Developing My Own Breed Of Large Gamefowl For Free Range Survival (Junglefowl x Liege)

[SunflowerKing]

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If all goes well I ought to have a grab bag of genetics. Indo crossed to Crackers, Liege, Wyandottes, EE, RIR, Austrolorp, and of course his F1 sister. I can tell most of the eggs apart. Sometimes the Liege are hard to tell from the Wyandottes when the Wyandotte eggs come out on the lighter side. I would have sworn that last year the Liege eggs were cream but this year they're light brown as are the eggs of the F1 pullet.

I’d say my major interest would be indo crossed with the crackers, Liege, and his F1 sister

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I culled N1 a couple of nights ago. I am of the opinion that his wound was a pit viper bite, likely a young canebrake. Based on the level of tissue death I no longer think he was struck by a raptor talon. His rump rotted to the consistency of black, dry cheese. That’s the best way I know to describe how it looked and felt, and the stench of the rot could be smelled from several feet away. Yet he continued to walk without a limp, crow, fly, and forage, up until the night he was unable to stand. That’s when I put him down.

I sent for Hei Hei, N1’s father. Hei Hei will now take N1’s place in the Cracker x Liege and Cracker x American game projects. I placed Hei Hei in with the American hens this evening.

I haven’t seen Hei Hei in a long time. He’s developed some white on one of his secondary sickles. He will be 3 years old on April.

 

[SunflowerKing]

I culled N1 a couple of nights ago. I am of the opinion that his wound was a pit viper bite, likely a young canebrake. Based on the level of tissue death I no longer think he was struck by a raptor talon. His rump rotted to the consistency of black, dry cheese. That’s the best way I know to describe how it looked and felt, and the stench of the rot could be smelled from several feet away. Yet he continued to walk without a limp, crow, fly, and forage, up until the night he was unable to stand. That’s when I put him down.

I sent for Hei Hei, N1’s father. Hei Hei will now take N1’s place in the Cracker x Liege and Cracker x American game projects. I placed Hei Hei in with the American hens this evening.

View attachment 3015390View attachment 3015391

I haven’t seen Hei Hei in a long time. He’s developed some white on one of his secondary sickles. He will be 3 years old on April.

Sorry for your loss buddy. His offspring will live on. That’s all any of us can hope for.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Here is one of the surviving chicks off of Number 1 crossed to the American hen that lays blue eggs (the same cockerel shown in post 155). I like how he looks, he looks just like a Cracker except near twice the size for the age.

 

[troyer]

He looks really good! I like him a lot!

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Well, I’ve had a breakthru. And created a set of monsters in the doing. Beautiful, terrible monsters.

I saw two things today I’ve never seen before. First, a chick, a day old, that can scale a four foot tall, 60-70 incline at will to go in and out of a coop. The father was Indo, the mother was a random Cracker.

Second, I observed Indo merciless hunt down and eat every chick in a brood off that same Cracker hen that wasn’t his own chicks, killing and eating whole all but his own chick, which he spared. As where his chick is crazy strong and fast, the other pure Cracker chicks were weak.

Either Indo knows his chicks from other chicks and killed the chicks he didn’t father, or he keyed in on the weakness and culled them, leaving only his own chick which happens to be the strongest.

A bunch of behaviors I’ve never seen before.

 

[Baba Hnf]

View attachment 3041601

Well, I’ve had a breakthru. And created a set of monsters in the doing. Beautiful, terrible monsters.

I saw two things today I’ve never seen before. First, a chick, a day old, that can scale a four foot tall, 60-70 incline at will to go in and out of a coop. The father was Indo, the mother was a random Cracker.

Second, I observed Indo merciless hunt down and eat every chick in a brood off that same Cracker hen that wasn’t his own chicks, killing and eating whole all but his own chick, which he spared. As where his chick is crazy strong and fast, the other pure Cracker chicks were weak.

Either Indo knows his chicks from other chicks and killed the chicks he didn’t father, or he keyed in on the weakness and culled them, leaving only his own chick which happens to be the strongest.

A bunch of behaviors I’ve never seen before.

I would like to think that it's an Anti-Cuckoo/Anti-Brood Parasitism trait. It's interesting because I've seen that trait in some bird species but never seen that in chicken.

 

[Molpet]

View attachment 3041601

Well, I’ve had a breakthru. And created a set of monsters in the doing. Beautiful, terrible monsters.

I saw two things today I’ve never seen before. First, a chick, a day old, that can scale a four foot tall, 60-70 incline at will to go in and out of a coop. The father was Indo, the mother was a random Cracker.

Second, I observed Indo merciless hunt down and eat every chick in a brood off that same Cracker hen that wasn’t his own chicks, killing and eating whole all but his own chick, which he spared. As where his chick is crazy strong and fast, the other pure Cracker chicks were weak.

Either Indo knows his chicks from other chicks and killed the chicks he didn’t father, or he keyed in on the weakness and culled them, leaving only his own chick which happens to be the strongest.

A bunch of behaviors I’ve never seen before.

That's new behavior... I have had a rooster that didn't like some chicks. I pulled and they turned out to be cockerels. They were all his own. Most of my roosters are fine with all chicks.

 

[SunflowerKing]

View attachment 3041601

Well, I’ve had a breakthru. And created a set of monsters in the doing. Beautiful, terrible monsters.

I saw two things today I’ve never seen before. First, a chick, a day old, that can scale a four foot tall, 60-70 incline at will to go in and out of a coop. The father was Indo, the mother was a random Cracker.

Second, I observed Indo merciless hunt down and eat every chick in a brood off that same Cracker hen that wasn’t his own chicks, killing and eating whole all but his own chick, which he spared. As where his chick is crazy strong and fast, the other pure Cracker chicks were weak.

Either Indo knows his chicks from other chicks and killed the chicks he didn’t father, or he keyed in on the weakness and culled them, leaving only his own chick which happens to be the strongest.

A bunch of behaviors I’ve never seen before.

Can we expect a video soon? Love to hear these updates.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Can we expect a video soon? Love to hear these updates.

Yes. I was outside with the family enjoying the evening when I heard some chicks crying. I walked over to the big coop and discovered that the hen with Indo’s chick cleared the ramp and window and were feeding around the yard and the Cracker chicks were crying in the nest box where she left them. I put the Cracker chicks outside and that’s when it all started. I also got to see Indo’s chick scale the ramp again and go back into the coop to roost. We had our phones in our pockets so between my wife and I we got a lot of it filmed. I wish I would had the first couple of attacks on film as they happened because the initial catching of the chicks was lightning fast. About like what you’d imagine a rooster doing to catch a dazed mouse or a lizard.