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Lavender by design...

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Mike Gilbert:
To the best of my knowledge Wayne never outcrossed to any breed, and we used to consult with each other on a regular basis.    Wayne was the one who created large fowl wheatens and blue-wheatens by breeding them up from bantams.  He just raised thousands and selected for what he wanted, which was size since he was selling them for meat, primarily to the Asian community in the Milwaukee area.
But bigger is not necessarily better.    They should be standard weights as listed in the A.P.A. Standard of Perfection.

Guest:
Thanks for inviting me John.
I\'m very pleased to be a part of these projects and the club.

Michael Muenks and I have been in contact. He\'s making arrangements for me to receive some black gold bantam and large fowl eggs, and lavender F2 eggs. Maybe I\'ll run two separate pens for the next two years and see how the OE-Orp cross line stacks up against the line of F2 lavs that I\'ll be mating with Paul\'s Black LF Ameraucanas. I really wasn\'t anticipating that anyone would have lavender ameraucana crosses that they could share, so I was very excited when Michael presented me with the offer.

I\'ve made test bantam-large fowl crosses in the past, switching which was the bantam male and female side and the results can be dramatically different. Bantam females do typically produce larger F1 males, with the F1 females being about or barely larger than their mothers. Even though there can be some sex-linked dwarfism involved with using bantam males, I prefer starting with them because of the larger F1 females that are produced. I also have found that the F2 males produced in this way are larger than their counter parts. Besides, the size of the eggs produced in the end can be greatly affected depending on lineage. All my F1 and F2 Spanish-Silkie hens produce small eggs that more closely resemble their Silkie cousins, regardless of the fact that the F2 hens are more than twice the size of a Silkie. Even though I lost several silkie males while trying to achieve the opposite cross, silkie over spanish, the offspring that finally resulted surpassed their counterparts greatly. Egg size was split between silkies and spanish in the F1s and nearly identical in the F2s. So I tend to prefer the F1 generation to be made from a bantam male to a large fowl female when I\'m working the breeding to make large fowl.

I\'m glad I decided to discuss this before I began, you\'ve both given me some sound information and ideas. Perhaps it would be best if I worked on the lavenders using your strategy as well as mine... sort of like an insurance policy, lol. Besides, if all goes well with both lines I\'ll have vastly separate genepools to work with and that will benefit everyone.

BTW, after skimming through some of the past postings on the subject (very easy using the \'search\' function btw) of creating new varieties one of Michael\'s replies got me to thinking of other varieties that can be gleaned from the lavenders and the black golds. So....... I bought some Speckled Sussex chicks. White skin, bay eyes and horn beak. I\'ll have every gene I need to make Millie fleur, porceilens/pearls, LACED in all colors and mottled. From 2 crosses I should be able to get fair specimens for each variety. I\'ll keep everyone posted on my progress as time goes on.

Regards,
Dan

John:

--- Quote ---I tend to prefer the F1 generation to be made from a bantam male to a large fowl female when I\'m working the breeding to make large fowl.
--- End quote ---

I also prefer it, but as Mike points out fertility is generally better with a LF male over bantam females, unless you use artificial insemination.  Last year I rotated two lavender bantam cockerels over a LF hen.  I trimmed around the vents on all the breeders.  I only ended up with one chick after about ten weeks of breeding.  

--- Quote ---Perhaps it would be best if I worked on the lavenders using your strategy as well as mine... sort of like an insurance policy, lol. Besides, if all goes well with both lines I\'ll have vastly separate genepools to work with and that will benefit everyone.
--- End quote ---

That sounds like the way to go.

--- Quote ---They should be standard weights as listed in the A.P.A. Standard of Perfection.
--- End quote ---

I think we need to make improvements in this area.  It is guess work to look at birds in a show and know if they meet the standard weights.  I do think it is easy to see that generally the LF silvers and sometimes the wheatens and whites are smaller than the blacks and blues.  If they are underweight they need to be bred bigger and in that case it would be better.
I also am trying to breed some varieties of bantams smaller.  Not smaller than the standard, but smaller than what they are.  I haven\'t put the bantams on a scale, but if the wheatens and whites are where they should be some of the buffs and blacks are too big.

Guest:
John,
I had multiple problems breeding bantams to large fowl but much of it had to do with the individual and breed temperments. Sumatra hens ruthlessly killed every bantam male I introduced so I had no choice but to mate sumatra males over bantam females. The gigantic (by comparison) Spanish bred the bantam silkie hens with no trouble, the bantam males on the other hand had trouble catching the large fowl hens and treading them. I fixed the latter issue simply by close confinement, I put the pairs in 18\" x 18\" rabbit cages. Conversly, my Japanese males can tread any size hen regardless of where they are, lol. As with most things, situations and conditions dictate how every thing plays out.

Mike,
Please accept my apologies for not responding to the point you made. It wasn\'t intentional. I do agree with you, and with John, about weights being in compliance with the standards. John\'s point about not knowing just by looking is a sore subject in some circles, equally for good & bad reasons. I\'m willing to bet cash money that nobody has seen a scale at a show in over 10 years. I\'ve heard stories of exhibitors getting highly aggitated and leaving shows at the mear threat of a scale being pulled out of moth balls. My personal feeling on the matter.......... use scales. Proper feathering also comes in to play when considering weight and the trend I\'ve noticed over the last several years is to make birds fluffier or have looser feathering. A cochin feathered leghorn would look like an 8 pound giant, lol.

That being said, actual weights within my own flocks isn\'t directly in my focus at this point. What I\'m looking at for the time being is general confirmation, correctness of colorations and patterns and basic production characteristics. In my mind\'s eye, weight is lumped in with many of the other \"fine tuning\" points that I\'ll be taking in to consideration after I\'ve gotten the macro-traits locked in. Selecting for a slightly over sized flock is, IMHO, far simpler to correct than having them be too small.

I would like to point out that it is a good idea in any flock to keep specimens that cover a slight range. Aside from keeping a \'healthy level\' of genetic variation within a flock, having a few birds that are slightly over-size, a few under-size and the median of the flock just right, the breeder will have the necessary genes around to fix minor variations later on. In other words, instead of having to go out and find a smaller or larger male to fix a size issue within my flock, I would have related birds already.

Dan

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