Pumpkin Hulsey Color Genetics?

[RobG7aChattTN]

I’ve always been fascinated by Pumpkin birds and I’ve avoided them because I just don’t understand the genetics but I was walking around Miami right before I headed back to Tennessee and saw a bunch of Pumpkin gamefowl cockerels that someone had dumped out. I went to the grocery store and bought a little bag of barley for $1.50 and went back and dumped it on the ground. I grabbed one cockerel and the others ran off but here’s a picture of the oldest one (not the one I grabbed) so I’ll put the one I got in quarantine and at some point I’ll put a pullet with him.

I have some birds with what I think is an abnormal color of intense red and I’ll be curious to see what Pumpkin does to it:

 

[Tendons]

You'll have a hard time figuring out the genes in the color probably friend. Pumpkin hulseys were originally red gamefowl called "Hulseys" and were crossed with a "pumpkin rooster" (So im guessing from unknown heritage)... I know where a history on them is for anyone who wants to see it. Gamefowl are just a lot of crosses, and then after they leave the original owners hands they are bred to other things coming from crosses to increase whatever that owner was looking for.. Like every breed, just crosses that come to look a certain way.. So who knows what is hidden in there.

I raised Haulsey Pumpkin's for yrs And I'm wanting to get back into raising them again
Lol I was resently talked down to and was told that Haulsey Pumpkin's were Mutts of the gamebirds
He got quite when I asked him to present a pettigree on his azeals
They are all crossbred mutts Some are just better than others

 

[Chickenosauurs_RexNo54]

Greenfire farms had Pumpkin Hulseys? I know they have Ginger Oxford games, but Pumpkin Hulseys? What happened to them?

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

Greenfire farms had Pumpkin Hulseys? I know they have Ginger Oxford games, but Pumpkin Hulseys? What happened to them?

It’s pretty easy to figure out what and why Greenfire sells a particular breed. They will sell them if they can make money on them. They have a history of selling poor quality examples or certain breeds and some have suggested that they sell birds that aren’t really the breeds they purport to be. It’s amazing to me that they have spent the huge amount of money to import poor examples of a breed but it makes sense that they may have pretended to import a breed that was really a cobbled together reproduction of a breed. Their first 3 Cream Legbar imports didn’t have the cream gene and were poor quality examples from eggs they found on eBay in Europe. Their Ketawa that they say they imported from Europe that they say originated in Indonesia barely laugh unlike the good Indonesian birds. They say their imported their Indio Gigante from Europe but unlike Indonesia you actually can import directly from Brazil where they breed originated and their Indio Gigante don’t look like the good Brazilian birds and aren’t as large (the main point of the breed). There might be good birds that you can get from Greenfire but “buyer beware” and they certainly sell for top dollar.

 

[Chickenosauurs_RexNo54]

It’s pretty easy to figure out what and why Greenfire sells a particular breed. They will sell them if they can make money on them. They have a history of selling poor quality examples or certain breeds and some have suggested that they sell birds that aren’t really the breeds they purport to be. It’s amazing to me that they have spent the huge amount of money to import poor examples of a breed but it makes sense that they may have pretended to import a breed that was really a cobbled together reproduction of a breed. Their first 3 Cream Legbar imports didn’t have the cream gene and were poor quality examples from eggs they found on eBay in Europe. Their Ketawa that they say they imported from Europe that they say originated in Indonesia barely laugh unlike the good Indonesian birds. They say their imported their Indio Gigante from Europe but unlike Indonesia you actually can import directly from Brazil where they breed originated and their Indio Gigante don’t look like the good Brazilian birds and aren’t as large (the main point of the breed). There might be good birds that you can get from Greenfire but “buyer beware” and they certainly sell for top dollar.

Oh, I didn't know this. Is this true?

 

[Mossy Dell]

I have two strains of Sid Dodd-Glenn Bosely Morgan whitehackles. The main family, because I got it first and in greater numbers, in the past produced many pumpkin (yellow birchen). AND even lighter cocks that sported near-yellow hackles. Mr. Bosley, who perpetuated them for 30 years after getting them from Dodd, called those Greek Fires. Their standardized name seems to be Canary birchen. As for hens, the strain throws both wheaten, which Mr. Bosley and probably Mr. Dodd preferred, and dark to light partridge.

The man I got them from, however, dislikes wheaten hens for some reason and has only bred to partridge hens for decades. They still throw wheaten, which I prefer, but the patridges have grown on me. Anyway, he got no birchens for decades. His males are orange to medium red and dark red. But a few years ago he got a stunning Greek Fire.

He recently sent me a sister of his Greek Fire, which he lost to a varmint. Although I have blended the two strains, I am not doing so in that hen's line because I'd love to get a Greek Fire! I am not sure the second strain still produces them, though it should. But I get the impression the first perpetuator liked standard red-lemonhackled males and maybe didn't breed the pumpkins. Not sure about the newer owner I've dealt with.

Attached: photo of Greek Fire/Canary birchen; his sire; a daughter of the Greek Fire; and a pumpkin stag from the second strain.

 

[Mossy Dell]

Incidentally, Mr. Bosley bred in an unusual way for a cocker, from what he told me. Wish I'd been able to get fowl from him before he passed. He made three families of these Morgans: a dark red, a regular, and a light. Apparently the dark and the light came out of the regular.

When he got a light (pumpkin? Not sure what light meant other than apparently lots of white, but likely both that and pumpkin) out of the dark family, say, he'd use it in the light family. He said this kept him from having to use outside blood. Of course this kept all colors popping out everywhere.

But his goal was not to standardize color or breed for color but to keep the strain strong. It's kind of like clan mating. Except there wasn't an automatic movement of males. He'd use an outstanding male where his color fit, and he had lots of choice.

I have done something similar, setting up Red, White, Blue, Green, Orange, and Yellow lines. Red and White are dark reds. Blue and Green are medium. Orange and Yellow are pumpkin. The lines are based on particular hens. I band birds on the right leg with their clan/hen color. Left legs are the sire's color. Of course they are toe punched and wing banded too. But the legbands let me know a lot at a glance. First I breed each line within itself as long as possible. That is, without intense inbreeding. But half brother-sister, uncle-niece, cousins. Am only about five years into this so have really just begun.

Attached is a picture of one of Mr. Bosely's Morgans. I'm guessing this was a "regular" bird, which was his favorite. He wrote me, "My favorite is a medium red cock with black or mottled breast showing white wing butts, white in tail and some white showing in hackles." The other picture, from a man who won't sell any, looks to me more like Mr. Bosley's description of a medium. But i guess the orange shade is the same and the second bird here is just showing the white through his hackles.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

I never did update this but I had that little pumpkin cockerel in a quarantine cage with a pullet and came out one day to find it dead. Looked as if he just beat himself to death agains the wire and although the cage was elevated way off of the ground his toes had been eaten off where they poked out the bottom. Well…I keep that quarantine cage out in the woods away from my other birds and had a problem around that time with coyotes. I’m assuming a coyote standing on its hind legs was tall enough to reach those toes but if so it would have been a huge coyote. Otherwise it would have maybe been a raccoon that was able to climb up despite the slick metal sheating that I used to cover the 2x4 legs that keep it 5’ off of the ground. Anyhow, potential experiment over…at least for now.

 

[DublD]

I’ve always been fascinated by Pumpkin birds and I’ve avoided them because I just don’t understand the genetics but I was walking around Miami right before I headed back to Tennessee and saw a bunch of Pumpkin gamefowl cockerels that someone had dumped out. I went to the grocery store and bought a little bag of barley for $1.50 and went back and dumped it on the ground. I grabbed one cockerel and the others ran off but here’s a picture of the oldest one (not the one I grabbed) so I’ll put the one I got in quarantine and at some point I’ll put a pullet with him. View attachment 3289444
I have some birds with what I think is an abnormal color of intense red and I’ll be curious to see what Pumpkin does to it:
View attachment 3289446

I'm late as can be here but I believe pumpkin breeds the same way black blue splash does. When I breed a pumpkin to a pumpkin I'll get some with no pumpkin, some pumpkin and some gold colored. When I breed the golds together I get 100% gold offspring

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

I'm late as can be here but I believe pumpkin breeds the same way black blue splash does. When I breed a pumpkin to a pumpkin I'll get some with no pumpkin, some pumpkin and some gold colored. When I breed the golds together I get 100% gold offspring

I think that’s true but the only Pumpkin I had I found dead in the cage with his toes eaten off. He was in a quarantine cage and I think some predator got him freaked out enough to bang himself against the cage until he was dead or injured and whatever it was ate his toes off where they poked through the mesh of the floor of that cage.