HENS FOR SALE
Good news – I have selected my hens for next year, and I have about a dozen extra hens. These are nice hens, and too good to cull.
I’m offering these for sale at a good price. I don’t have cocks or stags for sale at this time, and is the reason I’m willing to sell these really cheap.
Act now, and take advantage of this great offer.
First come first serve. Don’t wait!
We only ship birds inside the continental USA. We are not able to ship out side the country.
Pictures on the way!
More about the Troiano Reds
I have a family of American Games that I call my Troiano Reds. Someday I will come up with a better name, but due to a lack of imagination or laziness, I seem to be stuck with it for now. Anyways! The family is made up of 3 lines. One is called the Maximus Line, then there’s the Tecumseh Line, and last but not least, the Proximo Line. All three lines have great conformation of body, good temperament, and are good representatives of their breed and variety.
But here is where they differ:
The Maximus Line is made up of black breasted red cocks and partridge hens. These cocks and hens have a very consistent and even plumage color. Just what you would expect from this variety. The hen’s plumage is evenly stippled with a very beautiful shade. They are picture perfect.
The Tecumseh Line is made up of black breasted light red cocks that are very colorful, eye catching to say the least, and wheaten hens. These cocks and hens too, have a very consistent and even plumage color, and just what you would expect from this variety.
The Proximo Line, on the other hand, is made up of black breasted dark red cocks, not crow winged, but very dark, and hens that have a dark partridge color. The cocks are so strikingly beautiful (regal is a better word), that they are highly sought after. The problem is, to get that very dark plumage, I had to select hens that expressed a darker plumage. Through the years this has improved the plumage color of the cocks, but not the hens. Not only did the hens plumage get darker, but now they have black blotches throughout their plumage. Not very attractive.
As they say, “you learn your breed and strain from breeding.” In other words, each generation, your fowl will show you what they are made of (ancestry, defects or throwbacks), and what can and cannot be achieved with the gene pool at hand.
This is the benefit of breeding your strain for many years (generations), and knowing your family of fowl very well. I was able to create 3 separate and very distinctive lines from one family. I learned the idiosyncrasies and characteristics of each, which gave me greater insight of the family as a whole, and now, I know which cocks to breed with which hens to achieve a defined and purposeful result.
The learning curve took many generations. Five or six years after I got these birds, which was 30 years ago, they started expressing the light red/wheaten plumage color. So, I created a line of light reds and proceeded to perfect their traits. I was successful in improving their conformation of body, and they looked good overall, but they still lacked that colorful light red party coloring I was looking for.
So, I made the difficult decision to add new blood. I always look at this method as a last resort, so I took my time and found a strain that had all the same traits, and were very comparable to mine, but had the color of plumage I was looking for.
I did a 1/16th infusion (one time), with an exceptional wheaten hen (Jumper Kelso), selected the few standouts each generation, culled hard, and within 5 years I was getting the offspring I was looking for. Today, except for the improved plumage color, you would never know I infused blood of another strain.
Soon after, I began to get the spangled plumage color. I tried to perfect that color, but didn’t have much luck. I soon learned that the spangled gene is an incomplete dominant trait that cannot be bred pure. So, I abandoned that effort. I enjoy the spangle’s I get from time to time, but I don’t breed to them.
The creation of the darker, Proximo Line was a matter of experimentation, that happen to pay off. I didn’t need to add any outside blood, but I bred towards the darker hens. Although I do sacrifice the plumage color of the hens, in this case, it is worth it, due to the amazing color of the cocks.