A Heritage of Perfection: Standard-bred Large Fowl

[3riverschick]

Hints? Hints? I love hints! Come on Joseph, strain-cross? color-cross? concentrating on one virtue? How about a small hint? Then we can wear ourselves out playing the guessing game, smile.
I have often wondered what a real nice Light Sussex x White Dorking cross would look like on my end, not yours.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Y'all are doing just fine on the guessing game. You'd think you study or something ;-)

You know, Karen, the reality is (at least as far as I've understood it), is that each breed and variety seems to have a handful (if lucky) of breeders that safeguard it for another generation.

Recently I participated in a relatively exhaustive census of Mediterranean breeds, specifically standard-bred fowl. If what I saw is an indicator of poultry in general, and I imagine it is, then broodfowl in our breeds are rarer than we'd care to imagine. I imagine a shocking number of varieties in the SOP are eking forward with under 2 or 3 dozen breeder birds--or fewer--in North America.

Luckily, though, in so far as breed is (thankfully) defined by type, outcrossing and strain-crossing will allow those of us who would see these birds continue to do what is necessary to keep them as part of our collective present. I think a few breeds that are essentially redundant will die off; a few will be the victims of ignorant defamation, but I believe most will survive.

What I fear will be hard to maintain is quality. It takes quality to teach quality, and without a strong base of quality from which to learn, I fear that many breeders will head toward the mediocre and, along with them, the breeds with which they're working. My suspicion is that this is what has happen with the Dorking, and it's going to take some industrious thinking and doing to fix the lapsus.

 

[3riverschick]

Luckily, though, in so far as breed is (thankfully) defined by type, outcrossing and strain-crossing will allow those of us who would see these birds continue to do what is necessary to keep them as part of our collective present. I think a few breeds that are essentially redundant will die off; a few will be the victims of ignorant defamation, but I believe most will survive.
I am seriously considering a White Dorking/Light Sussex cross. I am worried about the Rosecomb issue. That could plague me for generations. Are your Dorking based on Silver or White genes? It is quite hard for a newcomer to breed that Sussex body. Most of what I am seeing online is larger overall birds with looser feathering. Thanks to the Aussie influence. A top elite judge is telling me he/she is seeing larger birds but no substance under the feathers, sigh. I need a solid bird with that Dorking breast. Sussex should be bottle shaped.

What I fear will be hard to maintain is quality. It takes quality to teach quality, and without a strong base of quality from which to learn, I fear that many breeders will head toward the mediocre and, along with them, the breeds with which they're working. My suspicion is that this is what has happen with the Dorking, and it's going to take some industrious thinking and doing to fix the lapsus.
Yes, I agree ...need quality to teach quality. I am such a small operation, it is not possible for me to hatch and raise more than 42 chicks each season and even that is stretching it. I need to "jump ahead" somehow and add a whole "packet" of needed genes into my birds in one fell swoop. I am talking structure here. Don't get me wrong, my birds have good structure. But they can always be better and structure,... so I read,... requires more selection among chicks than the number of chicks I can raise. Whatdoyathink, Joseph?
Best, Karen

 

[DesertChic]

Greetings, all!

My apologies for the drama and game-change.

Without boring you with the details, our last year was, for both of us, supercharged with professional responsibility. Several projects came to fruition at the same time, and although all positive, it was honestly overwhelming. Unrelated and yet the frosting on the cake, we had a grueling winter. It was unreal, and in what I thought was a clear-headed measured decision, I decided that I needed to downsize. Rob was in agreement.

Starting in March, though, things started to finish, projects were ending and successful, and by mid-May everything was wrapped up. No one had a heart-attack, and all's well that ends well. We hadn't hatched any Dorkings. We had tried to take orders, but the world wasn't working with that endeavor. It was time to disperse the flock. I mentioned it to Rob, and surprisingly, he was reticent. As the stress of work production cleared, it became clear that we would miss these birds with which we have worked for years. In the end, we realized that we did not need to downsize; we just needed a break. Likely we hadn't done away with the Dorkings before the realization. I also should admit that all of the kind words of concern were helpful.

We are, however, embarking on a specific project the details of which we'll discuss at a later date. It is a bid to make some drastic improvements in our stock. We are hopeful. To commence the endeavor, we have started some stock. Two out of three settings have hatched. Here are some pics from our first hatch. Be well! Joseph.

Hi Joseph,
So glad you decided to stay with the Dorkings! Looking forward to reading about your new project later. I took a break from my Light Sussex too this year. Busy at work, a lot of things going on. We have one chick hatched by a hen. Look like a cockerel. Last year I admit to being very discouraged by the cool reception accorded my lovely pure English strain LS when I offered them to the fancy at 4 months old. It had a lot to do with not breeding this year. But I have gotten past it and look forward to next year. If no one is interested in pure English LS, then I will just enjoy them myself, smile.
Best Success,
Karen

I'm also very happy and grateful you're continuing to work with Dorkings, though I certainly understand how life demands can weigh on our chicken endeavors. I look forward to hearing more about your future plans!

 

[neopolitancrazy]

Neapolitancrazy:

yes?????

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Karen, I did a White Dorking-Light Sussex cross about a decade ago. It works. It would take you two to three seasons to stabilize. In a couple of seasons, I should be able to send you chicks.

In the interim, your stock is looking good. I know exactly what you mean about the loose feathered shenanigans. Are you able to raise out 40 birds?

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
Quality is the reason I'm really glad Joseph is keeping his Dorkings. People need to see them, so they know what a good quality bird should look like. I love it when there are good quality birds in a show. They really stand out. I wish there were more competition in more breeds. It's sad that the background level of birds in some breeds is as poor as it is. People see a best of breed label at a show and think they're looking at a good bird when it's often the best of not much. It creates a downward spiral of expectations.

Karen, I totally agree with you on the looking bigger (fluffy feathers) versus solid weight, close-feathered birds. I'm doing that dance with my Black Javas. One line has nice long backs and relatively deep keels, but they tend to look larger than they are because their feathers are looser. My other line of Javas has short backs and look smaller, but they are actually heavier close-feathered birds. I am working toward a long-backed, heavy (a pound or so over standard weight), deep keeled, close-feathered bird. Been focusing on back lines and body shape. A couple of months ago I looked at the 65 chicks I hatched this spring and realized that they're all crow-headed with funky almond-shaped eyes. Urk. Some are less crow-headed than others. So now I'm selecting birds based on a combination of head shape, back length, and other characters. Darned glad they are black birds and I don't have feather pattern issues to deal with as well.

Hatching small numbers of chicks every 7-10 days over a 4-5 month period means I can't visually compare size as the chicks grow out, but it has made cockerel management easier. I didn't have enough space to grow out a lot of cockerels this year. As the cockerels become a problem in the grow-out pen I have been moving them into a small pen for observation. The small pen will hold 3-4 birds. I keep the best two and eat the others. Every week or two I put the next couple of troublemakers in, compare and cull. I have thirty birds in the grow-out pen now and it has been relatively peaceful. I can eat the culled cockerels as I go so I don't need a lot of freezer space. Using this selection method I can't really select for cockerel size at maturity. Size improvement will have to come from the pullets. But I might actually have a few birds worth showing in the fall. Time will tell.

 

[Wisher1000]

A few of the older cockerels

 

[Wisher1000]

These two are younger and not being considered for breeding, but I liked that they are showing more barring in their tails.

I know that all breeders go through laboring over decisions, but I feel that weight heavily on me all the time. I also know that the reasons for it's burden are that I want so badly to make decisions that are going to produce the most improvement (the quickest) and because I have so little experience in selective breeding that I am constantly second guessing myself. The birds are important to me. I want to do them justice, but more than that, I want to see that bird, the one in my mind's eye, actually in flesh, and in consistent numbers each season. It thrills me to look at my birds now, I can't imagine how it will feel then.

 

[troyer]

Quality is the reason I'm really glad Joseph is keeping his Dorkings. People need to see them, so they know what a good quality bird should look like. I love it when there are good quality birds in a show. They really stand out. I wish there were more competition in more breeds. It's sad that the background level of birds in some breeds is as poor as it is. People see a best of breed label at a show and think they're looking at a good bird when it's often the best of not much. It creates a downward spiral of expectations.

I have often agonized over what you just mentioned concerning the poor representation of a breed. I have often wished that a bird would at the very least need to be fairly good to be at a show. There are backyard breeders that call a white Dorking a white Dorking even if they looked more like an plump Leghorn, but were white.

I don't raise Dorkings, but I know the feeling when someone sells something as a certain breed and it hardly resembles the said breed at all. There are many breeds that need to have certain characteristics to even be called a specific breed name.

Backyard breeders that breed their favorites and most colorful ones are also important to the rest of us as far as helping to keep the freedom to breed and raise our fowl as the commercial farms and the government wants the shut down the self sufficient farmers.

Others have just as much right to raise weed monkeys as we have the right to breed straightbred stock.