Author Topic: Would anyone be interested in these? (Read 9138 times)

PIGBOY · « **on:** February 15, 2014, 08:14:33 pm »

Hi all, I'm a young enthusiastic smallholder and I am starting to branch out and try and grow my own mini enterprise haha! My aim is to produce around 4 unique hybrid hens that will inherit the attributes of the parents but to a more efficent degree, these are the breeds I hope to cross to produce these hybrids as such;

Black Copper Maran x Cream Legbar. From this I hope to improve the size of both hen and egg, this is because ,Cream Legbars, in my opinion are quite light framed birds and lay rather small eggs. So by crossing them with the Copper Maran i feel these points may be improved and a more stockier layer of strong eggs will be produced as well as cockerels acceptable for the freezer. I also hope the eggs to be green that the offspring lay but it's not compulsory.

Welsummer x Light Sussex; This cross would produce the typical sex linked chicks and a good layer. With the right parents the cockerels produced will be okay for the freezer.

Cream Legbar x Brown Leghorn; This cross would be done in the hope that the offspring would lay blue eggs of the Legbar with the amount of the leghorn.

Cuckoo Maran x Indian Game; The fourth and final cross, I have already made progress in this breeding and have two lovely pullets that confirm it was a successful cross. The reason I did this cross was to improve the egg laying capabilities of the IG and the meatiness of the CM. I can say the the offspring were fantastic, the males weighed 8ib at dead weight and the females lay 5/6 dark brown eggs a weeks. And this spring i hope to see if they go broody and can carry out the duty successfully.

Hatching eggs or young stock won't be ready till next year but I was wondering would anyone be interested in purchasing some of my stock? Or and opinions or advice would be greatly received!
Many thanks,
Pig boy

shygirl · « **Reply #1 on:** February 15, 2014, 09:00:05 pm »

have you just posted a top secret breeding plan online for everyone else to steal??
if i was you i would develop a good hybrid and give it a unique name (trademark it maybe?) and then promote and sell them once they are proven - but dont tell anyone the exact breeding or you will get copycats.
good luck, great to see enthusiasm.

darkbrowneggs · « **Reply #2 on:** February 15, 2014, 09:03:12 pm »

I am travelling so won't be in the market for buying birds from you but if you are interested I can give you maybe some pointers which might help

Firstly there is a strong market for birds which will produce good quantities of nicely coloured brown eggs, so if your copper black are good layers it may well be worthwhile producing some of these for sale

The copper black x cream legbar will work well as long as your CL is carrying two blue egg genes which many of the birds do not, especially those sold as Cream Legbars, which are actually a modern hybrid cross type such as those sold under the name of Cotswold Legbars. If they carry only one copy of the gene you may find you get tinted egg layers rather than green egg layers

On the Cream Legbar x Brown Leghorn it will be very difficult to find a strain of Brown Leghorn which has been bred for egg laying rather than showing, this breeder has always concentrated on utility rather that show so he might be a good source assuming you don't have good stock already. But you may be better crossing onto a white egg laying hybrid such as those commonly sold as White Star, which is a commercially produced White Leghorn.

When selling I found folk were keener to buy birds which didnt go broody as they can be such poor egg producers but you will have to see how that works out.

Good luck with it all anyway - I loved my chickens.

Check out my sites which should be still running www.darkbrowneggs.info and www.blue-eggs.co.uk

PIGBOY · « **Reply #3 on:** February 15, 2014, 09:29:08 pm »

Thanks shygirl, that's a brilliant idea!

And thanks a lot darkbrowneggs! That's helped me a lot, concerning the leghorns are there any colours that have not just been bred with showing in mind?

darkbrowneggs · « **Reply #4 on:** February 15, 2014, 09:58:34 pm »

You will find with many of the 'traditional' breeds that those bothering to breed birds true to type and standard are doing so to win at the shows, so they will pay very little attention to the egg producing capacity.

The link I gave is one who does take utility qualities seriously so his Brown Leghorns may be worth trying forgot the link before but here it is

http://www.chalkhillpoultry.co.uk/price_list.html

He sells hatching eggs and stock
eggs £1.50
chicks £6 as hatched
POL £20
growers poa

But you would be better to go for a commercial White Leghorn which I have been told are brilliant layers basically an egg a day per bird and very large eggs for the size of the bird so economical to produce. The larger birds do eat so much and with today's feed prices it is something to take seriously.

They are usually marketed retail as White Star, but Cyril Bason - whose stock was very good many years ago, but I havent bought anything for about 30 years so can't say now, but he offers Bason White, which are obviously bought in and reared on commercial White Leghorns for £9 each pol

http://www.cyril-bason.co.uk/#/laying-pullets/4542116677

Hope this helps

Mammyshaz · « **Reply #5 on:** February 15, 2014, 10:58:21 pm »

Great ideas

Thought I'd let you know my thoughts as somebody who cannot breed ( not permitted cockerels ) but tries to buy in to have good stock.
First thought is I want to know stock I buy is guaranteed as good layer. I think that would take some time ( a few years) to perfect. Second that the male chicks are going to grow worthy of a roast, again think this would take time to perfect. The ideas sound reasonable as long as you have the proof behind the enterprise

Having a blue egg layer that is heavier than my flighty legbars would be great for my egg boxes so will watch your results

Castle Farm · « **Reply #6 on:** February 16, 2014, 09:39:44 am »

Firstly well done for looking to 'improve' some of the utility factors of the breeds you mentioned.
The only downside to your idea is the production costs. What money are you going to get from a cross bred (first cross) If you take that line farther your into choppy waters and breeding mongrels. Around 75% will be of poorer quality,(depending on original stock).
The males from the first cross and any other cross involved will be almost worthless and you still have to feed them.
A far better idea would be to breed some quality pure breeds that were bred originally for eggs or meat before the UK loses all the breeds to backyarders and exhibition breeders.

DBE had the idea quality birds and quality eggs, shame she gave it up after all the work she put in.

hughesy · « **Reply #7 on:** February 16, 2014, 10:19:31 am »

We used to keep three or four different pure breeds and the work and hassle involved with breeding them is immense. Just all the separate pens and housing is a nightmare. This year we've cut back to just one breed which I'm going to improve a bit if I can. I'm not into the showing scene at all and my plan is to develop a decent flock of pure bred layers. The advice given about starting off with good quality birds is very good because you need all the help you can get.

Victorian Farmer · « **Reply #8 on:** February 16, 2014, 11:38:03 am »

Well iv done some utilatey and the birds i liked was black marran /cuckoo marran known as burrey ford browns.The other is light sussex /road very good hens.To get egg numbers up i used jhonsons D104 highbred 300 egg .The problem with all of this is that jhonsons made a nice hen in there range and i couldent make eney think better.I bought a 100 of these midle size hens sex linkt and they were very good . They also use the lagorn. http://www.johnstonspoultry.com/sussex.html

PIGBOY · « **Reply #9 on:** February 16, 2014, 01:07:22 pm »

Thank you for al the replies and advice guys, all has been taken in and has helped me a lot in my decision.
After i long time of thinking i have decided to carry on with my Maran x Indian game utility line as it would be a shame to stop after all the foundations i have put in place. I am also going to try and breed a more stocky blu egg layer who won't (hopefully) look too dissimilar to a Cream Legbar! And last but not least i will try to breed a utility line of pure breed Light Sussex!

What do you guys think of this?

darkbrowneggs · « **Reply #10 on:** February 16, 2014, 01:32:41 pm »

My advice on the blue egg layer would be to go for pure Cream Legbars. The advantage with these is you simply don't need to raise the boys at all. You can sex them at hatch and non of the boys need be kept at all. This means less brooder space required, less pen space for growers and less than half the feed as you always hatch more males than females and the males eat far more feed.

There is a steady demand for blue egg laying pullets of any description and good quality pure Cream Legbar hatching eggs are in high demand. I forget what I charged for mine now - I think it was £2 an egg plus post and packing charges, but I know a lot of folk were charging far more

My advice would be keep your Marans IG crosses which you have obviously put a lot of work into and are pleased with. Remember not to try crossing on, stick with the original H1 cross so that will involve you keeping a flock of pure Marans and a flock of pure IG. The eggs from both of these pure flocks should find a good market as long as they are high quality birds, and you can set what you need to raise your preferred cross.

If you then kept another flock of pure Cream Legbars, you could once again sell the pure eggs, and by running some of the females in with your Copper Blacks can create a green egg layer and rear stock from that for sale

Doing it this way you only need to keep four pens and from those you can produce your pure eggs for sale and you hybrid eggs to hatch.

Just another line of thought for you

Marches Farmer · « **Reply #11 on:** February 16, 2014, 02:25:11 pm »

If you want good utlity stock I suggest going to a poultry sale held at a livestock market like Hereford or Ross-on-Wye. If you're careful about selecting really good stock you're much more likely to get birds from a smallholding or farmyard background rather than show birds.

I breed large, soft-feathered rare breeds but always with utility in mind - it's taken me a while, for instance, to breed Laced Wyandottes that have good laying ablity and fertility.