Oh my, here comes a book sort of like my very much missed dear friend Bob. I hope no one on this thread ever thinks that I'm trying to fill his shoes because I don't think any of us could ever do that.
As for the different breeds, first off I think most on this thread has either gotten birds from Matt, Ron or Gary. Many times Bob has told us where his birds went to when he got rid of his original Mohawks. Brian Simmons. Greg Chamness and Andre St. Romaine. Matt got birds from Brian and Greg and crossed some and got his half and half's as some call them. They are still the Reese birds. Their was some talk that the St Romaine birds were crossed with a RC before going to Ricky Bates who was the person that had the birds that Ron now has. Through much reading up on this, I honestly believe that Ricky got his birds before the cross was made. Besides this, the cross was with a RC and to my knowledge there has never been a RC pop up so I do not believe that these birds were crossed with any other line. I believe that all the birds from any of these families are 100% the old Reese (Mohawk as Bob called them) lines.
I had these birds from Greg, they were very very slow to mature, mine were a little flighty for quite a while. I still have 1 cock bird and 3 hens and they are calmed down now but not the same quality bird that I received from Matt. The birds from Matt are really nice, good body structure, beautiful color, nice wide backs in most of the cockerels, wonderful dispositions, good leg color as for laying, I can't say, they haven't reached that age yet.
Before going any further I will again say that in my own personal opinion, whatever others call them, these are all the Old Reese line of the RIR's.. To get a true debate on this, you would have to get Brian Simmons, Greg Chamness and someone from the St Romaine family. lol And a mediator.
Now to the Nelson, The Nelson line of reds are quicker to mature, most reach POL about 6 months (depending on time of year), these birds are truly like puppies, I can sit in the doorway of the coop and these hens will get right up on my leg. lol They hens are really nice size, long bodies nice feather quality just a good all around bird.
The Underwood's. I am really pleased with my Underwood birds. I have three different groups of these. I have a SC family and a RC family from eggs acquired from Jim Heinz through Trish Dusil directly through Gary. I've heard so many say that the RC's are a smaller structure bird then the SC. Mine are just the opposite. It seems that my RC's are a little larger. These have really nice structure, nice disposition, decent layers (mine started just 2 days after 6 months old), color is great, nice brick shape on both male and female.
My other family is directly from Gary. I'll just say very nice birds. I'm very pleased with them.
I've had 3 other lines of the RIR's but really wasn't satisfied with them for different reasons. Some needed more work then I wanted to put the time into, some I just did not like the looks of the finished bird.
Ending up I will say that I don't think you will find a mean roo in any of these old lines, (if you bring them up right), There are differences in leg color on some, tail set on some, laying ability, quicker maturity and with this, they are almost all different.
The main thing that I will say to the folks that haven't been into this long, DO NOT CROSS THE LINES, If you are an old timer at this and knows what to look for then you do what you want and work to get a certain fault out. You know what it takes. The new folks will just cause a big problem and end up getting disgusted and give up. lol
Gosh, I hope I haven't bored you all to death. ha,ha
Jim
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