PRODUCING GOOD FOWL MORE CONSISTENTLY

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While complying with the request of my friends in the Philippines, Mexico and here at home, I would like to give some history of the Sweater strain of gamefowl since they came into my possession.
Aloha from Hawaii fellow gamefowl enthusiasts! These are exciting and interesting times we are living in with this new digital world around us. I for one am surely grateful for this new digital gamefowl magazine “Purebred Warrior” that we are all getting to enjoy right here right now at the touch of a button! Many thanks to those responsible for making this possible!! Now more than ever we are able to reach the both the older and the newer generations of rooster men and women with” this new publication and I for one am very glad to be a small part of it. So tell all your friends to SUBSCRIBE SUBSCRIBE SUBSCRIBE! Now onward and upward to greater things!Ok so…we all have had great birds and not so great birds come out of our brood-pens. Hopefully more good ones than not right folks? Sadly that is just the way things are. Even among the greats of our sport such as the late great Mr. Bobby Boles have had an almost obscene amount of success with an “UNBEATABLE” neon sign flashing and hanging from his neck at one point and time…have had great and not so great results. We aren’t gods that can magically make great roosters each and every time. Although that would be nice its nearly impossible to do. BUT…there is a way that we can hone in on producing better roosters more consistently. This is a quick guide for those of us (myself included)…..who may need just a little guidance or that “gentle” nudge to get back on point. When you get that “special nick” and are having a tough time trying to replicate it again. There are a couple things we can consider.
First and foremost….we need to keep good records when breeding. This is a key point no matter what size your farm may be. From a single pair that you’ve saved up months or years to finally purchase, to those with a whole lot of brood-pens…we must have a way of identifying what pair or pen produced that extra “something special” that we are all after. So….lets dig in shall we? First and most importantly BAND ALL BROOD-FOWL! Second…..if you can single mate them that is a much more preferred way of finding the right match. However, if the “special” roosters come out of a brood pen with multiple hens… and a single rooster, well it gets a bit more complicated but it can be done. Lets start with that shall we? Please keep in mind we are using the example of a straight bloodline and not crosses. Crosses that are excellent can be done but it is way more complicated. Lets stick to the basics and use pure stock as our base line for this article.

First and foremost….we need to keep good records when breeding. This is a key point no matter what size your farm may be. From a single pair that you’ve saved up months or years to finally purchase, to those with a whole lot of brood-pens…

Brood pens that produce great roosters are a bit complicated because we will not know which hen is making those great cocks from that brood rooster. So it takes some time. First you should be able to find that within the offspring out of that pen there are really good birds and others not as special. So we need to isolate the hens during the next breeding season and single mate them to the same rooster. This will help in identifying the “special” hen that when bred to the same rooster will produce above average offspring when compared to her former brood pen roommate hens offspring. This will take some time and at least 1 season to complete. When a single mating has produced those great roosters its much easier to identify the pairing. Now most of us will just keep breeding that pair and ride the wave of success to its extent much like a wave at the infamous surfing spot pipeline beach in Hawaii!. What happens at pipeline beach if you stay on the wave too long you ask? Well you get smashed! You have to know when to cut out of the wave in order to remain successful and stay alive to continue riding another wave. Similarly with brood-fowl you can ride that wave of successful ace cocks out of the single mated pair…..but once you lose either side of that special equation….hen or rooster….the ride is over! So here are some tips that have helped many breeders keep the line going for generations. Here comes the million dollar word that scares a lot of us folks. The dreaded “INBREEDING” term! It is downright fear inspiring to most of us. We think of deformed offspring with one eye, crooked feet and one wing seemingly pointing toward the sky at all times like he’s trying to give you a never ending high 5 and that only weighs 2.5 lbs at maturity and look like the hunchback of Notre Dame! Yes inbreeding is a great key but also very intimidating to most. So, lets continue….say we find that special “pairing” through one of the above mentioned ways…what do we do next? Keep in mind that in the brood pen scenario, all the hens in the brood-pen were of the same breed. So, even though all were the same breed and maybe even full sisters…at least one of them produced better offspring than the rest out of the same pen. This is a key point….not all hens are created equally even if they are full sisters. So, we finally identify the actual pair through single mating that makes “the good ones” whats next? To begin the process we will need to take at least 4 or 5 generations of backcrossing to the individual originals. Meaning we repeat the original crossing. Then we take the best son breed him back to the mother and then best grandson bred to mother then great grandson bred back to the original hen which will give you the final offspring backcrossed to the original hen..For those who need clarity here…the initial son will be 1/2 toward the mothers side, grandson will be 3/4, great grandson will be 7/8th next 15/16th towards the mother hen. At this point we should have a clear path ahead of you and you may take it even further if you want and go one more generation backcrossed back to the original hen. At this point it is optional to do the last backcross. Ive found the 15/16th to be suitable for the next step in the process.

“We think of deformed offspring with one eye, crooked feet and one wing seemingly pointing toward the sky at all times like he’s trying to give you a never ending high 5 and that only weighs 2.5 lbs at maturity and look like the hunchback of Notre Dame! Yes inbreeding is a great key but also very intimidating to most.”

Keep in mind here that when making the selection of “best” son, grandson…and so on to breed back to the original hen you will want to select those offspring who most resemble the style and conformation of the original “special” rooster produced from the original pair. Reason is because that is our “target” goal or end game is to create more of him. So we want to hone in on those particular aspects. Now…its “RINSE AND REPEAT TIME!” I hear a lot of you saying “Dang Bolo thats a lot time and work!” Well fear not my fellow rooster peeps….its definitely NOT OVER YET. We want to repeat the whole process on the original cocks side as well. Same process just choosing the best and most suitable pullet(s) each season which most resembles the quality of the original special rooster you want to recreate to breed back to the original cock. So as we can see this will take a minimum of 4 breeding seasons to complete the process up to this point. Needless to say you will also need a fair amount of space to complete this journey. Housing and daily care of feeding, rotation, worming and medicating the offspring from each generation till you can select the “right one(s)” to use in this program adds up in more ways than one. Which is why good solid fowl are NOT CHEAP! The next time you hear a price tag on some good solid fowl from a reputable breeder think of this article and clear waves of understanding will soon cascade over your brain like Niagara falls!
“WHEW…I HOPE ITS OVER” you say. Not yet…Bolo says we must keep on keeping on folks. This is the Bolomans favorite and most interesting stage….the pay off, the big one, the last mile if you will. Taking the final product of both the hen and rooster side. Meaning your final “best pullet and stag” from each side and breed them. I like to call it “COMING ACROSS” we will cover this in part 2 of this article in a future issue of this great new digital magazine PUREBRED WARRIOR!! DON’T FORGET TO TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS TO SUBSCRIBE SUBSCRIBE SUBSCRIBE!!

YOUR FRIEND IN SPORT
BOLO “THE HAWAIIAN HILLBILLY” CORTEZ