Onagadori - Long Tail Fowl and Long Crowing Fowl Discussion Forums

I was just wondering who here is breeding for standard or for strictly Onagadori traits? I have been keeping pure pens in the Gold duck wing and the SDW and have had great success in the show ring with them this last year. I have also shown 2 standard white males who even though not in the standard have well basically kicked butt over the GDW and the SDW males that I've presented. My hen flock is still pretty small so I haven't taken any off premise to get a judges opinion as of yet. But in the standard APA book the phoenix is to be penalized for blood feathers, and here I am trying to keep them in blood feathers. So seems to me to be a bit redundent. Anyways just thought I'd open up this topic for discussion.
Next topis then is if you are breeding for Onagadori traits what are you doing as breeders about the leg coloring. When I go to the Tosa site I see that the males have yellow legs. So far in Phoenix I have hatched and purchased they all have slate or willow legs. With the exception of the albino pink legged male I used last year. He's a whole nuther conversation though. And is the comb type really that important? I know I have seen photos of birds that were not single combed. OK well looking forward to replies. Be nice...

My thought is that if it's written in the standard, it's important, even for an unrecognized breed like Onags. If the original creators say they are a single combed, white lobed, yellow/willow legged fowl, then they aren't true Onags unless they have all those traits, no matter how good their feathering is. Same with the Phoenix, and I breed both. I'm bringing both breeds out of a sort of genetic mish mash that had both Onag and Phoenix traits, so I have slate legs in my Onags currently. Correcting that is important to me, and I won't even consider calling them true Onags until the legs are yellow/willow. I expect it will take a while before type is as important a consideration in the show room as tail on a Phoenix, but I consider that to be every bit as important as feathering in my birds. Without breeding for type, all we have is long tailed chickens. I see just about any type and size of bird shown as Phoenix, whether it even comes close to the standard description or not, and if it has a long tail, it seems to place.

I'm breeding for both. I have my Phoenix and I have birds of Onagadori ancestry.




That's like pulling a breed in two directions. You need to make two breeds from them or you'll just spin your tires and go nowhere with either one. In the US we sometimes confuse the two breeds as one. I think this is mostly due to the fact that we've not really had Onagadori here to compare to.

Plus, there are places like McMurray that put out false info like, "Phoenix are an ancient breed in Japan where they were kept in the imperial gardens. Individual males were given special care and the tail feathers sometimes developed to the fantastic length of 20 feet. Modern fowl are still unusually handsome in color and combinations of silver and black and tails are striking although of more ordinary length. There has been much confusion as to the proper name for this breed. It is now generally accepted that the single comb birds as pictured above should be called PHOENIX."

Someone used this load of.... as a description on Wikipedia. I corrected it. Then someone edited it off of the page about five times. Then someone moved it to the discussion area. I didn't put it there for discussion. It just is how it is. The two breeds really need to be better defined than they have been in the US to this point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_chicken




All of my birds that have Onagadori traits descend from a yellow-legged white. So most of my birds (even my DW's) have yellow legs. I choose willow DW's when feathering options allow. (feathering first!)

The Japanese standard for Onagadori states yellow for whites and willow for DW varieties. Slate is strictly for Phoenix, a European and American breed (never was a Japanese breed).

I would say divide up your flock(s) into two groups. Use your molters for Phoenix and your best non-molters for going in the direction of Onagadori. You'll see that in a couple generations you will be able to see two distinct directions.

The Japanese standard is very simple as compared to our standards. It only calls for birds that are 4 Lbs for males, 3 Lbs for females, single combed, white lobed, willow legged DW's and yellow legged whites, males must not molt (for 4 years) after their first molt.

It does not specify a body type, carriage, etc. This is because when you start selecting for too many things, you loose the feathering. My birds (not Onagadori... yet) have kind of regulated their body type to what would be most common for the breed.

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So true, faile. The two really are quite separate breeds.




Sounds like you are doing what I was mentioning about going two directions instead of keeping them combined and having them stay as a mix.




It is almost as important as feathering, but easier to correct




Aside from the simplicities laid out in the Japanese standard, that's about all Onagadori are. There are various body types and leg lengths.




Seems like the Phoenix, as a breed, has more capabilities of meeting a strict standard than Onagadori would since it is supposed to molt. Not that body type wouldn't be important with Onagadori as well, just less important over the feathering at least by the original Japanese standard.

In the standard I breed for, I made it like an American standard. I only consider the other points after feathering. Putting feathering first is the only way you can choose for all of the non-molting traits and not loose them from generation to generation. That trait is very complicated and not controlled by any one set of genetics.

It's almost like tossing eleven dice into the air and trying to get them to all land tail side up. Add body selections into that mix and it would really eliminate a lot of good birds.

The Japanese breeders have heavy birds, light birds, tall birds, and stocky birds, but they all have five things in common: weight class, leg color, lobe color, comb type, and of course non-molting. They pretty much define the breed on those five things.

The first four of which are allowed to set themselves. No comb size of point number specified. White lobes are dominant. So they set themselves. The leg color breeds pure with using green to green and yellow to yellow - and the body type is variable. All they really choose for is the non-molting. All else is left up to dominance and chance.
Bye for now,


David

Thank You now that truely discusses what I was trying to point out. You can't have both in the same bird. Its got to be either or and yes if you look for too much standard you loose the tail.
How do you breed to get back your willow and lighter legs? And what are some of your common crosses that don't take you out further than say an F4 to Obtain them?
Next topic my friends....Cock feathering in hens? I hatched out many a longtailed, saddled and in a few cases I got a few male colored saddles in my pullets this year. Lovely width and length. So now what? And yes they are laying and eggs are showing fertility even though I don't plan to hatch any till march. I have pics just need time to load em.

I told Ya I missed you all

I have some birds with willow and others with yellow. I get each to pop up in the same hatch if using a parent of each color. Sometimes the yellow bird has better feathering and other times, the willow does.

I am getting more willow birds now though. I got a very nice gold pullet this year with willow legs, and it just happens that she was the best feathered too. You just pick and choose where and when you can.



I've actually not gone further than F2 with my white hen. Why? Because my F2s look just like her. I have two family lines by her and have been able to compound what I need by interbreeding these two family lines. So although my most pure birds are only 75% pure by relation, they are closer to pure through combination of selected traits.



That is a breeder's trap for the most part. Don't slip into that.
Bye for now,


David

David, Breeders trap? How so? Is it a good , bad or irrelavent trait?

Usually cock-feathering in hens is a product of hormones rather than feathering genetics. It kind of masks the actual feathering traits that they would pass on to their sons so that you don't really know what quality they are.

The fact that your hens are laying is remarkable. Time will tell to see how they lay past their first laying period during adolescence.

Cock-feathered hens will often lay only during this period and not well during the rest of their lives. Using their offspring usually passes this trait on to future generations. Reducing the feather quality and productivity in the long run.

The main thing to do is to test mate these females, then test mate their offspring before committing to this type of hen.

If we're talking Phoenix, this type may be ok. Just test and see.

However, if you are looking to develop Onagadori from these it will likely be a difficult road due to the masking affect. You won't likely be able to select properly.

Japanese hens such as Onagadori and Shokoku are very, very heavily feathered, but lack any extreme length in the sickles and coverts. They just barely stick out beyond the retrices and are rounded tipped - v.s longer and pointed like a typical cock-feathered hen that we sometimes see here.

Photos of hens are often difficult to find. The Japanese breeders just don't show off the hens like they do their best males.

This is a page showing some Shokoku hens (which look virtually the same as Onagadori hens. One is in molt: http://www.misatosys.com/YUME/YUME31.html

This page shows a Japanese Onagadori breeder's setup. Near the bottom of the page (past the pigeons) It shows some tomebako and also breeder cages. There is a pic of a white hen. It's not a good view to show how full the feathering is, but you can see that she has no extreme length to the tail.

http://www.iyo.ne.jp/t-kihara/05soukai_2.html

There are a couple photos online of mounted specimens. While mounting can sometimes change body shape and carriage, I found that this specimen has been kept true to form.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/I ... ds/P-6.jpg

This is my white F2 hen from my original: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/I ... il-hen.jpg

Extremely heavy feathered, but no excessive male hormones to produce pointed feathers of any extreme length, thereby masking her true traits that she would pass on to offspring.

Just test your hens and see what their sons' and grandsons' feathering are like, and also how their daughters and granddaughters lay.
Bye for now,


David

Phew, I had a hard time remembering my username and what my password was. Luckily I got logged in

Anyways, I thought the information about hen feathering was very useful. I've been kinda going in the wrong direction. I was picking out my hens with the longest sickles, but these ones tended to have the least multiple feathering. Luckily I saved some of the ones with good mf.

Dario

Oh btw,

My roo that I got from John Harrison is about 3 years now.

His tail has always remained about 3 feet. It's only molted once I think, and that was his first molt I believe. All this time his been with at least one hen. Some feathers did get pulled out but they've grown back quickly and his tail has been on average 3 feet.

When spring comes I'm breeding him like crazy to my best females that I hatched this early spring and last fall.

Dario

I think my birds are an anomaly, lol. My pullets always show male-like feathering in their first year, but the second year they tend to moult out of it. The most extremely male pullets usually have the softest feather quality in their second year too. Some of them keep especially long tails, some of them get a little more normalized. It's a very rare occasion that they don't continue to lay eggs though. The hen who started the male-feathering influence is a recessive white who must be about 7 years old now, and she still lays. Her oldest daughters still lay too. My thoughts about this group of birds is that I don't have the true male-feathering in hens that is warned about and stays with the hen for her whole life, but I have something else entirely. Fine with me, if my girls are going to lay and produce feathers like they have been!

That is very rare indeed. Something to hang onto for sure. Do you have pics of your hens? They sound beautiful.
Bye for now,


David

Still in first year plumage. They're coming out of it now with the fall/winter moult.

Those are nice hens. I notice that the feathers are round tipped. Not pointed like usual cock-feathering. Considering this and that your hens lay well, it appears that this isn't caused by male hormones?

I think you've developed something very nice there.
Bye for now,


David

Right, it doesn't seem to be male hormones, although they have pullet 'saddle' feathers that are usually pointed and have a little male colour to them. I think they're just beautiful this way, all their colours seem so much richer. They usually have large amounts of black in the breast until they moult at a year old too.

Hi faile your hen is really beautiful...hows her productivity? I hope you can pass on the tail spread to her sons she looks so gorgeous