Chris I don't understand and maybe I'm reading your comments wrong. Appreciate all the discussion but too much for me to take in all at once on one subject need some time to absorb it!
I wanted to bring up one final point though on the color of the male. When you said there was no mention of the lighter bars being wider in the standard my first thought was "wasn't there" but I looked and sure enough you're right. Perhaps my recollection was coming instead from this letter that was the suggested standard from those Dominique breeders that wished the standard to be revised away from the coarse, evenly barred birds around the turn of the 20th century...
... Plumage slate, feathers in all sections of the fowl crossed throughout their entire length by irregular dark and light bands, that are never black nor white; each feather tipped with dark, free from shafting, brownish tinge or metallic sheen; the light bands being wider than the dark and so arranged as to produce a surface color of an even lace-like appearance throughout the male, and a slightly coarser dappled appearance in the female; ...
And in the official document later sent in they specifically stated that a single mating was only needed to produce the desired colors.
Someone mentioned not breeding to what was hatching, I agree, but I also recognize that this breed like so many others has changed over its history. For me, these suggestions by the breeders of the early 1900s will be the most accurate description of what I think of when I think of what a beautiful pair of Dominiques would look like. The changes between the suggestion and the printed standard may seem so slight that no issue might arise unless a detailed discussion such as this one comes up on a showroom floor . I'd rather lose the placing to a darker male and have the bird closer to what those breeders described instead of a ribbon any day of the week and twice on Sundays if it came down to that.
I wanted to bring up one final point though on the color of the male. When you said there was no mention of the lighter bars being wider in the standard my first thought was "wasn't there" but I looked and sure enough you're right. Perhaps my recollection was coming instead from this letter that was the suggested standard from those Dominique breeders that wished the standard to be revised away from the coarse, evenly barred birds around the turn of the 20th century...
... Plumage slate, feathers in all sections of the fowl crossed throughout their entire length by irregular dark and light bands, that are never black nor white; each feather tipped with dark, free from shafting, brownish tinge or metallic sheen; the light bands being wider than the dark and so arranged as to produce a surface color of an even lace-like appearance throughout the male, and a slightly coarser dappled appearance in the female; ...
And in the official document later sent in they specifically stated that a single mating was only needed to produce the desired colors.
Someone mentioned not breeding to what was hatching, I agree, but I also recognize that this breed like so many others has changed over its history. For me, these suggestions by the breeders of the early 1900s will be the most accurate description of what I think of when I think of what a beautiful pair of Dominiques would look like. The changes between the suggestion and the printed standard may seem so slight that no issue might arise unless a detailed discussion such as this one comes up on a showroom floor . I'd rather lose the placing to a darker male and have the bird closer to what those breeders described instead of a ribbon any day of the week and twice on Sundays if it came down to that.