Am I the only one who gets REALLY annoyed with breed names...???

[KCNC06]

I'll start this ranting ramble by acknowledging the fact that I am indeed odd. I know that I get annoyed by things that do not annoy the average person. (For example a comedian who used the words "balm" and "bomb" in his routine and called them "homonymns" when he should have used "homophone"... annoyed me so much I couldn't watch the rest of his routine. Luckily I was just watching this on tv, I can't imagine what would have happened if I had seen this live.)

Anyway. My annoyance about people labeling chicken breeds with names that just plain don't make sense. I can understand with people who are new to chickens, I've been very confused about what breed of chicken I happened to pick up...but even with newbies, use some common sense. A friend of mine got her first chicks a few weeks ago and was told that the chicks were Rhode Island Reds. Here's a picture of one of the chicks:

She didn't seem to believe me when I told her those were not RIR's...unless they were some sort of freakish albino RIR's. Maybe Rhode Island Whites, but those are quite rare from what I understand.

Then this morning I'm on our local Cooperative Extension website and find their backyard chicken publication. I didn't get past the "Chicken Identification Chart for Cover Images" before I was so annoyed that I had to stop reading.

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/poulsci/tech_manuals/Backyard_Chickens.pdf

Chicken #3 - I may be confused...are there other colorings of Australorps than black?
Chicken #6 - A Brahma with featherless legs...maybe she shaves?
Chicken #9 - "Bantam".... (this was the first one to annoy me in the list actually)... Okay, it may be a bantam sized chicken...but what breed is it?

I completely understand the average chicken hobbiest not knowing the difference between different breeds. I still have a few youngsters that I haven't quite figured out yet myself. But this document from the Cooperative Extension is supposed to have been created by professionals in the agriculture/poultry field!! ARGH!!

And now that I have proven that I am absolutely insane by getting this annoyed by something so silly...I'll go back to work now.

 

[greeneggsnham]

If it's a newbie to poultry I understand making mistakes in names. I was once unaware of most of the diffrent breeds myself and it was easy to get confused. But for someone who is supposed to be an expert on chickens or to even tell others what kind they have, they should check their information before publishing something so many look to for aid. It does bug me at times but I try to brush it off.

 

[dancingbear]

I get bugged by that sort of thing, too. I may even be a touch OCD-ish about it. I think you should email the Cooperative Extension, and tell them about the errors. They may have had somebody, who's not an expert on breeds, look up the info and copy it for the web page. If nobody checked it closely, just gave it quick glance, they'd probably say, "Oh yeah, that looks nice, good job!" I can see how that could easily happen, in a busy office.

In this months issue of Countryside Magazine and Small Stock Journal, the assistant editor made completely incorrect statements about hybrids. She said all hybrid seeds are genetically engineered. They're not. They're naturally bred hybrids, and this is part of the process of developing new strains, that later can become open pollinated varieties. There are GMO seeds out there, a lot, in fact, but a hybrid is not the same thing.

This same woman also advised somebody to pressure can a pickled tomato recipe, because it might not be acidic enough to be safe, because it was a revised recipe. It's tomatoes and vinegar, for cryin' out loud! In another comment to a another reader's letter, she said that most people successfully hot bath tomatoes, pickles, and sauerkraut in a closed kettle, but everything else should be pressure canned. I guess she's never heard of fruit, fruit syrup, jellies, jams, and preserves. Or adding citric acid, lemon juice, or vinegar to raise the acidity to a safe level for canning.

If you're crazy, I guess I am, too. These errors made it hard for me to enjoy the rest of the magazine, because now I know there's nobody steering who has a clue what's correct and what isn't. Every article I read, I was wondering which parts were wrong info. Countryside is sort of a reference source for a lot of people learning how to do things, and it just seems to me, the editing staff should know to check facts, before they make statements in print.

I have the same problem with the news, when there are such glaring errors in every broadcast, and often, the newscasters themselves say things that make no sense whatsoever. I guess a lot of people don't even notice. That's a sad commentary in itself.

 

[debilorrah]

If that is all you have to worry about in this life, trade me places, please.

 

[SilverPhoenix]

It doesn't bother me too terribly much most of the time, but I can't help but be irked when people just say a chicken is a "bantam" or a "banty" when I ask what breed it is, or that is listed as the breed. Yes, it is a bantam, but that is not a breed! There are tons of breeds of bantams! I know it's just people not knowing better and it's technically not incorrect for them to say it's a bantam, but for some reason it drives me up the wall! Especially when they act miffed when I say politely that a bantam is a size category of chicken, not a breed, and then they insist it IS a breed.

Ah, the silly things that bother us...

 

[verity]

Ditto to debiraymond's reply!

Unless you are buying, breeding, or judging the chickens what difference could it make?

and why did this bother ME enough that I felt the need to respond!!???

 

[agnes_day]

Quote:
oh i know it. must be nice.

 

[BeccaOH]

I get you, KCNC06. I don't know all there is to know about chicken breeds, but I would appreciate someone or a group claiming expertise to get their facts correct. There is enough banding about untruths as it is in chickendom without adding to the confusion. If I see obvious errors in an article or otherwise I'll pass it up as just another person trying to look important who ended up looking like a fool for not researching or testing their facts. It is just sad when someone believes them and gets misled.

Of course there are greater issues in life to worry about. We all know that too.

 

[KCNC06]

Oh, if only things like this were all I had to worry about. Not that I really "worry" about them, I just found it annoying (on top of all the other annoyances of the morning) and figured sharing/venting would get it off my chest.

I think there are a couple reasons silly little things like that bother me. First, I think that it's hard for people to learn if they're getting incorrect or inaccurate information. I enjoy learning, probably even more than I did when I was in school. Maybe part of my problem there is because I was raised by a teacher, Mom was a bit of a stickler for getting things right. Second, I tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to my work and will put quite a bit of time and effort into a project to make sure it comes out to be the best I'm able to do. If I don't find my mistakes I'm sure someone else will. I'd rather find them myself!

Yes...the silly things that annoy us.

 

[agnes_day]

oh god, my husband, who i love more than anything is like this...he can be the worlds biggest know it all, and it drives me crazy!