Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[Wynette]

Fantastic post, Bentley. This has been interesting, these past several pages. I'm gathering that most folks have over-the-SOP weights on their birds - just making that assumption from the posts, and of course I could be wrong.

The talk of INCREASING the sizes in the SOP makes me want to cry, personally. I'm already battling with size in my silver penciled rock. Interestingly, my largest female is not far off from the minimum SOP weight; yet, when I showed her 2 years ago, she was placed (*GADS!*) between a White Rock and a Silver Laced Wyandotte, both of which were ginormous in comparison. As I looked at my sad looking little hen, I knew there was no way she'd be placed. And saying that, I tend to agree that the larger birds are aesthetically more pleasing. Why is that? My heart is with the silved penciled, and I am comitted to continuing to work with them. However, when I see those honkin' huge Whites, my eyes bug out...in a good way.

ETA: It does seem like the idea of weighing the birds that are marked for champion row would be a good one. That would be like a tech inspection after a race, Walt!

 

[fowlman01]

Now Walt, you're not going to get off that easily. When you are judging at APA sanctioned , or ABA sanctioned shows, you are judging by the rules, and the standard of those organizations. Correct ? Never mind WHO runs the shows, they are sanctioned, and judged by either one, or both, of those clubs' rules.If not, the judges are breaking those clubs' rules . So why are we having the problems with undersize, or oversize?

Because the judges are not judging by either standard, and applying SOP weights pertaining to the breeds. Weights are as much a part of the standards as anything else.

My feeling is that we either judge by the weights, or change the standards to reflect what is being bred. It's been done before as you know...hence the change in the Orp standard after WW1.

I posted that more to let you know it is not just APA judges who are disregarding weights. ABA judges are letting underweight birds go to. The reference to the club rules was regarding weighing the birds. Clubs can put that into place, it is just too hot of a political issue........I am guessing that is the reason, I don't know. The APA/ABA as organizations have no rules against weighing birds. Lots of folks like to put their spin on what the APA SOP says and most of the time it does not say what they are telling people online that it says. musclumb actually cites pages of the SOP, so that a person can see for themselves, instead of relying on info posted here.

So you are going to blame judges for over weight birds when birds are not weighed and you are purposely breeding overweight birds?.....and bragging about it online? I feel that the burden is on the breeder even more than the judge. It's not an issue if breeders follow ALL of the SOP and stop raising birds that do not meet the Standard, just because that is the way they like them.

If anyone wants a change to the APA SOP, we are in the revision mode now, so bring about change if you think it is warranted. There has to be a compelling reason to change the SOP and it is voted on my the Board. Don't just blame the APA when you know full well ABA judges are as bad with over/underweight birds. There are a lot more underweight birds being shown than overweight birds and most are bantams.......

Walt

 

[Robert Blosl]

Which of these pictures do you wish to PRESERVE?

There is a choice.


Only 1% of the people on this web site want to be a Poultry Preservationist.


What do you want to be????????????????????????????????????????

 

[fowlman01]

And this is the kind of thing that makes me nuts. It seems that people who remember or owned these large chickens "back in the day" (and now) think that these larger birds are better representations of their breeds. Yet as discussed, these larger birds are technically over the SOP weight.

So why in the world is the SOP weight for these standard bred fowl so low if the chickens look better when they are larger?

And are these technically overweight birds really more representative of the chickens from a hundred + years ago - especially the multi-purpose farmstead chickens?

Back in the day they did not have these large "beasts" they have now. When a chicken is made bigger than it should be, the legs go first and then the type. if you look at some of the monster Rocks being shown they really don't have the type that the proper sized birds have......they are just big and imposing. When I see Orps that look like like Cochins with tiny heads, I just wonder what people are thinking. Read the description of an Orp. It has to have a tail and you have to be able to see it's hocks and that is what the SOP says, but people are turning out these fluff balls and calling them Orps.

Walt

 

[Lacy Blues]

I remember reading in the Poultry Press a couple of years ago where Don Schrider showed some of his leghorn bantams and they were disqualified for being too big. Boy was he hot! He had weighed his birds and they were right on. I don't know what happened after that.

I think part of the problem is that there are so many Old English Game Bantams being shown and handled by the judges that anything bigger is too big. Its a shame, really. When it comes to those bantams that weigh in in x number of ounces, it really is too bad when they do it all by how much "heft" a bird has. Can you honestly say you can tell when a bird is fractions of a single pound over or underweight?

I agree that birds should be weighed and I know it used to be done all the time but became a discarded practice because of all the time that was involved. It's probably a good idea that birds considered for Champion Row be weighed.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Which of these pictures do you wish to PRESERVE?

This one.

 

[fowlman01]

Completely agree!

Birds have become bigger because breeders have selected for this trait, just as many bantams have become smaller because breeders have selected for this as well. Diet and nutrition is very important, don't get me wrong, but it has much MUCH less of an impact on overall bird frame size and fleshing than their genetic potential they received from their parents. This has been documented time and time again in research, genetics accounts for 80-85% of overall bird size and proper nutrition can finish that off to allow them to reach their genetic potential. Of course you have to discount the obvious situations of neglecting to offer a balanced diet because these birds will certainly suffer.

On this note, I might add a bit on hatchery birds in relation to bird size. Commercial hatcheries serve a beautiful purpose, in my youth I purchased many many birds from commercial hatcheries which helped give me my taste for raising birds and gave me invaluable experience with various breeds and allowed me to 'dabble' with crossing breeds to learn first hand about how genetic traits work in the 'real world'. That said, they are a businesses and they are trying to stay in business. They rarely (if ever) breed from pairs or trios to produce chicks for sale to the general public. They colony breed and usually have little time or man power to do much selection. They are a business and work with volume.

What happens under their scenario is that if they get a nice line of birds with proper size but fail to continue to weigh birds when selecting breeders for succeeding generations, the average weight of the population will slowly drift towards a 'normal sized' chicken, because that is 'normal'. Nature usually does not favor the extremes within a population, especially from a reproductive standpoint. Over sized or undersized animals do not reproduce as well. The definition of where the line is when a bird becomes oversized or undersized is a whole other matter, but the fact remains, in nature the extremes within a population don't fair as well yet we often breed for extremes.

In bantams, the smaller breeders make the birds through selection the worse the egg production usually gets and the poorer the fertility, this can occur in large fowl too on the extreme end. So when breeding in colony pens the birds closer to the normal size and shape usually lay more eggs and usually have better fertility which obviously results in the more 'normal' birds producing more chicks. This is what the hatcheries make money on, volume, more chicks to sell because they can only raise prices so much for better quality birds.

w.

 

[Wynette]

This one.

Ditto.

Walt, it's not the "fault" of the judges, nor is it the "fault" of the breeders in my humble opinion. The larger birds are the ones being placed, thus, breeders are breeding, "chasing" what the judges place. Maybe it's just coincidental that the larger ones are being placed - perhaps, the larger ones are closer to SOP, and breeders are not seeing that - all they're seeing is the size, and believing larger size = placings.

 

[fowlman01]

Fantastic post, Bentley. This has been interesting, these past several pages. I'm gathering that most folks have over-the-SOP weights on their birds - just making that assumption from the posts, and of course I could be wrong.

The talk of INCREASING the sizes in the SOP makes me want to cry, personally. I'm already battling with size in my silver penciled rock. Interestingly, my largest female is not far off from the minimum SOP weight; yet, when I showed her 2 years ago, she was placed (*GADS!*) between a White Rock and a Silver Laced Wyandotte, both of which were ginormous in comparison. As I looked at my sad looking little hen, I knew there was no way she'd be placed. And saying that, I tend to agree that the larger birds are aesthetically more pleasing. Why is that? My heart is with the silved penciled, and I am comitted to continuing to work with them. However, when I see those honkin' huge Whites, my eyes bug out...in a good way.

ETA: It does seem like the idea of weighing the birds that are marked for champion row would be a good one. That would be like a tech inspection after a race, Walt!

They don't always do a tech inspection after a race either unless there is a protest. Depends on the type of racing etc. As it stands now I feel weighing is the responsibility of the club putting on the show. It has been done...with a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth by the exhibitors. One that I witnessed involved weighing a gray Call duck. The exhibitor knew the bird was going to be weighed, so all of a sudden this duck had lots of "jewelry" on it's legs in the way of metal bands and spirals etc. It probably had some metal inserted in other areas as well. It barely made the wieght.

This is not a new subject and it doesn't concern me as much as some here because I know that if the birds get too big it takes care of itself with skeletal or reproductive problems for the overweight and reproduction problems for the underweight. This has been argued for years. Judges do not have time to weigh the birds, so it is the show clubs responsibility to weigh the birds. Good luck with that though. IMO the judges responsibility is to be sure not to reward over/under birds based on their opinion of the weight. If you don't know, don't DQ.....but you can place it further down the class instead of rewarding it for not following the SOP.

I would guess from handling your SPR's that they are not far off the SOP weight. I can't think of a breed that would warrant raising the weight in the SOP.

Walt

 

[fowlman01]

Ditto.

Walt, it's not the "fault" of the judges, nor is it the "fault" of the breeders in my humble opinion. The larger birds are the ones being placed, thus, breeders are breeding, "chasing" what the judges place. Maybe it's just coincidental that the larger ones are being placed - perhaps, the larger ones are closer to SOP, and breeders are not seeing that - all they're seeing is the size, and believing larger size = placings.

Like all trades .....you have judges that are good, bad or mediocre. Last year I attended one of those two in one shows. Two sets of judges, so that all birds were judged by two judges. Very interesting. In one show I had Res Champ bantam and in the other show 4th place with the same bird. Not knocking judges cuz the birds can change in the minute or so the judge has to look at them, just saying that there is a lot of difference in how each of us interprets the SOP.

I can't see this weight thing being resolved without breeders breeding to the SOP. I know that I'm not going to pick a bird just because it is big. We can blame the judges or whoever else we want, but as long as breeders push these large birds it is not going to change........or until class champs are weighed. I pretty much know when I pick up a 11 lb bird that should be 8 lbs, but I can't prove it to the exhibitor and they are going to get in my face if I do that without weighing the bird.....so I placed them down the line. This is not so easy when you are dealing with bantams.

Walt