Greetings! Breeding for vigor, productivity, as well as to the Standard should all be possible. What it comes down to is numbers. In order to take a breed to the limit, especially a rare breed, it is necessary to hatch in numbers in order to insure a broad base of selection.
For better or for worse, the only way is focus and discipline. If you look at all of the primary show-stoppers and production staples--White Runners, Barred and White Rocks, Brown and White Leghorns, Buff Orpingtons, Black Autralorps, Pekins, RI Reds, etc... they all have in common that they have been bred exclusively and continuosly by breeders and farmers for whom they are the signature. If one wishes to have half a dozen breeds, or even varieties of one breed, one will have nothing in comparison to that which is to be had by those who narrow their scope and go deep as opposed to shallow.
I don't think that people always like to hear this. I know that when I began to breed poultry again, I didn't want it to be true. Nevertheless, it is, and the experience of generations of breeders emphasize this. It is a numbers game. If you can only hatch fifty to a hundred chicks, and you want to have top quality stock, you need to restrict your efforts to one breed and variety, or you will not arrive at your goal.
I know that at first it sounds circumscribing--how could I possibly live with only one breed (!!!), but, when you're focused on one breed per, say, 100 chicks hatched, you are then free to cull with profligacy. Picture it: you need five cockerels for the following breeding season. Of your 100 to 150 chicks hatched you have 50 to 75 cockerels. You only need five. You go through your cockerel pen and get rid of 30 males in an afternoon because they're too small, and you still have dozens to choose from. Furthermore, for those thinking you don't have the space, you don't have to raise them all to adulthood, when you have many cockerels, you can start to cull significantly at, say, eight weeks--they're great spatchcocked--12 weeks is even better if you have the space to wait.
If you only want to raise fifty chicks a year, but you need three breeds, you'll always only have hatchery stock, and none of the breeds will improve markedly under your care. Consider the Buckeye, about which everyone now raves, a decade ago it was nowhere. Five years of concentrated breeding completely turned it around, an absolute about face. Buckeyes are lucky; they only exist on one color variety. From a certain point of view, Dorkings suffer by being available in too many color varieties such that no one focuses sufficiently.
In their deep history, Dorkings are definitely White and speculatively Red. Around the middle of the 1800's Siver Greys and Coloreds become important. All of these varieties exist historically in both rose and single comb. Early on, the Whites started to lean heavily toward the rose comb. All of the other color varieties--cuckoo, black, dark grey, etc...--are marginal in population and cultural importance, which does not mean that I disrespect them. It is their simple historicity.
The Dorking Standard is written well, indeed, very well. It is written for a productive, meaty, and hardy bird, which is something for which we as Dorking breeders can be grateful, as I don't think this is true of all written Standards.
Think about this for a while, and then consider the stock you have. No matter which variety you choose, it is going to be several years before it's solidly up to the standard. That's OK, but your continued efforts will bear fruit.
Hardiness will come as each generation of your birds is built on your land. Suffer no illness. If a bird shows sign of illness, cull it immediately. You will literally cull sickness out of your flock. Indelible hardiness in a line comes from a standard of culling against which there are no excuses.
Purebred and Standard-bred Dorkings--hardy and productive--are true Dorkings, and little by little we can get them to that point.
Cheers!
The eggs did very well considering the scorching heat they were shipped in.
