Purple Study 1

We decided to study a batch of baby chickens for as long as possible.  The main thing we want to know is how much food and time does it take for a peep to grow to three or four pounds.  This is important to us because we now have a lot of chickens.  We could scale up the chicken project and attempt to produce local native chickens commercially.  But first we have to know really, how much does it cost to feed a chicken to market size.

We selected Purple to be the first chicken in the study.  Purple lays blue eggs.  Really more of a blueish green egg.  They are very pretty and from past work with Purple we know they have a very good hatch rate.  In fact of Purples eggs selected for hatching, so far ALL (approx 32) of them have hatched.

Also Purple was due to hatch soon.  She had been setting on twelve eggs.  All of them did hatch, however red ants killed all but eight of the hatchlings.  Purple and these eight peeps were moved to a small cage.  The idea was to weigh all of the food going into that cage, and weigh all the chickens.  As soon as possible we would free range Purple and her peeps. There is no way we can measure the food she scavenges.  We don't care about that anyway.  We just want to know how much food we are buying for them.

The cage was set in a location far from the other chickens, and close to the house to make weighing easier.  Also, there is a creep feeder out by the coop that we always try to keep filled with food for hatchlings.  Only hatchlings can get in and out of it.  But for this study, we needed Purple's peeps not to have access to it.  So we isolated them by putting them on the east side of the house, away from the creep feeder and the other chickens.  If peeps from the study group find the creep feeder, the study will be concluded immediately.

This is the first study we have done and so we knew from that outset that we would have problems that would compromise the validity of the data collected.  We decided that the priority was firstly the peeps.  We want them to do well.  Secondly, if there were going to be errors in our collection of data, it was important that the errors overestimate rather than underestimate the costs.

Within days, another chicken Rojita hatched.  In actuality, Rojita was sitting on eggs from Skyrocket.  All of them failed to hatch.  We normally candle eggs after 1 week, however we had not done that.  The chicken known as E had hatched and so we had Rojita foster E's peeps.  The twelve eggs that failed to hatch would participate in the study in another way.  But we had two cages, two hens and two batches of peeps.  We accept that we have to include the cost of feeding the mothering hen with her peeps.  But we also have a way of introducing peeps to another hen so that she can foster them.  We did this, and Purple ended up with a double batch of 17 peeps.  This of course damages the value of the data, but, it is what we did. Rojita went back to laying after several weeks.

After three weeks, some of the peeps clearly exhibit the phenotype caused by slow feathering gene.  This is controlled by gene K and our peeps range from K normal through K slow and K delayed.  We don't like slow feathered chickens, and we want to weed them out.  Even from the study group.  So, six peeps exhibiting various degrees of slow feathering were removed from the study.  Hypothetically, they could have been sold for $2 each.  This also damages the study data.  However, we really don't want slow feather chickens.

Above all the study points to various things we could have done better to collect data for the next study.  Also the study suggests other possibilities to improve the chickens.  It might at some point be possible to remove the slowest growing peeps.  Or we may find that peeps that grow very well in the beginning are surpassed by their peers later on.  There may also be a clear optimum point at which the birds can be most profitably sold.

Our current study will not likely deliver any of those answers.  However, so far, the feed conversion rate of this batch of eleven peeps appears to be somewhere between 4 and 6.  That is significant.  If that rate of feed conversion holds through to market size, then there is at least the possibility of a viable commercial opportunity in slow growing, native free ranged chickens.






The two potential fathers of the peeps in the study are Happy Feet, above, and PeelNeck to the right. We think that Happy Feet carries birchen, darkbrown, more than one red enhancer, a melenizer, id+/ID, and possibly fibromelenosis.  Peel Neck obviously carries Na/na.  We now have reason to believe that PeelNeck and at least one of our hens carry recessive white.  He has a rose comb.

Peel Neck is supposed to eventually father a line of chickens for the One Coop Hybrid project.  One coop of chickens mating randomly between two lines producing both the hybrid f1s and the replacements for the pure lines.  The presence of recessive white in Peel Neck is a blow to that goal.  We don't much care for recessive white round these parts.


Data to date follows:

date	journal note	lbs	feed	est cost
7. Mar. 2011	Purple hatched her own blue eggs. 8 Survive.	0.5	15% Pig Feed	0.22
	Wood ashes were appled to reduce fire ants.
8. Mar. 2011	Moved Purple & 8 to coop due to red ant attack	0.25	15% Pig Feed	0.11
	Boric acid was applied liberally to study cage.
9. Mar. 2011	Purple 3.75lbs 8 chicks .5lbs	0.5	15% Pig Feed	0.22
10. Mar. 2011	Purple & 8 moved into house in cardboard box	2	med. Hard boiled eggs, mashed	0.6
	overnight due to fire ants. Returned in the morning	0.75	ground corn	0.26
	a product containing Chloripyrifos was used in a
	manner inconsistant with its labeling.
10. Mar. 2011	R&R hatched 9 eggs, mixed batch. Rojita fosters.	1	med. Hard boiled eggs, mashed	0.3
		0.25	ground corn	0.09
11. Mar. 2011	Purple group consumes	2	med. Hard boiled eggs, mashed	0.6
		0.5	ground corn	0.18
	Rojita group consumes	2	med. Hard boiled eggs, mashed	0.6
		0.25	ground corn	0.09
12. Mar. 2011	Purple group consumes	1	med. Hard boiled eggs, mashed	0.3
		0.5	ground corn	0.18
	Rojita group consumes	1	med. Hard boiled eggs, mashed	0.3
		0.25	ground corn	0.09
13. Mar. 2011	Purple & 8 free ranged.
	Rojita group consumes	1	med. Hard boiled eggs, mashed	0.3
	Hence forth corn is ground measured into 1lb cans.
	A notation is made when 1 pound has been consumed
15. Mar. 2011	Purple group consumes	1	ground corn	0.35
	Rojita group consumes	2	med. Hard boiled eggs, mashed	0.6
		1	ground corn	0.35
17. Mar. 2011	Rojita group consumes	1	ground corn	0.35
18. Mar. 2011	Purple group consumes	1	ground corn	0.35
21. Mar. 2011	Purple group consumes	1	ground corn	0.35
	Rojita group consumes	1	ground corn	0.35
22. Mar. 2011	Purple 3.75lb 8 Chicks 1 1/16 lb
23. Mar. 2011	Rojita's chicks fostered onto Purple. Purple group
	now contains 17 peeps. Rojita removed from study
	group. She returned to laying in about 2 weeks.
	17 chicks weigh 2.5 lbs	3	med. Hard boiled eggs, mashed	0.9
24. Mar. 2011	Purple group consumes	1	ground corn	0.35
27. Mar. 2011	Purple group consumes	1	ground corn	0.35
28. Mar. 2011	Purple group consumes	1	ground corn	0.35
29. Mar. 2011	Purple weighs 4.125lb 17 chicks weight 3.125lb
30. Mar. 2011	6 chicks were removed from the study. These	1	ground corn	0.35
	all displayed some degree of K gene slow feathering
	It is now believed that Purple may be hemizygous
	for K slow.
	The six chicks are assigned a value of $2 each
	For a hypothetical accounting of study costs.
31. Mar. 2011	Purple 4.125 lbs 11 chicks 2.125 lbs
1. Apr. 2011	Purple group consumes	1	ground corn	0.35
2. Apr. 2011	Purple group consumes	1	ground corn	0.35
4. Apr. 2011	Purple group consumes	1	ground corn	0.35
	Purple 4.375 lbs 11 chicks 2.56 lbs
	Purple is spending time away from chicks
6. Apr. 2011	Purple is often away from chicks in company
	of roosters (various). Purple laid an egg 30 days
	after hatching.
7. Apr. 2011	Purple group consumes	1	ground corn	0.35
9. Apr. 2011	Purple group consumes	1	ground corn	0.35
9. Apr. 2011	11 peeps weigh 3lbs