Developing My Own Breed Of Large Gamefowl For Free Range Survival (Junglefowl x Liege)

[Florida Bullfrog]

Random pics of whatever free rangers gave me some shots.

I turned out the seven 3/4 Liege today. Like many of my birds first time on free range, they headed to a salt bush (Baccharis halimifolia) and started nipping at the leaves. That always makes me nervous because salt bush is supposed to be highly toxic to birds. It doesn't seem to bother my free rangers, but its also normal to lose some birds suddenly the first few days they're on free range, so I'll be watching these to see if any seem to fall sick. In humans, salt bush is somewhat medicinal to some lung conditions. Whitetail deer like to eat it in the wild.

This cockerel is a couple of months older than the 3/4 Liege but is about the same size. He's fathered by Indo but his mother is unknown and he grew up free range. He quickly asserted dominance over the highest level cockerel of the 3/4 birds.

This is a random cockerel of Indo to an unknown layer. I'll probably need to remove him off the yard soon, I don't want him breeding hens.

This is a 1/2 Cracker 1/2 American cockerel. Hei Hei is the father.

Random 1/2 Cracker, 1/4 Liege, 1/4 aseel chick.

1/2 Cracker, 1/2 Wyandotte pullet.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I'm gonna get some pictures of my Red JungleFowls, well they're supposed to be JungleFowl, but are looking alot like a verity of Standard Old English Gamefowl, known as Black Breasted Red JungleFowl Old English Gamefowl.

Just want your opinions on them.


Your birds are looking nice by the way.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Here are a Cockerel, & a pullet.

 

[Appalachian homestead]

Will you also remove crossed hens? Or will you watch close enough to remove their chicks if they hatch any? I imagine if that wyandotte/ cracker was bred to a pure cracker cock, the chicks would be hard to distinguish from pure crackers. Btw, I would take a whole flock like her, she's pretty!

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Here are a Cockerel, & a pullet.
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I went out and found you a particular Cracker cockerel that I never see during the day but I see him every night in the coop when I check the layers. He hangs out far out in the blueberry fields. He's a pure Cracker and will come out with a strong junglefowl look. Like all of my Crackers, he's just a hybrid of unknown specific makeup, as the farm I got them off of in central Florida wouldn't tell me anything about them beyond calling them "junglefowl." I had always presumed they were some sort of small gamefowl until enough Hmong people insisted my birds had some degree of real junglefowl in them.

He's going to look like a RJF primarily because he's going to have the build, plumage, and low tail carriage of one. Yet his daddy his high tail carriage like yours and looks more like an old-time Spanish gamefowl:

Anything within the poultry world that is called a "red junglefowl" that isn't coming right out of the wilds of Asia or one of an extremely small handful of breeders in the US that raise them like wild pheasants in an aviary is either a RJF hybrid or one of the many bankivoid gamefowl and derivatives breeds that retained strong RJF traits but may not have had direct breeding with a pure RJF in some time.

So yes, yours look like bankivoid gamefowl. But so do mine. I wouldn't expect anything that can be raised around a barnyard to be anything near a pure RJF because in their pure state they're simply too wild and disease-prone to be raised anything like a chicken is.

Yours could be hybrids, old-school American gamefowl of the type that are often called "Hatch" or "Blueface", a line of Old English gamefowl, or even Dutch bantams.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I saw some of Indo's offspring foraging deep into the blueberries behind the cows as I was out and about.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Will you also remove crossed hens? Or will you watch close enough to remove their chicks if they hatch any? I imagine if that wyandotte/ cracker was bred to a pure cracker cock, the chicks would be hard to distinguish from pure crackers. Btw, I would take a whole flock like her, she's pretty!

It will depend on what their eggs look like. I am hoping they'll be brown and larger than pure Cracker eggs. As long as I can tell the eggs apart, I won't care how mixed up they get. I anticipate that the mixed free rangers are going to be see-sawed between the Cracker brood cock of my choice and Indo every few months so that they keep getting Cracker and Indo put back into them. All that matters for breed propagation purposes is that I be able to tell the Indo x Liege line and the Cracker x American lines from all others. Everything else can get as barnyard mixed as they want.

 

[Appalachian homestead]

Do any of your birds roost out in trees? I had a hen hatch out a clutch up in the woods and they never integrated into the flock like usual. They hang out with them some through the day, but don't go in the coop at night. Instead they roost in a holly tree, which I wouldn't mind , except I'm not sure how I'll find eggs once they start laying.

 

[MysteryChicken]

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I went out and found you a particular Cracker cockerel that I never see during the day but I see him every night in the coop when I check the layers. He hangs out far out in the blueberry fields. He's a pure Cracker and will come out with a strong junglefowl look. Like all of my Crackers, he's just a hybrid of unknown specific makeup, as the farm I got them off of in central Florida wouldn't tell me anything about them beyond calling them "junglefowl." I had always presumed they were some sort of small gamefowl until enough Hmong people insisted my birds had some degree of real junglefowl in them.

He's going to look like a RJF primarily because he's going to have the build, plumage, and low tail carriage of one. Yet his daddy his high tail carriage like yours and looks more like an old-time Spanish gamefowl:

View attachment 3213880

Anything within the poultry world that is called a "red junglefowl" that isn't coming right out of the wilds of Asia or one of an extremely small handful of breeders in the US that raise them like wild pheasants in an aviary is either a RJF hybrid or one of the many bankivoid gamefowl and derivatives breeds that retained strong RJF traits but may not have had direct breeding with a pure RJF in some time.

So yes, yours look like bankivoid gamefowl. But so do mine. I wouldn't expect anything that can be raised around a barnyard to be anything near a pure RJF because in their pure state they're simply too wild and disease-prone to be raised anything like a chicken is.

Yours could be hybrids, old-school American gamefowl of the type that are often called "Hatch" or "Blueface", a line of Old English gamefowl, or even Dutch bantams.

Very interesting indeed.

I got my chicks from Cackle. They shorted my order, so I was just wondering if they replaced my JungleFowl order with one of their Old English Gamefowls. But they may not have thanks to your post. It explains what I'm seeing.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Do any of your birds roost out in trees? I had a hen hatch out a clutch up in the woods and they never integrated into the flock like usual. They hang out with them some through the day, but don't go in the coop at night. Instead they roost in a holly tree, which I wouldn't mind , except I'm not sure how I'll find eggs once they start laying.

At times, the majority of my flock is out in the trees at night. At other times, its half and half. I have a shed I converted to a coop and I leave that coop open all day and night and let whichever chickens that wishes may come and go as they please.

If I haven't mentioned it in this thread, nail them up some next boxes about waist or chest high and put some ceramic eggs in them. They'll use the boxes.