Confused-----want a sustaining flock

HeritageGoose13 said:

Chickens are a domestic animal. Jungle fowl are wild. They have different names to indicate they are different. Pure jungle-fowl absolutely exist, they are just rare. Many people on this forum own them. Go ask them about it. Get educated.

If junglefowl are chickens, then wolves are dogs, aurochs are oxen, etc... Again, there are excellent teachers here on BYC who can help people understand this better.

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I am educated. I have a Ph.D. in earth science and have taught high school biology. Wolves are dogs (both are the genus Canis) and Aurochs are oxen (both are the genus Bos). Wolves and dogs both contain the same genetic information and both Aurochs and Oxen contain the same genetic information. The difference is not one of genetics but of selective breeding to bring to the front certain characteristics that lays within that genetic information. This is simple biology.

Frankly, I don't believe you. No scientist would say that.

An ox is any steer that has been trained for at least six years at pulling a cart. I do not know any aurochs that fit that description, do you?

I do not want to get into a debate over this. I did not realize people were so defensive about words here. I hope my suggestions have been helpful to the OP. That is all.

First, aurochs are extinct, but they still have DNA present in domestic cattle. If wolves went extinct, they would still have DNA present in dogs like sled dogs. They could be recreated in essence but would never be the real thing. Heck's cattle are a representation of aurochs made from existing domestic cattle. Hatchery Red Jungle Fowl are basically the same thing. Red jungle fowl are often tainted with domestic chicken because people have been living with domestic chickens in their home range longer than any other place on earth. In fact, some of the purer strain of red jungle fowl come from South Carolina where they were stocked for an experimental game species, they have been tainted less than Red Jungle Fowl living in their native habitat. You may be confused by thinking of green junglefowl or Ceylon junglefowl, which are a pure and separate strain of chicken than most domestic chickens. The original mention of Junglefowl in this thread was as a suggestion for a hardy chicken breed for Florida. Neither the green or Ceylon would work well for this as they are very delicate outside of their home range and require intensive care to get them to thrive and breed. Not that people aren't doing it, but for the input and expense required you wouldn't want to eat any of the eggs or meat.

HeritageGoose13 said:

Frankly, I don't believe you. No scientist would say that.

An ox is any steer that has been trained for at least six years at pulling a cart. I do not know any aurochs that fit that description, do you?

I do not want to get into a debate over this. I did not realize people were so defensive about words here. I hope my suggestions have been helpful to the OP. That is all.

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I have not found BYC members to be defensive except when they are labeled by such insults as "uneducated" or "liars." Whether or not you believe me is irrelevant, but it is a fool who makes accusations (such as being uneducated or a liar) without knowing the facts. Given a herd of Aurochs (if they were still around) and enough time, cart pulling oxen could be produced through the selective breeding of generations of offspring. However, as you say, the important thing here is helping the OP.

to Michael OShay