Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[catdaddyfro]

Wow, I love this pic....I must have looked at it a few dozen times by now!

Chris

Oh I know it the are an amazing site and I am so very fortunate enough to sit on my milk crate every evening and watch some these magestic creatures in multiple pictures and settings. They do stick out the best in all my menagerie of all the colors in the spectrum(plus). These orange chickens are the it for me and I got a lot of different, even special colors (unique)too. LOL

Jeff

 

[FARMBOY123]

Hi im wondering what breeds are heritage theres a lot of talk about RIR,barred rocks other variteys of rocks ect and new hampshires but im left wondering what are the forgoten heritage breeds?

sorry about misspellings

 

[hcammack]

Hi im wondering what breeds are heritage theres a lot of talk about RIR,barred rocks other variteys of rocks ect and new hampshires but im left wondering what are the forgoten heritage breeds?

sorry about misspellings

There are a lot of heritage breeds out there. I think one of the most forgotten and one of my favorites is Faverolles. There are many others though as well.

 

[Narragansett]

The term heritage breed is now meaningless. When first coined, it inferred that a breed was both rare and old. It has been misused by people who want to fool themselves or others into thinking that they have something that is valuable or unique. In fact, it is easier to create a list of breeds which are not heritage breeds, than those that are. The American Poultry Association has a term for heritage breeds. They call them breeds. You can just about count on one hand the number of breeds which are recognized by the APA that are NOT technically heritage breeds, at least in the minds of people who don't really have a handle on the state of standard bred poultry in the US. Groups like the ALBC thrive on gullible folks who want to think that the sky is falling for just about every breed out there. It is for some, but far fewer than ALBC would have you believe. But then if they didn't have an endangered list that was so large, people wouldn't feel the need to send in their membership fees to help save the world.

 

[har]

Glad you didn't get this cockerel ! !

No, that tail angle is not from the wind, though it was wet (rainy) and muddy.
I named him, too...... Sunday Dinner.

 

[catdaddyfro]

Quote:Quote: This is buy no means down grading Kathy because I know her personally and think a lot of her and her breeding practices. This brings to mind a question I have run through my mind in the past and thought I would bring it up. I try to breed my breeds to the SOP and don't have hatchery birds. The question I have is that the hatchery birds look pretty much all the same weather they are breed to the sop or not. So why when you have birds that really are close to the sop you never know what you are going to get from the chicks you hatch. Seems like the hatchery guys have it figured out how to breed so that most of the birds look alike weather they are close to the sop or not. I hope this makes since.

Yes it makes perfect sense. The reason they can breed those copycat varieties and breeds is simply because its easy to do. What's not easy is to breed them correctly and as close to the standard as possible. If you take a pen of birds and just throw them in the pen and let them procreate they will produce over and over, again and again, the same clones. Look at breeding for color for example, if you don't stay on top of this in about 8 generations they will all look like the color of Jungle fowl (partridge) it is the nature of the beast. Therefore to keep a RIR's or (anything else as a matter of fact) pure you have to select for certain qualities/traits that differentiates them from anything else, simple as that LOL

Jeff

 

[fowlman01]

The APA has no position or statement about Heritage chickens at this time.

Walt

 

[Robert Blosl]

The term heritage breed is now meaningless. When first coined, it inferred that a breed was both rare and old. It has been misused by people who want to fool themselves or others into thinking that they have something that is valuable or unique. In fact, it is easier to create a list of breeds which are not heritage breeds, than those that are. The American Poultry Association has a term for heritage breeds. They call them breeds. You can just about count on one hand the number of breeds which are recognized by the APA that are NOT technically heritage breeds, at least in the minds of people who don't really have a handle on the state of standard bred poultry in the US. Groups like the ALBC thrive on gullible folks who want to think that the sky is falling for just about every breed out there. It is for some, but far fewer than ALBC would have you believe. But then if they didn't have an endangered list that was so large, people wouldn't feel the need to send in their membership fees to help save the world.

Is the term meaningless or should we even use the term at all? I used it to trick people to respond to this issue of rare breeds going down the toilet. This country is loosing the old breeds very fast especially in large fowl chickens. Many of us who are breeders have gone the bantam route and its cheap per and therefor more bantams are at shows today than large fowl.

When I was a junior in the 1960s large fowl was the majororty at the shows. Bantams never won champion at the show where I lived. But in the 1970s things changed and the bantams have got more breeders and therefor better looking birds in type and color. Major reason cost to raise large fowl.

I have been looking at gardening and the term they use in Heirloom lines or seeds. Old names like Golden Banner, Blue lake bean ect are used. In many ways the names of these fowl are more Heirloom in nature than Heritage to me. The correct term is what was used in writing articles in old poultry magazines or breed newsletters and that is Standard Breed. What many of the old timers where trying to get across was Standard Breed large fowl and Bantam was for the miniature reds. Back then the writer such as Maurice Wallace of Canada was a large fowl breeder of Rhode Island Reds and Light Brahmas and one of the best there ever was.

I call Heritage Breeds or Heirloom Breeds those that are in the Standard of Perfection in the 1962 issue. I dont care if they are rare as can be breeds or not they are part of this family. Many of the breeds that have become popular is be case of their egg color. These breeds never where poplar back in grandma days in the 1930 and 40s. But the people who got into chickens in the past twenty years or so. Many complain this tread is Reds, Rocks ect in popularly. The problem is they have always been popular and have the largest club memberships over the lesser breeds such as Javas or Jersey Giants. As far as the ALBC club I dont follow it or never have been a member. Some of their lists are stretched as I know there are as few as 50 to 100 breeders in the USA during breeding season and they make it look like the breed is doing just fine. You can not count the hatchery numbers as these birds do not match up to a lever of quality they kind of look like the breed but if you scored them they would not make 90 points . There are thousands of these birds sold each year and their is a need for this type of bird for beginners.

My purpose when starting this tread two years ago was to introduce people who wanted to move up to a Standard Breed type fowl. I have achieved this goal in my view and many many folks who once had commerical poultry have steeped up to a more uniform looking rare fowl that needs our help to preserve. The key word I have learned in the last twelve months in
PRESERVATIONIST. We need to learn to be a preservation est and if you dont want to do this and want chickens from the feed store or a catalog that's fine. We are just trying to help the 1 % who wants to make the change. There will always be the 99% who fill these treads on this web site and that is fine with me. I just dont want to go back to that level as I did when I was a young boy. I want the real chickens the ones that look and lay like the old breeds of yesterday.

 

[Arielle]

Thank you bob, for pulling some of us along, to help us understand and see past the advertising of poultry.As for bantams v. LF, I personally have no interest in the bantams. THey are cute but I pass by them quickly to the larger birds, the standard birds. I am interested in eggs and a nice roast.

Perhaps we need to talk about heritage LINES rather than breeds. I see hatchery birds as LINES and not a heritage line but a production line for eggs usually. In my mind I think Heritage Lines.

I see the ALBC as a group trying to help people understand the value of the old breeds; commercial birds so out number the old breeds that even the recovering breeds are still miniscule conpared to the commercial hybrids. THe ABLC rating system is relative, that is all. ANd I beleive their numbers are by survey only so a poor indicator at best of the real numbers. But again some value can be gleened from the numbers--all these old breeds are still in need of preserving because of the genetic diversity they represent.

I recently contacted a professor at school with a poultry question; he keeps non-commercial birds despite a career supporting the commercial poultry industry. THere is room for both. FOr a backyard person, I don't want the commercial breeds, I want the old lines.

A year ago I was introduced to the BUckeyes; and have spent the last year investigating breeds and chickens in general. I have learned to get a good trio to start with not a dozen eggs.. I will probably look for a trio of buckeyes.

THanks to you Bob you kept challenging my knowledge of chickens and expanding my understanding. I don't intend to show; just can't get past the university protocol. But I can breed for my own families use.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again.

Bob using the word "Heritage" is what got me interested in Standard Breed Fowl. As Walt stated, the APA has no statement or position at this time on what defines a "heritage" fowl. But if a catchy word or phrase can draw new members to the fancy? I'm all for it.

Bob has said himself he uses the word to trick people into looking at the old time, bred to the SOP type of poultry. And I am proof it works. I am one of those people who has always had chickens. Most all the fowl I ever owned were ordered from those pretty hatchery catalogs. And I never once had a bird grow out to look like those nice shiny pictures. Sorta close, almost, but not like the pictures. Until BYC I had never heard of the APA. ABA, the Standard of Perfection, a chicken show.... none of it. I've had thousands upon thousands of chickens in my life and was never exposed to any of this. BYC is full of a lot of goofy threads and misinformation, but if it wasn't for BYC I personally would never have known the difference in a hatchery chicken and a pure bred chicken.

Like Arielle, I still see a need and place for both hatchery and "Heritage" fowl. It's a fact that 99% of the poultry owners couldn't care less about breeding any type bird to the SOP. They want a pretty bird that will grow fast, lay lots of eggs and that can be replaced cheap in a couple of years when it burns out. This thread is one of those threads that is geared to the other 1% that either have and raise "heritage" fowl or would like to.

Because of Bob getting me interested (or "tricked" if you will) and LOTS of other folks helping me with answers to questions or links to better info like Walt, Bill, Chris, Kathy, Al and several others... I now own some of these old line birds. I also owe a lot to people like Fred, Junior, George, and others who like me are just starting out. I learn from those of you who know and those of us who sometimes make mistakes.

I will say the best advise Bob has given me is to go slow and see what you like before you commit. Just my opinion, but I think if you are going to stick with it and be in that 1% who stay with it for years and really learn to be a breeder and not just a propagator you have to LOVE the breed you are working with.

I'll admit, the experts still talk over my head sometimes about genetics and such, but I listen, I try to do what I feel is the best advise. Occasionally I still think an expert is full of... manure? But I accept they know more than I do, so I'm willing to give it a try. I'm learning. Baby steps, but I'm learning.

So to each and every one of you who have helped me... I'll say what I think each and every day when I sit out in the yard and see those beautiful birds....

THANK YOU!