had. Well, that turned into buckbars which are closely related and close looking to rhodebars, just with a peacomb. If I can get my hands on some rhodebars, I will work with them some but otherwise I'll just work on making my own.
With the rhodebars, you want a barred rhode island. The legbars are not a barred version of leghorns, much different looking but in my eyes, I want them to be more like leghorn

 

[nicalandia]

What path are you taking to get rose comb legbars?

Rose Combed Leghorns I guess.

 

[nicalandia]

Jumping in:

I have been looking through this and other threads and am a bit bothered by this assumption that, because someone did it before, Rhodebars are little more than a hybrid and it would be easy to recreate them. Sigh.

People, just about everything started as a cross, certainly. BUT... The Rhodebars were developed *from* Brussbars, Rhode Islands, etc - they are a PURE BREED that took many years to get where they are. Even the assumption that crossing a male to a female Rhode Island and then crossing that offspring back to a Rhodebard will produce a PURE Rhodebar... NO! You will get sex-links, but you just lost your purity. It doesn't come back that quickly. Especially if the quality of that RIR isn't up to standard for the OLD-TIME birds, and is a modern commercial creature. Do the math:

so much wrong on this post