- Apr 2, 2023
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Josephine was more black than white in her younger years. Some people kept telling me she was an Anacona but she wasn't.When I look at the bird in person, not just in a picture, she seems to be more white with black than black with white. I'm *assuming* that coloration is the primary way large hatcheries differentiate them; that they throw the birds who are more dark in with the Ancona breeders and the ones who are lighter in with the Exchequer breeders. There is such wild variation with other genetics when it comes to hatchery birds that I'm less comfortable relying on those things.
For example, how many hatchery 'dominiques' have single combs because there's not been an effort to make all the parent birds homogeneous for rose comb gene? And thinking of the wild size variations I've seen in different hatchery birds of the same breed, I'm not comfortable judging on that, either.
An aside: It is temperament that really is turning me off from large hatcheries (my cockerel from a show line is better with the hens than ANY of the half-dozen hatchery cockerels I've had), but the loose way that different breeds from hatcheries are so similar as to be indistinguishable is a close second reason.
Sorry, didn't mean to go on a rant, there!