B.Y.C. Dorking Club!

[vnsseed]

We made a decision this week... we really want to focus on our Red Dorkings. So we are getting rid of our other breeds, sans the Dominiques (oh, and my son's Nankins ). Our main focus is going to be on the Dorkings. We just bought a Dickeys cabinet incubator, so we have the ability to hatch great numbers and keep the best. We have SC Red Dorkings from "TOL chick" (who, as I understand, got them from Roger Tice lines) & the same from Dick Horstman. I am hoping we have a good start.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

How old was the rooster? Weight?

Off hand guess, 24 weeks and 4/lbs. This is our current norm more or less.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

We made a decision this week... we really want to focus on our Red Dorkings. So we are getting rid of our other breeds, sans the Dominiques (oh, and my son's Nankins ). Our main focus is going to be on the Dorkings. We just bought a Dickeys cabinet incubator, so we have the ability to hatch great numbers and keep the best. We have SC Red Dorkings from "TOL chick" (who, as I understand, got them from Roger Tice lines) & the same from Dick Horstman. I am hoping we have a good start.

Welcome to the dark side!

 

[dorkings]

We made a decision this week... we really want to focus on our Red Dorkings. So we are getting rid of our other breeds, sans the Dominiques (oh, and my son's Nankins ). Our main focus is going to be on the Dorkings. We just bought a Dickeys cabinet incubator, so we have the ability to hatch great numbers and keep the best. We have SC Red Dorkings from "TOL chick" (who, as I understand, got them from Roger Tice lines) & the same from Dick Horstman. I am hoping we have a good start.

Good luck, I'm sure you will do great. We are focusing only on Silver Gray Dorkings.

 

[007medic]

"Roughly 4 lbs at 24 weeks"? On cockerels that are expected to make 8 lbs on or by about 36 weeks? Are you still working on size or is the line just slower to mature? By what time should one expect to be achieving target cockerel weight? 6mo? 9mo? Don't get me wrong, I know not all birds are created equal and many birds even from the same hatch will grow out at varying rates only to finish roughly about at the same size. Some of my heritage dual purpose birds 'make weight' earlier than others and if I were breeding for a line or strain to butcher early, I'd select for it (in doing so, I'd most likely lose some other desirable quality at it's expense like getting 200+ eggs a year, or broodiness, or...well, you get the idea). Even so, it has been my experience that "earlier finishers" tend to be the birds that will have greatest size at 1 year. In serial weights taken at 8,12, 16 and 20 weeks paired with hands on evaluation inspecting skull width, heart girth, keel/pelvis spread, one can make some good educated guesses as to who's gonna be goin' to freezer camp and who's headed for the breeding pens. Is it just everyone is working on size in general with Dorkings?

J

 

[ki4got]

according to the SOP i got a copy of (old, but don't think it's changed?) size on whites is 6.5 for cockerels and 7.5 for cocks, and 5 & 6 for pullet/hens... the silver grey, red, and colored are larger, 8 & 9 for cockerel/cock and 6 & 7 for pullet/hen.

sounds pretty dead on to me... course this is coming from someone who hasn't weighed any of her sg's yet...

and on another note, i had incubator issues, and had a disappointing hatch, but i have my first red cockerel today. added to the silver grey cockerel that hatched out day before yesterday... brings my dorking numbers up to... 7 cockerels now, and still 10 hens/pullets and holding, with 1 mature roo. oldest pullet is getting ready to lay tho, she's been in the nest every afternoon for the last week.

 

[poultrypalacewhidbey]

to 007medic: Dorkings in general are a slow developing breed and in general from what I have heard most dorkings are on the low side of the standard weights nowadays. Also according to most old poultry books white dorkings were always lighter than silver-grays or reds. I dont expect my silver grays to make a certain weight by a certain age but instead weight the birds at certain intervals and keep track of which ones are the heaviest. I have not found that my birds that grow the quickest end up being the heaviest. Some of the quicker growers seem to stop growing earlier and the slower growers eventually pass them in weight. There are many breeds of poultry, such as muscovy ducks that can take up to 18 months to reach standard weights and given that dorkings are a dual purpose breed and have not been used as a commercial or production type breed for a long time I think that they should not be expected to reach their standard weights as fast as breeds that are bred more for meat. I personally am selecting for size heavily at this point in my breeding program but I am not doing this at the expense of all other traits. My current policy is to cull the lower 50% of weights and then cull from there based on multiple different characteristics including weight but only as one of several characteristics. In just two years using this technique I have seen an increase in size accompanied by better color and type. I think that in two more years almost 100% all of the birds i will be hatching will be within the acceptable range for standard weight, with many at or above the standard weight. I think about 85% of the birds I kept from last year will make the minimum standard weight although i am not sure they will make their cockerel/pullet weights on the same schedule that one would expect from a faster developing breed. Most are about 8 months old now and some have made minimum weight and others have not. They are definitely still growing though and the birds from my 2010 hatch kept growing until they were 18 monthes old.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Well, there's a lot to get one's head around. Currently our cockerels born this time last year are between 8 and 9 1/4 pounds. But that's live weight. Dressed weight is a different beast. At six months, they probably weigh live weight up to six pounds and then dress out to between 4 and 4/12 pounds.

Dorkings are not the birds of corporate business and never have been. Although early maturity is a good thing, it needs to be early maturity within the confines of breed character. Dorkings are a capon breed. Thats what they're built for. If I slaughter them at 10 months, they're approaching 6lbs/dressed without actually caponizing. If you consider the carcass, our strain is rather meaty, and the meat is of high quality. This is the goal. Big is just big. Cochins are as stringing as turkey.

The push towards early maturity has to do with the emmergence of 20th century corporate agriculture, the NH being the first breed that truly illustrates that push. They're a great breed, but they're not a Dorking and vice versa. If one is interested in maturity rate then NH's or Delawares should really be the focus of one's push. It would ravage Dorkings to try to do the same to them besides wherein would be the value? It would take years of selection pressure, and it would still be redundant.

If we consult the cook books of years ago when heritage fowl was still the norm. One notices quickly that the usual size required for recipes is 3 1/2/lbs, often 2- 2 1/2./lbs. Only when one is seeing a roasting recipe will one see a requirement for a bird over 4/lbs. The next step is capons.

We have been groomed to assume that bigger is better, but such is often not the case. The Standard of the Whites was changed. They were originally smaller with meat of very high quality. We now breed for a larger bird, but at the time that the shift was being pushed, poultrymen of the time were warning that an increase in size might very well alter the quality of the meat and for what? Big over good? It is an interesting study in priorities.

Now, as for live weight, I have of late been discussing all of these issues with a breeder from Canada who's been working with Dorkings for over 40 years. He is adamant that a Dorking isn't a Dorking until he's two years old. Now, on an interesting note, he asserts that there's a window at about 13 weeks when a Dorking will show you what he's destined to become. This makes a bit of sense to me. I'm going to pay close attention this year to feed curiosity.

 

[capayvalleychick]

Now, as for live weight, I have of late been discussing all of these issues with a breeder from Canada who's been working with Dorkings for over 40 years. He is adamant that a Dorking isn't a Dorking until he's two years old. Now, on an interesting note, he asserts that there's a window at about 13 weeks when a Dorking will show you what he's destined to become.

This sounds more like what Phil Bartz used to say to me. The old timers weren't in such a hurry with their Dorkings.

Who is this breeder and can you elaborate on what to look for at the 13 week point?

Thanks,
Kim

 

[poultrypalacewhidbey]

I am also interested in this 13 wk point. I dont think dorkings were ever used for production in the modern sense that we think of now a days as YHF mentions, by commercial or production I meant small farm. I know some older folks that I have met who remember small mixed farms ranging dorkings on pasture for eventual sale as meat birds, but that is in a totally different realm than even the pasture raised poultry of today. Most of these people I am referring to were basically subsistence farmers so they were not even supplementally feeding the birds with grains or planting special forage crops for them, so even today's pasture raising methods are a entirely different deal than in the 20's or 30's.