B.Y.C. Dorking Club!

[Unusually]

Mrs. AK-Bird-Brain :

Oops... I'm sorry, I should have mentioned that you have to watch them. They usually start weeping within the first 48 hours if they're going to. I'm so sorry...

Glad you caught them in time, though...

Hey no, I didn't mean anything by it.

It was worth a shot, but could have been VERY messy if I hadn't checked them.​

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Quote:
At this time, they are not. And truth be told, they're a far cry from Standard quality. Their typ and size are WAY off. It would probably take a very serious breeder a bit of time to get them there. It would probably mean crossing B;ack cocks onto the larges, typiest SG birds available followed by several generations of vigorous culling. Then, the requirements for Standardizing would have to be followed, which is a series of prescribed step including multiple breeders. Possible?--yes, Easieer said then do?--certainly.

At this point in the game, if I had a mixed bag of Dorkings, I'd use nothing but RC White males over the females and then cull everything babck to Whites with goog leg color for the subsequent generations.

 

[SoCal Dorkings]

Mrs. AK-Bird-Brain :

Quote:
I raise Dorkings in Alaska, and they have magnificent combs. Jeanne at Black Diamond Guest Ranch in Montana has Dorkings. At least I think she still does... google the ranch. She has weather almost as bad as ours.


And, on a happy note, I FINALLY have two dorking chicks under a broody... from my own rooster. Not sure what happened to change things... perhaps it was taking the girls away for a week or so that did it... but there's one boy and one girl.

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YAY!!! Happy for you

 

[capayvalleychick]

I'm trying to write up some info on the Dorking for the Expo. Every source that I look at has a different history written for them! I finally merged a bit from the SPPA, Dorking Club & Yellowhouse website and thought that it would be good enough. Then I looked at the ALBC description for the Dorking breed and it gives totally conflicting information to all the others!

So now I don't know what to write!

Kim

 

[Unusually]

I have 6 SG Dorking eggs in the 'bator now at day 8. I candled them and just one is not looking 'right', so hopefully the other 5 will continue to develop.
I also have another 10 to go in tomorrow along with 14 Barnevelder (double laced) eggs.
Chicks everywhere before I know it!

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Quote:
Hi Kim! Go to google books, and do a search for Dorkings. Many things are going to come up. The job will be piecing it all together. In a nutshell:

There is sepculative history and then more reliable, relatively recent history.

Speculatively, the Dorking comes from the Roman period via documentation with Columella. Positively, it all sounds great and is full of coincidences. Thus everyone lays claim to it as at least worthy of consideration. On the other hand, the fact that BBR and White birds (those referenced by Columella) are relatively universal patterns doesn't make one think that there could be no other possibility. Moreover, polydactyly--the fifth toe--can technically happen in any breed. Thus, the assertion that there were red and white blocky fowls with five toes in Rome at the time of Christ is on the one hand interesting but certainly not conclusive. Aldrovandi also makes mention of Dorking-esque birds for which claims are made.

In more recent history, since the 1700's my deductions from reading many old texts have been:

--The whites were the most prominent and were by far the most commented on in the early period.

--The whites were the basis for Dorking fame as excellent meat fowl.

--The original White Dorking was smaller and well meated with white ear lobes.

--The original white Dorking existed in both Rose and single comes, but the Rose comb was quickly coming to be the dominant type.

--Efforts to increase the size of White Dorkings and to change their earlobes red were met with suspicion by the old-timers of the day. The former because larger size could mean bigger bones and more offal, the latter because it was not authentic.

--Various colored varieties begin to be mentioned during the middle of the 1800's. The primary one seems to be a grey spotted fowl that was prominent in Ireland. Thesse seem to be extinct. They, too, are called Dorkings and seem to become important in that town and area. There are complaints that the White Dorking had become a bit degenerate, which isn't impossible to believe yet niether does this continue to be a problem. Anyway, the idea that outcrossing for vigor would have happened is not hard to believe

--One starts to find mention of white Dorking imported into Plymouth, MA and upstate NY. They were white. Then Silver greys and Colored seem to start arriving a little later. The Coloreds are the largest, the SG's the medium, the Whites the smallest and least typey. However, going back to the original Dorking, it appears to have been a more rounded, less rectangular, medium sized fowl. It makes sense that the, perhaps, new shape and weight/size of the colored varieties did not suit it, and that it would have had to be bred to match these, perhaps, new requirements.

--Eventually, by the end of the 1800's and first part of the 1900's the SG's are in the lead. They were then picked up by hatcheries--the only variety to have been picked up by hatcheries--and have remained, therefore, the foremost variety numerically.

--Cuckoos are mentioned in England, but I've yet to find an American text that refers to them. The other colors don't enter into publication that I have yet found. Their authenticity seems rather secondary and anecdotal.

--There are several texts from both the UK and America that make no qulms about the Dorking being the single most ideal fowl for meat production, ye that the push was for yellow skin and apparently the fifth toe scared some folk off. It seems silly to me that single best meat bird was rejected for such superficial reasons, but hey, people are that way sometimes.

If I had to throw in my thoughts/conclusion, well, I guess it is rather plausible that the original five-toed stock hailed from Rome but from that point would have undergone many phases and evolutions. Almost certain outcrossings would have been made to native Old English Games. Columella claimed it to be a single combed bird. The OEG is single combed. I imagine the rose comb comes from the same source that gave us the rose comb in the hamburg, which also comes in a single comb. In the last few hundred years, all varieties are documentable with rose and single combs. I imagine that the Dorking started to come into its own as the Dorking with the original Whites but then outcrosses lead to larger fowl with improved hybrid vigor, which of course only makes sense. At this point, I think that color varieties have probably been crossed back and for and from side to side so frequently as to think that they are all more or less one.
Having crossed the whites with SG's and Coloreds, I can attest first hand that the majority of the other colors hatch out there. Moreover, crossed or not, sports from the whites are not uncommon.

Going forward, I think that our attentions are best focused on the four foremost varieties: White, Red, SG, and Colored. Combs in all could be Standardized in both rose comb and single. Of all of them, the only one that really seems to have a pre-SOP comb trend is the white, which was generally preferred in the rose.

 

[capayvalleychick]

Thank you, Joseph. That is a lot of information!

Please read to the end of this for more questions!

I hope that I'm doing the right thing, putting Lucky and a hen in this show. My only purpose is to have them there, for people to see a Dorking, since this is an heirloom & heritage show/event.

My chickens are barnyard & pasture dwellers, not show birds. In addition to having faults, they were a bit dirty & tattered to begin with... and now they are MOLTING.

Lucky lost all his sickle feathers!

The hen was broody most of the summer and is underweight and missing feathers on her underside.

Do you all think this is a bad idea???

I have never seen a Dorking at a show in CA, so I'm assuming they will be the only ones. Are molting Dorkings better than no Dorkings??? Or am I going to be an embarrassment to the breed?

Can you tell that I'm stressed ?! I'm also taking a Dexter cow, St. Croix ewe and 2 Guinea Hogs.

The amazing thing was when I gave the chickens a bath, yesterday. I have never given a chicken a bath and never thought that I would! They actually enjoyed it! They immediately relaxed in the warm water and went to sleep. I thought that they might be dead!
Lucky was like an infant, sound asleep wrapped in a towel after the bath, while I scrubbed away for about an hour on his legs & feet, trying to get all the grime off.

Here's what I need to know: How do I get the white feathers under his beak white???

They are stained from him drinking and getting dirt on them. I scrubbed with shampoo and they didn't come clean. And how do I get the dried poop of under the vent? I soaked & scrubbed but there is still a little stuff stuck on there.

This feels all so ridiculous. These are farmstead fowl and I'm fussing over getting them pristine!

Thanks in advance,
Kim

 

[neftaball]

Try some Oxyclean, it work with other animals, some people use bluing also.



Quote:

 

[lceh]

I've used Tide with Bleach Alternative on our white birds, just rinse it well.

 

[Mrs MIA]

New Dorking chicks... red boy, and SG girl.

With a Black Copper Maran boy and Splash Silkie mom. I think next year I'm going to let my broodies do ALL the work.