A Heritage of Perfection: Standard-bred Large Fowl

[snowbird]

Dave Anderson with the APA has showed some lately. They look very nice. Don

 

[Fowlisfair]

Greetings!
After loosing my flock of Silver Laced Wyandottes to an ambitious Bobcat, I am looking for a breed to fill the gap. I really enjoyed the Wyandottes, but I inherited the flock from my father and am now searching for a breed of my own. Some breed's of interest are: the Silver Grey Dorking, the American Dominique, and the Java fowl.
As you may have ascertained, I am looking for a dual purpose breed of historical significance. Other traits I am interested in are broodiness and the ability to raise a clutch of chickens, foraging qualities, and cocks that have good reputations as hawk fighters. Which of these breeds might fit the bill? Also, which of these breeds is in more dire straits? I am not a stranger to breeding poultry, nor livestock in general. Though I did not show my Wyandottes, my father did and with some success, and I adhered to the SOP rigidly in my breeding selections. I would like to take on a breed that as a whole needs some dedicated breeders. I know the Dominique has a few established breeders who have shown them with success. What of the others? Do you feel that Dorkings or the Java are in more need than the Dominiques?
Thank you for your time,
Dick Boechman

 

[neopolitancrazy]

Greetings!
After loosing my flock of Silver Laced Wyandottes to an ambitious Bobcat, I am looking for a breed to fill the gap....
Thank you for your time,
Dick Boechman

Have you predator-proofed your poultry pens? It seems a little wasteful to feed rare breed poultry to the wildlife.
Best wishes,
Angela

 

[bnjrob]

Greetings!
After loosing my flock of Silver Laced Wyandottes to an ambitious Bobcat, I am looking for a breed to fill the gap. I really enjoyed the Wyandottes, but I inherited the flock from my father and am now searching for a breed of my own. Some breed's of interest are: the Silver Grey Dorking, the American Dominique, and the Java fowl.
As you may have ascertained, I am looking for a dual purpose breed of historical significance. Other traits I am interested in are broodiness and the ability to raise a clutch of chickens, foraging qualities, and cocks that have good reputations as hawk fighters. Which of these breeds might fit the bill? Also, which of these breeds is in more dire straits? I am not a stranger to breeding poultry, nor livestock in general. Though I did not show my Wyandottes, my father did and with some success, and I adhered to the SOP rigidly in my breeding selections. I would like to take on a breed that as a whole needs some dedicated breeders. I know the Dominique has a few established breeders who have shown them with success. What of the others? Do you feel that Dorkings or the Java are in more need than the Dominiques?
Thank you for your time,
Dick Boechman

Hard to say which breed may need more serious breeders - honestly I think they all do.

I would have to say that if you don't yet have a true preference, things like how long you are willing to wait/how far you're willing to go in order to get stock may help you decide. Also are you willing to take lesser quality/mediocre stock and improve it or are you adamant about wanting stock that has been greatly improved before you get it and can you find a breeder with that improved stock? I get plenty of people that want Javas from me, but they often are either unwilling to wait until I have some available - they think I run a hatchery and have birds available to buy all the time - or they aren't willing to drive more than 50 miles to get them. So they move on to other breeds because they weren't as vested in getting Javas as they originally thought.

We raise Javas. Yes, they are quite historical and their history is very contentious still today. I continue to do historical research on them and find the anecdotes in antique poultry literature fascinating.

Broody - sometimes we have difficulty getting the amount of eggs we want for hatching because we have so many broody hens. Most other people have reported broody Javas as well.

Because Javas are not easily obtained if there are losses, we have not yet allowed our hens to hatch and raise their own chicks - can't risk losing birds when trying to get more of them on the ground and make some more major improvements, so I can't tell you my experience with their mothering abilities after hatch. I do know of some less serious breeders that allow their Javas to hatch and raise young or raise other hens' chicks and they have reported Javas to be good mothers. A friend of mine has a hen from my flock that does well with hatching and raising chicks, even when they are not her own.

Foraging - our Javas forage a great deal when they are allowed to free range. However if you leave feed readily accessible, they will forage in the food bin too. With our unsupervised free rangers, when we moved their feed to hang inside their house, rather than in the run, they GREATLY decreased the amount of feed they were eating and they spend the vast majority of their time foraging and using the donkey watering troughs instead of going back to their run periodically for food and water. They will also forage in your garden if it is accessible to them.

Hawk fighters? Some are, some aren't. We've lost a cock to a hawk and we've lost a cock to coyotes. The cock that is currently with our unsupervised free rangers is still alive, despite hawk and coyote attacks, because he chooses to lead his hens to safety and runs away from the predator threat. I think whether they fight or not is really immaterial. A cock that fights may give his flock enough time to get away, or it may not - depends on the situation. Sometimes I think it is better for them to lead the flock to safety rather than have hens freaking out and running in all directions where they can become easier targets.

We also butcher our Javas. They do take time to grow but we don't expect them to be like commercial meat poultry. There is a good deal of thigh meat on them, we're slowly working on improving breast meat. We have not yet butchered any of the birds that were chosen to be the best and used for breeding, so my experience has only been with the runts and other culls. The taste is excellent, I roast the meat as well as cut it off the bone and use it, and I grind it to use in place of ground beef.

It's hard and frustrating some days with our Javas, because there are so many things that need worked on. We also have multiple colors and bloodlines to keep separate, and multiple cocks to mate with to keep more diversity in the groups, so we hatch in smaller quantities - making improvements go kinda slow sometimes. But we have seen improvements in the three years we've been seriously breeding, both with changing husbandry techniques as well as breeding selection. Trying to breed to both the SOP and for good production also slows things down. But it's doable and we're quite pleased with our Javas.

Javas do need serious breeders. There are a lot of people that have gotten on the Java bandwagon but I've found that many of them are only interested in playing with the new non-SOP color varieties and very few are actually serious about breeding to any kind of standard whether it's the SOP or breeding strictly for production. Would love to see another person seriously breed Javas.

 

[DesertChic]

Greetings!
After loosing my flock of Silver Laced Wyandottes to an ambitious Bobcat, I am looking for a breed to fill the gap. I really enjoyed the Wyandottes, but I inherited the flock from my father and am now searching for a breed of my own. Some breed's of interest are: the Silver Grey Dorking, the American Dominique, and the Java fowl.
As you may have ascertained, I am looking for a dual purpose breed of historical significance. Other traits I am interested in are broodiness and the ability to raise a clutch of chickens, foraging qualities, and cocks that have good reputations as hawk fighters. Which of these breeds might fit the bill? Also, which of these breeds is in more dire straits? I am not a stranger to breeding poultry, nor livestock in general. Though I did not show my Wyandottes, my father did and with some success, and I adhered to the SOP rigidly in my breeding selections. I would like to take on a breed that as a whole needs some dedicated breeders. I know the Dominique has a few established breeders who have shown them with success. What of the others? Do you feel that Dorkings or the Java are in more need than the Dominiques?
Thank you for your time,
Dick Boechman

Based on my personal experience and exposure, the Silver Grey Dorking and the Javas seem to be in the most desperate need of more focused breeding. I'm hoping to start with some breeder quality SGDs this next year as the hatching eggs I purchased this year were very disappointing and carried mixed Dorkings instead of pure (I've got hybrid red, colored and silver-grey...none of which even approach SOP). It's been very difficult to find quality, pure birds to start working with. I've found a couple local breeders of Javas, but nobody around my region are working with Dorkings. I'm hoping to be the first. Whichever breed you choose, I know you'll face many challenges...and rewards.

 

[Fowlisfair]

Have you predator-proofed your poultry pens? It seems a little wasteful to feed rare breed poultry to the wildlife.
Best wishes,
Angela

Yes. I have amended the issue. The offense occurred during a power outage, when the perimeter electric fence was uncharged. Car batter is now in place. Also, the bobcat now adorns my study.

 

[MagicChicken]

Greetings!
After loosing my flock of Silver Laced Wyandottes to an ambitious Bobcat, I am looking for a breed to fill the gap. I really enjoyed the Wyandottes, but I inherited the flock from my father and am now searching for a breed of my own. Some breed's of interest are: the Silver Grey Dorking, the American Dominique, and the Java fowl.
As you may have ascertained, I am looking for a dual purpose breed of historical significance. Other traits I am interested in are broodiness and the ability to raise a clutch of chickens, foraging qualities, and cocks that have good reputations as hawk fighters. Which of these breeds might fit the bill? Also, which of these breeds is in more dire straits? I am not a stranger to breeding poultry, nor livestock in general. Though I did not show my Wyandottes, my father did and with some success, and I adhered to the SOP rigidly in my breeding selections. I would like to take on a breed that as a whole needs some dedicated breeders. I know the Dominique has a few established breeders who have shown them with success. What of the others? Do you feel that Dorkings or the Java are in more need than the Dominiques?
Thank you for your time,
Dick Boechman

I can only speak about the Javas, because that is what I have been working with for the last three years. They need work. A lot of work.

My first Black Javas came from Duane Urch in Minnesota - a straight run of 25 day-old chicks. They were robust birds that needed a lot of work to get to Standard. All of the elements were there, it has just been a matter of getting those elements combined into one bird. That is no easy task!

I was making decent progress with them when some dogs got into my yard and wiped out the good birds. Was left with the layer flock, which were the birds who hadn't made the cut as breeders. The cock who is still in with the layers ultimately survived three dog attacks before I figured out how the dogs were getting in. (Who knew a dog could squeeze through a six inch square hole??) The birds who survived were the ones who ran away. After dogmageddon I no longer had all the genetic elements necessary to make progress in my lifetime, so I purchased a trio of Black Javas from a local breeder who has been working with his line for several years. He started with hatchery birds and doesn't know the origin of his line. His birds have done well at small local shows. This year I devoted to test hatches of various line combinations. I have been eating a lot of chicken. But I also have a couple of young birds who show promise. Things are looking up.

Several of my birds have gone broody. I let one set on eggs as an experiment. She was a fabulous mother. Unfortunately she also dropped dead for no apparent reason when she was about 18 months old so I wasn't able to take advantage of her skills more than once. She is the only Java I've had who died with no explanation.

My experience with Javas has been similar to Bnjrob's. They are smart, they forage well, and they will decimate a garden in nothing flat. I have no weeds since the chickens started free-ranging. I also have fencing around everything I want to keep green. Even the potted plants. Between the chickens, the rabbits, and the ground squirrels it is hard to keep any plant alive.

All of my surviving Javas are predator-wary. I hear their "aerial predator" warning several times a day. The broody-raised chicks responded to that warning when they were only a couple of days old and still in the coop. I was impressed. After the Java chicks get big enough they don't seem to be at much risk from the hawks here. That might not be the case elsewhere. My Java cocks will stand up to a Coopers hawk. Don't know how they would react to anything bigger.

The 12-16 week old cockerels roast up well. They would probably grill well too. Those young birds are all leg. By the time their breast meat develops they are tough as can be, and take several hours of stewing before you can get a fork into them. On the other hand, their meat still has a lot of flavor after several hours of stewing, and there is a lot of meat on a 1 year old cock. I have yet to eat a hen.

My biggest frustration with Javas is that so many people jump on the Java bandwagon and then pay no attention whatsoever to the Standard. Javas really need more serious breeders. Especially the Black Javas.

Forget which breed needs more work. The real question is: Which breed do you love so much you don't mind how long it may take to improve them? You have to get some enjoyment out of being around the imperfect little devils, because it's likely to be a long, long time before they are placing well in shows. If you don't love being around them there's not much point in raising them. Which is another reason the Black Javas need work - people tend to like flashy looking chickens, and they don't realize how flashy a good Black Java can be. Yes, Black Javas need a lot of help. But you need to pick the breed you like hanging out with, because it's likely to be a long, uphill battle to get them into shape. Whatever breed you pick.

Good luck!

 

[bnjrob]

My biggest frustration with Javas is that so many people jump on the Java bandwagon and then pay no attention whatsoever to the Standard. Javas really need more serious breeders. Especially the Black Javas.

Forget which breed needs more work. The real question is: Which breed do you love so much you don't mind how long it may take to improve them? You have to get some enjoyment out of being around the imperfect little devils, because it's likely to be a long, long time before they are placing well in shows. If you don't love being around them there's not much point in raising them. Which is another reason the Black Javas need work - people tend to like flashy looking chickens, and they don't realize how flashy a good Black Java can be. Yes, Black Javas need a lot of help. But you need to pick the breed you like hanging out with, because it's likely to be a long, uphill battle to get them into shape. Whatever breed you pick.

Good luck!

Ain't that the truth?! You really have to love them to see their potential and keep working with them even when you don't feel like you're making any progress. Of course if a person doesn't care about breeding to the SOP, then things are a lot simpler.

 

[DesertChic]

I can only speak about the Javas, because that is what I have been working with for the last three years. They need work. A lot of work.

My first Black Javas came from Duane Urch in Minnesota - a straight run of 25 day-old chicks. They were robust birds that needed a lot of work to get to Standard. All of the elements were there, it has just been a matter of getting those elements combined into one bird. That is no easy task!

I was making decent progress with them when some dogs got into my yard and wiped out the good birds. Was left with the layer flock, which were the birds who hadn't made the cut as breeders. The cock who is still in with the layers ultimately survived three dog attacks before I figured out how the dogs were getting in. (Who knew a dog could squeeze through a six inch square hole??) The birds who survived were the ones who ran away. After dogmageddon I no longer had all the genetic elements necessary to make progress in my lifetime, so I purchased a trio of Black Javas from a local breeder who has been working with his line for several years. He started with hatchery birds and doesn't know the origin of his line. His birds have done well at small local shows. This year I devoted to test hatches of various line combinations. I have been eating a lot of chicken. But I also have a couple of young birds who show promise. Things are looking up.

Several of my birds have gone broody. I let one set on eggs as an experiment. She was a fabulous mother. Unfortunately she also dropped dead for no apparent reason when she was about 18 months old so I wasn't able to take advantage of her skills more than once. She is the only Java I've had who died with no explanation.

My experience with Javas has been similar to Bnjrob's. They are smart, they forage well, and they will decimate a garden in nothing flat. I have no weeds since the chickens started free-ranging. I also have fencing around everything I want to keep green. Even the potted plants. Between the chickens, the rabbits, and the ground squirrels it is hard to keep any plant alive.

All of my surviving Javas are predator-wary. I hear their "aerial predator" warning several times a day. The broody-raised chicks responded to that warning when they were only a couple of days old and still in the coop. I was impressed. After the Java chicks get big enough they don't seem to be at much risk from the hawks here. That might not be the case elsewhere. My Java cocks will stand up to a Coopers hawk. Don't know how they would react to anything bigger.

The 12-16 week old cockerels roast up well. They would probably grill well too. Those young birds are all leg. By the time their breast meat develops they are tough as can be, and take several hours of stewing before you can get a fork into them. On the other hand, their meat still has a lot of flavor after several hours of stewing, and there is a lot of meat on a 1 year old cock. I have yet to eat a hen.

My biggest frustration with Javas is that so many people jump on the Java bandwagon and then pay no attention whatsoever to the Standard. Javas really need more serious breeders. Especially the Black Javas.

Forget which breed needs more work. The real question is: Which breed do you love so much you don't mind how long it may take to improve them? You have to get some enjoyment out of being around the imperfect little devils, because it's likely to be a long, long time before they are placing well in shows. If you don't love being around them there's not much point in raising them. Which is another reason the Black Javas need work - people tend to like flashy looking chickens, and they don't realize how flashy a good Black Java can be. Yes, Black Javas need a lot of help. But you need to pick the breed you like hanging out with, because it's likely to be a long, uphill battle to get them into shape. Whatever breed you pick.

Good luck!

Do you show your birds? I ask because when I attended my first poultry show at the Tucson fairgrounds this past year I saw some gorgeous Black Javas there (at least, they looked gorgeous to my untrained eye). Were they yours, by any chance?

 

[MagicChicken]

 
I showed some the first year I had them so I could discuss their good and bad points with the judge and with other breeders. Haven't shown them since because they are not up to par. The gorgeous ones at local shows are usually Dan Pennington's, but there are a couple of other breeders with good birds too. The trio I picked up last fall was from Dan. Might show some this fall if the timing is right and the birds turn out okay. A couple of my initially promising birds from this year developed wry tail and became dinner. Watching the others closely. Did mostly test line crosses this year so I'm getting weird things popping up. (Which is why breeders recommend not crossing established lines.) You do what you've got to do. We'll see how it worked in a couple of years.

I can only speak about the Javas, because that is what I have been working with for the last three years. They need work.  A lot of work.

Do you show your birds? I ask because when I attended my first poultry show at the Tucson fairgrounds this past year I saw some gorgeous Black Javas there (at least, they looked gorgeous to my untrained eye). Were they yours, by any chance? 

Edited to add I'm not sure why my response wound up embedded in the top of the quote. ??