Crossbreeding dual purpose breeds for sustainable flock

[CNJ]

I want to breed Bresse to several dual purpose breeds and select the ones that do best. It's not a precise set of standards yet. This is definitely one of the things I'd appreciate feedback on.

Breese chickens cross well with Cornish X. I am in the process of phasing out my pure Breese line and replacing it with this cross. I kept 2 roosters, one of them has yellow legs and the other one has white legs. I processed 2 other roosters at 3 1/2 months and they blew away my Breese. They were 7 and 8 pounds and all the hens are husky and were table ready at 3 months. However, I did not process any hens yet, I am going to use them as parent stock. They just started laying, but I am not ready to hatch any eggs. I am going with brother to sister. The majority of the hens have different color legs from the roosters, most of them have green and blue legs, so it should be okay. The 2 roosters I kept for breeding were around 9 and 10 lbs at 4 months. Also all of them can roost on a 2 feet perch and don't have obesity problems.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Breese chickens cross well with Cornish X. I am in the process of phasing out my pure Breese line and replacing it with this cross. I kept 2 roosters, one of them has yellow legs and the other one has white legs. I processed 2 other roosters at 3 1/2 months and they blew away my Breese. They were 7 and 8 pounds and all the hens are husky and were table ready at 3 months. However, I did not process any hens yet, I am going to use them as parent stock. They just started laying, but I am not ready to hatch any eggs. I am going with brother to sister. The majority of the hens have different color legs from the roosters, most of them have green and blue legs, so it should be okay. The 2 roosters I kept for breeding were around 9 and 10 lbs at 4 months. Also all of them can roost on a 2 feet perch and don't have obesity problems.

I've been following your thread on them. Very interesting.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

The cage birds sold. It was a really sweet older couple. The lady was just in love with the color of the partridge rock and practically cooed to it the whole time haha. And the husband seemed to just be happy to make his wife happy. They were so cute. And the ewe I've been watching for two weeks decided to lamb right before they got here so they were aww-ing the lambs too.


I managed to snatch up the two hens that were getting over bred. So they were moved to the cages. I worked on the tractor pen, it's sooo heavy but it'll work for a while. It needs wheels or something put on it but it is what it is for now.
Even the little bit I used it last year, they would get out the moment you lift the roof to do anything. I had some "garden fence", short, plastic coated, probably 2x4 spacing. I nailed it down on the far side, the hinge side that isn't as accessible. Then I laid down a second piece on the outer side, where I'll be standing to access the feed/water/nest/chickens. That piece is nailed down just partly so that it can easily be pushed up to get inside with minimal open space for chickens to try to escape. We'll see how it goes but it's usable now and wasn't at all before.
I'm thinking of putting the brahmas in it. They group together and are submissive to the rest of the chickens. So I think they will do fine in there.

I'm also thinking it will be easier to track eggs using food coloring method. This would also let me do it faster because I can do the colors for both groups, pen and chickshaw. Of course I don't have any food coloring... so that will have to wait until at least the weekend when I can pick some up.
I reassessed the list of breeds and laying rate. I know they aren't necessarily going to lay that but it's what I'm going from. I have been busy with other things so hadn't been keeping tally of eggs all along.
Brahma, 2-4 eggs per week. ×7 brahmas is 14-28 eggs per week from them.
FR, 3-5. ×10 is 30-50 eggs per week.
NH 4-5. ×1
White, guessing 4-5. ×1
Total 38-60/wk from this group.


I also thought when I'm going to collect hatching eggs I can do the food coloring again to separate the FR eggs from the NH and the white.
And for the brahmas if I want to hatch from them I could color the laced hens. Then I could separate their eggs for hatching to see what they pop out. I'm hoping I get some broodies. I'd like to have some and I could cull them down to just ones that go broody. I could use the pen for broodies and chicks would be great.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

I've got alot going on this year and since the FR hens are doing fine I'm going to work with them and my two roos for now. If I can later in the summer maybe I'll get the NH from freedom ranger hatchery.

The FR cross is going to be focus. I need to get hands on each of them and decide down to the best couple. Tracking egg laying will be very helpful, a meaty bird that has terrible lay rate isn't as sustainable to me.
1) which are laying better
2) long keel bone
3) heart girth
4) breast meat
5) weight
6) comb size (some are quite small and a couple are big and partly flop over)

If I par it down to maybe 2 or 3 best then I can prioritize their eggs into the incubator, any others would be only for eating/selling. I can select offspring from these better hens. The future breeding can be easier to track and measure if I know the pedigree of what I'm working with. I'll be able to see if a certain hens offspring are always doing better/worse.
The first thing I'd like to do with the next generation is keep the best roo from each hen. Breed him to his sisters, daughters of the same hen. I should have genetics show up of whatever is hiding in the range of red to buff of the FR.

I'm planning to make a big order from strombergs, which seems the best place online to get wing bands (and plier tool). Aluminum, blue, red, green, yellow. I can make each hen a color and band her offspring accordingly.

...Playing with the calculator again (dun-dun-dunnn)...
Starting with crele roo (homozygous everything) × red hen (homozygous everything) the offspring is barred red.

Adjusting the hen side to Co/co, Db/db, Mh/mh... the offspring would be barred: red, buff, red inc Columbian, buff inc Columbian, red duckwing, and gold duckwing.
Going Mh/Mh is the same just without gold duckwing.
Going Db/Db takes away duckwing entirely.
Going co/co takes away self red and self buff, they'd only be inc Columbian. But duckwing is possible again.
Even if I get all red barred the first generation then breeding back to the Bielefelder I'll get red and gold duckwing the next generation. So I can start serious work into the auto sexing at least the third generation.

I'm not sure how I'm going to work out between the NH roo and the Bielefelder roo. I think the NH was better growing.
I'm going to breed to both for now. Even alternating both roos through I'll know all barred chicks are Bielefelder sired. And since I think he is homozygous for barring because of his clean barring, then any not barred chicks are sired by the NH roo.
Definitely going to be interesting to see side by side if there's a notice difference between them in growth. The crele auto sexing is definitely what I want going forward. I'll just have to select for growth.

 

[NatJ]

tractor pen...I'm thinking of putting the brahmas in it....
..track eggs using food coloring method....

To test at first, you might put food coloring on every hen in the pen, even if you need to put the same color on several hens to do them all.

That way, if every egg has color when it is laid, you will know it is working. And you can watch to see how many days before it wears off. But if you get any eggs with no color, you will know to change something.

If you leave a few hens unmarked, you might assume that any uncolored eggs come from them, which might not be correct.

(Once you know it works, and have figured out how often to reapply, then of course you can put coloring on just some hens if that fits your plan better. I'm just making a suggestion for when you are first trying it.)

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

To test at first, you might put food coloring on every hen in the pen, even if you need to put the same color on several hens to do them all.

That way, if every egg has color when it is laid, you will know it is working. And you can watch to see how many days before it wears off. But if you get any eggs with no color, you will know to change something.

If you leave a few hens unmarked, you might assume that any uncolored eggs come from them, which might not be correct.

(Once you know it works, and have figured out how often to reapply, then of course you can put coloring on just some hens if that fits your plan better. I'm just making a suggestion for when you are first trying it.)

Thanks I wouldn't have thought of that!

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

It's lockdown day! I set them at 3pm so I'm a bit late but oh well. When it's fully dark I'm going to candle them and rearrange them. Then it's hands off and fingers crossed!

I got the brahmas in the tractor pen the other day, don't think I said that already. Today I got 6 eggs from the 7 of them in there! I'm starting to keep track again. I need to get a rag for the egg basket to separate the eggs.

In the chickshaw is 8 FR hens, 1 NH, 1 white. Today got 6 eggs from them, one real small egg.

I have one FR hen in a cage because her eggs have been oblong or kinda funky shelled so I'm monitoring that. She may get culled if it's continuing. She gave an egg yesterday and today.

I have another FR hen in a cage because yesterday I was out and there was half dried egg yolk all over her head! Today she laid an egg and it was fine and intact there in the cage. And no egg mess out in the chickshaw. So I'll be monitoring if the egg mess starts again or if it is for sure her. I don't understand why she is fine in the cage though?
Who's to know the mind of hen? ( )

Total 14 eggs from 19 hens.

 

[Molpet]

rag for the egg basket to separate the eggs.

5 gallon bucket with 2 egg cartons

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

I ordered the thermostat. Should be here Friday.
https://incubatorwarehouse.com/plug-n-play-digital-thermostat.html

Went ahead and ordered stuff from strombergs too that I've had in a list.
Wing bands (blue, red, green, yellow, aluminum). They are stamped 1-100. I got two packs of each color.
Wing band pliers. They look like you can pinch them closed but to be sure went ahead and got them.
5 plastic egg trays. Each hold 30 jumbo eggs. I can use these to collect hatching eggs. And they'll be easy to turn the trays during collection. I'm also planning to build the cabinet incubator around them so I can just put the trays right in.
....it is more than I planned on ordering but free shipping over $100 so I just rounded it up the total was 80-something and almost 20 in shipping, just made sense.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Up to 8 in the brooder and 2 in the incubator. I'm going to go through and mark them after they are all hatched and fluffed.

But.. there is blonde chicks and blonde with light chipmunk stripes. I'm wondering if the stripe ones may be Ewh/e+? Meaning they will be barred and sired by the Bielefelder?
I'm still working on getting the chick down colors and genetics straight in my head.