These are some pictures of Heritage White Plymouth Rock Large fowl that is about 60 years old. This is the old Oliver Bowen strain that started in California many years ago. I got 13 started chicks 10 days old shipped to me 21 years ago from a friend in Centralia Washington my original home town as a young boy. They have done well in this hot climate however it took about five years to adapt to this heat and humidity. The pictures above I took two days ago when I went to Anthonys place to help him cull down 50% of the birds.
All the young birds hatched from the male in picture in the middle where good birds we culled for lack of yellow in the legs or they had dropping tails or bunny tails or the females had dropping feathers below the vents or they are dropping their skirts syndrome. I like a Plymouth Rock with tight feathers firm and when you hold them they are solid as a Rock.
One female in the top to the right is my favorite. She looks like her mother when she was a pullet 7 years ago. She is lean and mean looking female and to me this is the franchise female to home to reproduce in years to come. Look at the female in the front of her she has a bump in her back or a cushion a Cochin trait you do not want in your plymouth Rocks and she had very excess fluff under her legs or vent area for a pullets again a cochin type trait. Pretty chicken but not what the standard calls for in a true to type plymouth rock. Got to obey the Standard of Perfetion or you will just have some pretty white chickens.
The sire had one fault his top line was not as high in degrees to the standard as I would like. He had a lift very low almost like a Rhode Island White. However, he had the best tail section I ever saw on a white rock male I ever hatched. So we must mate him to the best females with the correct lift in the back and tail and then work on improving it over the next three years.
We have three people who I have shared chicks with over the last five years and they are sending me 5 four week old started chicks to me to raise this spring and then I should find one or two of these to re-cross back into our old line for fresh blood and to help on the lift problem. Hope you enjoy these very young birds they were hatched in February and March of this year. Some still have two more months to go to reach full development. I am pleased with Anthonys Poultry Husbandry skills, but most of all his eye for the correct Plymouth Rock Type in his selections of his young birds.
Will work on the Partridge Plymouth Rock pictures latter if I have time. Its was a very enjoyable visit for me to see my old strain of White Plymouth Rocks. If you want some latter in the spring, Anthony will share a few with you in Started chicks. Bob
