surnikis
Chirping
- Oct 29, 2012
- 26
- 5
- 78
I believe you are 100 % correct , and after an out-cross and years of line breeding , you have should have a pure line that breeds true. Sports alway pop up , problem with some is they may believe some production birds (hatchery strains) are pure , True master breeders are people recognized by the APA for their success in exhibiting a breed (and winning) no one really knows all their secrets . often the case even if you purchase birds from them after a few years your flock is no longer maintaining the winning traits. 30 years ago a friend of mine obtained some rose comb white leghorns from a master breeder in PA. both of the people I am talking about have since past. I currently have that line. At a glance you can tell they are exhibition quality , but years of flock breeding have deteriorated in size and vigor. hypothetically what do you do? well to get the quality that I wanted I took a modern show quality single comb white leghorn male and did an out cross of the line. first generation had about 50% single comb / rose comb. the rose combs had blades instead of spikes and the single combs had too many points. Size of the birds doubled. then I took the best rc male and put him back over the pure line hens. it has been 4 years now and this generation I may have achieved my goal . I still get single comb birds , but I am also getting spikes back on the combs. this is an example of a mild out-cross as I used same breed different variety to achieve my goal . I have a rose comb white leghorn with equal or greater size than most single combed birds with better type than the original lineIn doing some "historical reading" it is my understanding that EB Thompson and his line of "Ringlets" were created as a outcross of EB's barred line to a line of White Leghorns from Dr Dan Young. Inadvertently, the white leghorns carried the columbian gene and that is what allowed the Ringlet line to go from being (at best) "strong cuckoo" in barring pattern to the straightly barred line that EB Thompson was ultimately famous for
I don't think any bird can be called truly pure as they are all a result of some "crossing/hybridization" of the jungle fowl and others many, many centuries ago; some as recently as crosses made in the late 1800s/early 1900s