The Moonshiner's Leghorns

[The Moonshiner]

Did you watch Tiger King? lol

Behold...Don't try this at home kids!



I laughed. Out loud. In the office.

No I have not seen a single episode of Tiger King. I did hear it discussed on the radio.
I thought your description was way off but IDK Overo said she could totally see it.

 

[ColtHandorf]

I thought your description was way off

Well moonshine is flammable, right? We could just say you were in the distillery...

 

[The Moonshiner]

It's much less noticeable, but when I compare my Isabella hens to my Brown hens, I can definitely tell that the lav girls have fray, but there's no way to tell if they carry wing patch. I personally do not believe they are always necessarily linked.

It absolutely IS possible to breed out, but I guess I'm one of those that believe it will require test breeding. Are you saying you don't feel that's true? Have you managed to eliminate wing patch, fray, or both? I am breeding my isabellas to light and dark browns from Bud Blankenship this year. I have an Isabella cock out there that I've kept around, undecided as to whether or not to breed him. I know his sisters that I'm breeding to brown cocks carry the same genes he does, but it's really hard throwing such an ugly bird in there with those beautiful brown pullets!

What I guess I could do is breed him to the brown pullets, and then breed the split offspring from the two pens together (Is. cock over br. hens x br. cock over is. hens) to get my lavenders, then go back to the good brown stock for more splits. There actually ARE things I like about the Isabella line I have! I think they have lovely toplines and they lay very large (albeit tinted) eggs—actually much larger than the browns. They are large birds, too, bigger than the standardbred browns which is not necessarily good. They lack width. I haven't nailed strong yellow legs yet, either, but they aren't stark white so that's something.

I'm aiming for at least three crosses back to Bud's browns and then I'll be separating the Isabella's completely, breeding lav to lav only, and working on eliminating feather quality defects. After that, I'll be able to refocus on type and pattern. Pattern problems aren't as visible in Is females as browns, but there's still things like bricking, mossyness, and shafting to worry about eventually. I'd like to have something of decent quality to show within 2-3 years, even if only females. Is anyone showing Isabellas to represent the variety anywhere? I'd love to talk.

We seem to have a lot of different views that I won't get into.
Yes I have eliminated the shredder/fray/wing patch gene.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Actually @Overo Mare has two allies now, Moony. I loveeeeee my bantam Cochins and wish I had gotten them sooner.

Only thing is my roo sounds like a dang squeaky toy and he’s adjusted his crow to be louder to match my standards so he screams in a squeaky voice LOL

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I like cochins, especially the huge standard gals, but these leghorns are getting rather addictive. Just ordered 3 red gals, 3 silver gals and 2 rose combed brown gals (supposed to be straight run but they selected the wrong, suppose it's better than accidentally having male chosen for something else). Adding 6 Isabellas hopefully tomorrow, so I'll jist have to hope i can find someone getting rid of a brown male or I'll have to keep the best Isabella male to work on splits.

Right? Or is there a certain way splits work best?

 

[cmom]

Looks like somewhere between 1 cock to 5-7 hens. Not completely ridiculous numbers.

Many average one male to around 10 females max.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

On the recommendation that a new thread might be appealing for a few reasons, behold—the new Standardbred Leghorn Thread.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

I like cochins, especially the huge standard gals, but these leghorns are getting rather addictive. Just ordered 3 red gals, 3 silver gals and 2 rose combed brown gals (supposed to be straight run but they selected the wrong, suppose it's better than accidentally having male chosen for something else). Adding 6 Isabellas hopefully tomorrow, so I'll jist have to hope i can find someone getting rid of a brown male or I'll have to keep the best Isabella male to work on splits.

Right? Or is there a certain way splits work best?

You're going to have a hard time getting a decent rose comb *and* lavender at the same time, I think, but just color-wise... yeah, an Isabella male over brown females works just as well as the other way around. I think it's preferable because you can really see what feather faults your working with because they're all on full display in the males.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

You're going to have a hard time getting a decent rose comb *and* lavender at the same time, I think, but just color-wise... yeah, an Isabella male over brown females works just as well as the other way around. I think it's preferable because you can really see what feather faults your working with because they're all on full display in the males.

I don't care about the combs really, compared to other things. My main reason for wanting a rose combed male is because I'm sick of losing combs in the winter.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

I don't care about the combs really, compared to other things. My main reason for wanting a rose combed male is because I'm sick of losing combs in the winter.

Have you considered dubbing?