Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[Ducktang]

My printing company printed that booklet. Do you have a copy? I have turned this place upside down looking for one.

You know I do! Start where you are with what you have.......

A rock breeder has to have that. I also have several books from Jull, Rice and Card, a couple of Plymouth rock monthlies and a bunch of old Reliable Poultry Journals. Biggest help to me was Don Shrider. Nothing beats hands on analysis!

 

[fowlman01]

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That's it! We only printed 500 of those. I am pretty sure the copyright is gone by now. Small, but very helpful booklet. We did Bill Hollands Sebright book too, but the ABA is doing that one now. Too bad they don't redo the cover, you can hardly tell that it is a Sebright now. %th generation illustrations don't work very well.

Walt

 

[fowlman01]

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I was going to shoot them, but I could tell that they belonged to someone and they looked so non threatening, I didn't. I had about three hours to calm down before I got home and that helped too.
I have six Cardigan Corgi's here and each one of them has killed a bird.....one bird! We talked about it and now they won't even look at a chicken or duck. If I pick up a chicken and it squaks they run the other direction. haha

Walt

 

[hcammack]

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I was going to shoot them, but I could tell that they belonged to someone and they looked so non threatening, I didn't. I had about three hours to calm down before I got home and that helped too.
I have six Cardigan Corgi's here and each one of them has killed a bird.....one bird! We talked about it and now they won't even look at a chicken or duck. If I pick up a chicken and it squaks they run the other direction. haha

Walt

I had a talk with my Basset hounds and then my big ole rooster did to and now neither one of them will so much as look at a chicken. They chase the fox though!

 

[tnchickenut]

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I have some Silver Laced Wyandottes that were from backwoodspoultry... now they are moved to Ron Pressley. I was given one rooster for a project, and got a few eggs. I don't have much, but these are high points wyandottes... well... hopefully. Time will tell for sure, but SOP in hand, I think they will do well.

If I could get quality heritage stock in a number of breeds I would make room for them. (Bye bye mutts! lol) That said, I have a TON of chickens for sale right now... I'm refocusing my flocks to focus on high quality in a few breeds... Dels (of course), BRs, NHs, Barnevelders, SLW, and Silver Sebrights... I'll breed a few others but not focus so highly on them, and then have a flock of just layers (I always have people wanting eatting eggs when I want to have hatching eggs). I also am looking into Black Australorps and Light Sussex. I also have a pair of white wyandotte bantams and would kill for a few more from a good breeder. (I can barrow from my 401K if you can hook me up with all those breeds at once!

)

 

[Robert Blosl]

I saw some of your post and they are coming faster than I can read the. In regards to a Plymouth Rock body the old timers taught me this about large fowl. Maurice Wallace of Canada use to teach do not incrouch the type of one breed on to another. A Plymouth Rock should have a gravy bowl or a derby hat type of body, a Rhode Island is to be oblong like a brick , a Wyandotte should be oval like a circle. You have to have this vision in your inner eye if you want to breed good type on your bird. They must have legs that are strong with rocks like a broom stick in size. The legs have to be plum or dead center. On a rock you want a medium lenth of keel to get that meat on that breast. On a Red it has to be even a little longer to get the extension and the brick shape to show up. You have to have width of skull on your large fowl and good width of back more on a Rock than a Red. When the standard calls for a medium width of feather you can not go hog wild and put on a super wide feather. If you do the Cochin blood starts showing up and then you get stubs. If you go to narrow in feather you will get gamey type feathers and side sprigs will show up. What I am trying to tell you is you got to do what Ralph Brazelton use to tell me. Go down the middle of the Road. You have to always be on the look out for faults and breed back to the middle. These Heratage chickens are not breed pure like a Robin, a Ring Neck Phesant or a red wing black bird. These breeds are man made and have Java, Game and Cochin blood in them when they were first breed. That is why your production chickens look like the 1890 style of chicken they have revert back to what they where back then. Over the years using the standard as your road map you breed them up and then try to keep them at that leve. When I was breeding the large fowl Reds I breed them like Harold Tompkins did. Try to maintain brick shape type, tight medium width of feathers that were tight webed and the most important trait was getting the whole flock of females to lay between 180 add 200 eggs per year. Many people want a chicken that lays lots of eggs but the chicken is not much good for anything else. If I was going to have a mild cow for my family would I go with a Gurnsey or Jersey cow. The jersey has more cream in the bottle than a Gurnsey but I could breed the Gurnsey each year to a Hearford bull to have a calf for eating purpose. I could get me a Herford Cow but all they are good for is meat and little milk. Maybe the best cow is a Shorthorn which is a dual purpose cow milk, meat and are pretty to look at or try the old breed the Devon. When it comes to Heartage breeds we are calling a Plymouth Rock a breed. There are however different colors and blue is not in the standard and is not a Heartage Breed but it is a pretty chicken. We have blue rocks in the ABA standard but they are not that popular. Here is a breed that is rare the Blue Andalusian if you want to help the Heartage cause breed this rare breed over saw a blue chicken that is not in the standard. I hate to tell you out there that are not happy your chicken breed is not on the old rare Heartage list and not say in the 1960 standard of perfection but we have to make a cut off date or time period somewhere. However, if you are happy with your breed of chickens that is all the counts. You who carry the feed bucket must be happy with your chickens if you are not find a different breed. Well I am going fishing tonight will read the thread latter when I get home. On the positive side look at the number of people who have made posts on this thread and the number of pages we have. Heck how many people have read this tread I have no idea. You are learning and thats what my goal was when I started this tread. I just wanted you to know that there are different looks to the breeds that we have and if you want the lesser looking chicken thats fine. At least you have chickens that provide you with eggs, meat and enjoyment. This is a picture of a male that I liked back in 2006 but he did not have the extension in the keel bone that I wanted. His father, grandfather and on and on did. I mated him to a female who I called Dolly Pardon. I produced some of the finest type males with extended keels I ever had. The old saying what you see is not what you got in breeding can be hiden. I knew it was there but I wanted his other good traits. Anyway that was the only picture I could grab showing the gravy bowl type and good top line. bob

 

[Jared77]

I hope the fishing was good Bob

If I was going to have a mild cow for my family would I go with a Gurnsey or Jersey cow. The jersey has more cream in the bottle than a Gurnsey but I could breed the Gurnsey each year to a Hearford bull to have a calf for eating purpose. I could get me a Herford Cow but all they are good for is meat and little milk. Maybe the best cow is a Shorthorn which is a dual purpose cow milk, meat and are pretty to look at or try the old breed the Devon.

Using your analogy myself and other folks can't find a quality Shorthorn or Devon. That's the problem many of us have run into. Don't need a top winner, just something that meets the standard. I can't even find that. Ill take your cast offs, or culls that are 90% even 80% of what you want the perfect bird your working towards because its so much better than anything I could get my hands on otherwise.

This is a picture of a male that I liked back in 2006 but he did not have the extension in the keel bone that I wanted. His father, grandfather and on and on did. I mated him to a female who I called Dolly Pardon. I produced some of the finest type males with extended keels I ever had. The old saying what you see is not what you got in breeding can be hiden. I knew it was there but I wanted his other good traits. Anyway that was the only picture I could grab showing the gravy bowl type and good top line. bob

I can see exactly what you mean by the gravy bowl type. Thank you that helps a lot.​

 

[Chris09]

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Plymouth Rock's Have a Bowl shape body ( or gravy bowl )
Rhode Island Reds Have a Brick shape body
Wyandottes Have a Heart shape body

Chris

 

[kathyinmo]

copied with images shown ...

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[ChickenPotPie]

Hey, I forgot to post pics of my husbands Sumatras. I knew they were rare but just learned this breed was accepted by the APA in 1883 so, I guess its a heritage breed. I must say that while despcriptions of this breed note that is is not a great egg layer, I have been very impressed with the hens consistency in laying. We have got more eggs out of her than the RIRs. What does that say? Hmmm.

I tricked, urh, *cough* convinced my husband that he needed to buy these at a show in Stockton, CA in January. Unfortunately, I don't know much about them including where they come from.

I need to ask a lot more questions when we buy poultry from now on.

I know they walk, well, like chickens, but I love the wild grace these birds bring to our orchard.