June 2010

Monday 7 June

Those early bred youngsters are on the sticks and taking shape nicely, the last week has been quite challenging and a number of newly hatched youngsters have been lost for one reason or another. It's difficult to determine cause sometime but the hot weather has seen an influx of northern mite into two of the cages and this has contributed to a couple of the casualties.

My breeding season is 2 months in, and overall I'm happy with the volume of birds bred so far, and really pleased with the quality. One of my best hens has just laid her first egg this morning, she laid a first round over 5 week ago so it's good to get her back in the grove. There are a couple of nests due nest weekend, I set 15 eggs on saturday in three nests and there are 3 hens laying now with a couple more who I expect to lay by the end of the week.

Pleasingly every hen in the shed has laid, and at least one of their eggs have been full and hatched to chick, that's encouraging in itself and demonstrates the overall fertility of the stud. Over the course of the next couple of weeks several more nests are due, i'll look at which birds i'll take a third round from and which to retire to the flights, I'm keen to get a good number to select this years show team and next years breeding team from but unlike some fanciers I don't want the breeding season to go on indefinately.

Friday 11 June

A further three nests were set yesterday, those set last weekend checked and several more hens mating / building up and laying. Over the next couple of weeks there are around a dozen more nests due out, ideally that will be a wrap for the season although much will depened on the hatch rate and rearing rate. I generally leave the cock birds in with second round hens so a number will get to rear chicks as pairs which in the main seems to ensure a greater level of success, there are as always exceptions.

I read with interest the latest copy of the border convention magazine passed on to me by a friend, not a bad little read as fancy magazines go, but what caught my eye was the decline of the border fancy as a whole and the question of fertility in general. It seems the expectation in the border world of chicks per hen is around 25% of what i target as a ratio from my Fife hens, reading the letters pages and contribution of articles you would be forgiven for believing that the border fancy is in a spiral of decline as a consequence of high prices and poor fertility and breeding results.

Although in comparitive terms the Fife is a relatively new breed I wonder if the same situation will occur here, from my own experience as my stud has improved over the ten years I've kept the birds my ratio of chicks per hen has also dropped dramatically from an average of 7 per hen in my first year to an average of 3.5-4 per hen in recent years. In that time too the prices of Fifes have also increased from £20-£25 for individual birds to £40-£45 from the top bloodlines (the exceptional best in show winning Fife has and always will change hands for a couple of hundred pounds). Ironically Fifes are used by some as feeders to support their own stud of birds.

Tuesday 15 June

A couple more nests have hatched over the last few days, a varigated fawn hen hatched 4 but for some reason let two die and a variegated hen has hatched 4, which is strange as when I checked her eggs I thought only 3 were full!, just goes to show even after 9 years I can still make mistakes.

The first round youngsters are coming on nicely, a couple are stand out which is nice although still a long way to go. I've 3 more nests to set tomorrow and a few more hens just building up, ideally I won't set a nest after the 30th June, earlier if at all possible as I don't want young still in the nest in August!. Following the move this year I've been late starting, next years plans is to try and start mid march, obviously a lot will depend on the weather and the condition of the birds.

I always like to plan ahead and I'm already thinking about next years breeding team. In some spair time I've developed a system that will score unflighted and flighted birds on a number of key elements, fertility, rearing capability, quality of youngsters, show success, basically a handful of measure that I value in the stud, I hope that it will allow for further objectivity on which birds to keep and which birds to let go, which as the overall quality of the stud improves becomes increasingly difficult,

I'm looking at making some slight changes to my breeding programme next year. I've used a line breeding programme for many years and have, as a result, consistantly produced a good ratio of birds fit for the show bench. This year an outstanding visual buff cock has produced quality in all of his youngsters so far, if after the moult a significant proportion of his youngsters remain quality they will form the basis of my 'A' line. I'm taking some of the theory of Phil Warnes breeding programme and putting my own twist on it, afterall the theory only works if the birds are capable of producing quality that matches or exceeds their own!