Crooked Toes and Deep Keels

[Kenny Troiano]

Hey John,

Here are the answers to your questions, it’s much easier to deal with them, here in the forums than in the comments sections of other pages. I check the forums often and answer them as they come in. I address each question, one at a time. These are great questions, and will be valuable to other members. So, here it goes.

Question One:

John: This yr I bred several pure matings and hatched all in an incubator. Does an incubator contribute to crooked toes? It seems to have only affected my old family of Brown Reds. I looked thru my records and it seems one of the cocks I bred had one crooked toe, very slight but man it sure passed to his offspring.

Kenny: Crooked toes can be caused by nutritional deficiency or by incubator temps, as well as improper brooder floor/litter. However, here’s the catch. Those are contributors to crooked toes, but the underlining cause is genetic inheritance. Yes, it is inherited from their parents as a recessive defect. Start by switching the matings, by mating the cock to a different hen, and don’t breed to any bird(s) that is expressing the defect. If you do not see a difference, you may need to introduce outside blood. Since you are dealing with Brown Reds, you have the option of finding another brown red hen, or breeding/infusing a good Black Breasted Red, such as a dark red Hatch type bird into your brown reds. This is how I create my black pearls, and it worked great.

Question Two:

John: I have an old family of McClean Hatch fowl that are very coarse, which is one of the reasons I love them they are the most powerful birds I have ever seen. The problem is they come hatchet breasted. Can this trait be easily fixed? I have started going thru all of my stags and pullets from last yr and I have got to say I am putting a mass majority of them in the ground. I do however have a few that are amazing. I cannot wait to put together my brood pens next yr.

Kenny: my question for you – do you have any that have the proper breast, or breast that are considerably better? That would show that this trait can be fixed. Deep keel is a defect, but one that can be selectively improved. Deep Keel is a recessive trait, but also a polygenic trait, which means it’s determined by multiple genes. Polygenic traits are also considered Quantitative or measurable, which means you will see variations of intensity from bird to bird. Your job is to select the birds with the best breast and breed to those. In time the trait will improve. I would not introduce new blood unless you do not have any individuals with the proper breast or you are not seeing improvement through selective breeding.

Question Three:

John: I also have a family of Grey fowl that are extremely low station. So these are the three traits that I am attempting to make strides on in the near future. Thanks again for your contribution to our beloved sport. I can only hope more people take advantage of the topics you are speaking about and really take it to heart to become better breeders and save some of these truly unique and awesome families of fowl.

Kenny: thanks John, I appreciate the kind words, and support for may work. It inspires me more that you know. As far as the station of your Grey’s, it’s the same situation as the breast bone. This to can be improved through selection. Look at the Grey fowl you have as a whole, ask yourself, which birds have the best station? Not the perfect station exactly, although that would be nice, but the best station with what you have to work with. Those are the birds you need to breed. In time their station will improve. Traits like this (polygenic/quantitative traits) are like maintaining a balancing act. Today they are too short, in a few years they will be too tall. You will always need to be attentive to trends and select accordingly.

I hope this helps, and feel free to ask me anything. that’s what I’m here for.

[Anonymous]

I have a question about station. Lets say you get seed fowl from 2 different breeders, but the fowl are the same family and variety. The cock has very good confermation but is low stationed and the hen is as close to perfect as you could hope to find from being bought not raised. You breed these two together and the offspring are all higher stationed than the cock but not as good as the hen. Would it be a bad idea to line brees to the hen before breeding brother and sister? And why?

 

[Kenny Troiano]

The only reason to breed the hen to her son is if your are attempting to clone that hen. I would never use a seed hen past the initial breeding unless she is a good representative of what you are looking for and where you want to go with that strain. If you are that concerned about the station of the cock, I would look for another seed cock.

Remember, Your seed cock and seed hen do not need to be related. They just need to have the right traits.

The seed fowl have one job, to produce offspring that can be inbred towards the fixation of traits.

Does this help?

[Anonymous]

I have blackgamefowl and i have leiper gamefowl , i infused kelso and radio to freshen up the blood , now i have all these crosses and need to get back to pure blacks and pure leiper , and go as far as making those my strains, wwhere do i start? I have a mess on my hands!

[Kenny Troiano]

Hey Randy, I have a question for you. Do you want to make two separate families or create one family from the stock you have on hand?

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