21st centery poultry breeding

H

hedgerow pete

New member
Joined
Feb 17, 2011
Messages
40
Reaction score
0
i am about to put my hand in the pocket to buy this book, is it worth it.

i am in need of a general breeding poultry guide. i was more interested in the breeding lines and how to keep what i hope to get hold of chicken wise as pure breed stock so i wanted to know how not to inter breed and how not to add new blood from other breeds if you know what i mean.

pete
 
Havent got it but it is one I would buy, Also look out for books by David Scrivener - brilliant books i will also be buying.
 
hedgerow pete said:
i am about to put my hand in the pocket to buy this book, is it worth it.

i am in need of a general breeding poultry guide. i was more interested in the breeding lines and how to keep what i hope to get hold of chicken wise as pure breed stock so i wanted to know how not to inter breed and how not to add new blood from other breeds if you know what i mean.

pete
Click to expand...

It's a very good book, my one caveat is that it is more focussed on the genetic make up of plumage, than than general breeding information etc... very much a book for the showman, or someone wanting to have a better understanding of colour genetics.

Have a look on the the website here, lots of good articles on breeds and breeding ;)

http://poultrykeeper.com/chickens/general-chickens/
 
Hi Pete,

If it's general info, Laurence Beeken wrote 3 articles on breeding which were pretty good too: Here's the First: Making your own line of birds

I reviewed 21st Century Breeding on the site too.. in the book review section.

It's a good book, not too technical that covers some specific breeds and if your breed is covered, it is especially good.

Tim

PS if you do buy it from Amazon, please think of us, we get a few pence towards running costs ;)
There's a link here on the poultrykeeper links page of the forum Thanks!
 
what i am looking to do , in the great scheme of things is to get hold of some ixworth chickens.
and then hopfully get thier numbers up to 15 ish and then to keep the best for breedings and eating the rest. the eating bit i can do, the breeding and not producing 4 legged chickens with 3 heads i cant, every where i look everyone keeps banging on about adding this and that to the other etc. as well as sounding like rubbish a lot of them just seam to recite whats avalible in standard books,

all i want to do is to just breed pure breed chucks
 
Ahhh that's not so bad Pete. It's not too difficult:

Start off with the best you can find (Kate Beardsmore keeps Ixworth and exhibits them although I don't have her number but the Rare Breed Poultry Soc should help..) and then in the first year breed from what you have, probably a related trio. After the first year, Laurence gives lots of information on how to start a line in his article but in a nutshell if you don't breed brother - sister, you can keep on going for a long time without problems. If hatchability is bad and there has been lots of in-breeding then you will need to outcross (find another cock from somewhere else that's unrelated). Only do this as a last resort though because you don't know what genes are lurking in the bird you buy in...

The Ixworth is a rare breed and quite hard to find - so well done for choosing them. :-)17
 
I found the book facinating but I don't think it will help you to improve the "utility" of your breed. Have a look at this site
http://castlefarmeggs.co.uk/
Some great down to earth notes on breeding for utility and in general.
 
For utility, I find the old books very good too.

I had a look at that site, although there were a number of interesting things, I didn't agree with all of them. :roll:

Saying that once a chicken is ill there usually isn't anything that can be done I didn't find partiucularly good advice and then there is this comment:

"There are forums packed with people that know eveything there is to know about chicken keeping and most of it is total handed down clap trap."

Some good stuff too though and some interesting projects going on there.
 
And there are a lot of people who write 'how to' books just as pot boilers without much experience except of reading other 'how to' books. Always read the authors credentials to find out how long they have been doing whatever it is they are writing about , and also whether it's the sort of thing you would want to be doing. There is a lot of difference for instance between production for egg laying and production for 'the fancy'.
 
The biggest problem I guess is that people don't need utility pure breeds any more because of hybrids.

The next problem is trap nesting birds to measure egg production is hard work!

I used to set eggs that were laid very early in the season as these hens would normally be in lay for longer. I also sold on broodies as I didn't want them stopping producing eggs.

The chap at Castle Farm certainly knows what he's doing though and it's a great deal of work with that quantity of birds / projects on.
 
thanks people, your so right tim i have read loads of books from the library as i dont buy that many due to costs.

but they are all writen my muppets or for specific purposes like show or eggs or this and that. but none realy cover the basics very well, either to little or too much.

yes i want to keep chickens and yes i would like to do a show but to see mainly what pro's think rather than to win awards.

my biggest problem is that trying to turn from a keeper of chickens collected adhoc and killed as and when i now want to get a little more focused. culling at 18 weeks say and removing whats poor etc etc and its here in that area there is no realy guidance or books. plenty at each end,

idiots and starting chickens to idiots showing chickens, but nothing about normal people progressing with chickens

and as for clap trap books i have been right royaly stung a few months ago , i brought a book on amazon to find as so many are its a 70 year old book that has been just reprinted. its the same with a few other subject i follow, the one wine book still has the same spelling mistacks as the first version and that was 40 years ago
 
Hi Pete,

Well, I guess most of what I have learnt regarding utility breeds has been from the older books and talking to breeders. Everyone has a view and most will speak as if they really know what they are doing (usually forums websites etc) but the proof is in your own results:

1. You will need to measure and record results in a book - e.g measure egg production from hens - the same age, for example when they start laying for their first laying season. Measuring weight at a given age (but remember, different feed / weather will effect this results... this is known as heritability (genes) and environmental characteristics )

2. Use your own judgement / feel for things - let the fittest, healthiest survive and cull the rest. The best layers, the heaviest birds should survive to create the next generation...

I hope this helps.

Some old books that might be of interest to you to learn more (and can often be found on ebay or easier still with Veronica Mayhew):

Complete Poultry Keeper and Farmer - Leslie Pearce-Gervis 3rd Edition 1955
The Poultry Keepers Text Book - E.T. Brown - 1934

and a useful one for breeding / genetics:

Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries Bulletin No. 146 - Poultry Breeding, Genetics and Systems of Breeding - G. E. Mann
 
thanks tim, i am off to google and amazon them , then off to fill in the library cards to order the ones i can.

Am I the only one person in the plantet that has started to go from idiot with chickens to slightly less idiot but better quality chickens?

when you think off the massive gardening and back to the land rush we have had for the last ten years, surely there must be many more like me, pushing to further our selves and chicken flocks.

to me that seams like a great spot to market a new style of book, so we are not eggs nor layers so should i change my name to hedgerow "pullet" pete?

we could call the book "the pullets guide to keeping humans"!!!!!
 
Ho almost forgot to ask,

i have an open chicken pen for night time kips with six laying boxes,

how do i go about egg collecting from individual chucks?
i was thinking small pen in the big pen to keep the girls visable to each other and seperate each one for a weeks collecting?

how does everyone else do it and does there exsist a thread with ideas i could go to and read
 
This is where it gets difficult. Breeders would trap nest (a door closes on the nest box when a hen goes in) and then release the hens at regular times during the day and record their ring number and eggs laid. The best hens would be kept for breeding.

The way I have done it is used layers that lay very early and very late in the season as they generally lay the same length as the rest of the hens but lay a few more eggs.
 
thanks, the main problem is i go to work at 5 am and dont get back till 7 pm so i think a small run with nest box is safer that way she can streach her legs and she the other girles for a natter whilst she awaits my return, rather than being in a box all day.

the main issue this week is that one of my 17 week ixworths has decided to start to crow rather than cluck, oops
 
Ahh yes, the downside of hatching... in the long run, you get half boys and half girls...

Boys for the table, girls for the eggs to start with?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top