Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[Bluetick340]

Guy ormiston says in his book " the new breed is in the old reviled, the new is in the old conciled" he is talking coondogs, however his book is a great read for a breeder of any type of stock. I have the mind set with any type of stock the type and style we want or wish for is there. we as breeders must cull hard and bring it out.

 

[call ducks]

ive never had an issue eating birds i grew... This coming from a 17yr. Altough that could be of the fact that i learned how to bucher a chicken at 4? I have no toruble picking and gutting. The part right now is killing. Some of my foundest memerioes of my childhod were ones at gramps barn. Me, gramp, and a great uncle. they would butcher and pick a lot of the feathers, hang it up and than i would pick the pin feathers. It was a "time and a half".

I guess they don't want to eat it because they have been raised in the "go to store buy it" way. The very early parts of my life have been, butchering, growing, selling. For both veg and meat.

Growing up the only chicken we ate was from grampy. And more than likely i had helped butcher that in some way. Now mom & dad had no problem with me going up there.

 

[Arielle]

Call DUcks, I envy that you had someone to show you how to do all this early in life. We have always sent the lambs to the butcher and the kids never played with the lambs. THe chickens . . . well they love playing with the chickens and often haul one into the house to visit. THey have been remarkably helpful in the plucking and bagging, just not eating; and I keep t hem away from the killing. Based on their current behavior I don't think they are ready to see that done. It's rather a complex thing to introduce this to kids that did not grow up butchering . . . . bad enough they are the only kids they know with farm animals.

 

[bnjrob]

Honestly, I wish newbies started with old lines of birds. It would help the breeders that keep the old lines to have an outlet for chicks and culls. Most people just like a pretty bird to look at and a few eggs, high production is not an issue. I know when I was looking for chickens only the big hatcheries showed up as an option. It was only after reading on here for a year and a PM from a buckeye breeder that I learned OTHER chickens existed. Just my thinking out loud.

I understand this. It took several years before I found a breeder that was willing to part with some chicks of my chosen breed. Everytime I tried to get anything - hatching eggs, chicks, juveniles, adult - I kept being told that there were none available. And that was AFTER I finally found some breeders that were either within driving distance or were willing to ship. There just doesn't seem to be enough breeders willing to get online. And when they are, they don't do much in the way of search engine optimization so they can be found quickly and easily by people who don't have a name or connection to find them through other means.

 

[3riverschick]

Thanks for the comments! But i can not take the credit for these stunning birds. these are the ones Emily Sent me this summer! At least i have a great start!

What do you mean by Superhackle?

Hi call duck,
Here are three examples of superhackle in Light Sussex:
http://www.poultrymad.co.uk/images/sussex/Lightsuss.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/ckv959d
http://tinyurl.com/bwnx7ag
regardless of the sex of the bird, superhackle is seen as excess of black in the hackle.
seen here as either an almost black neck, or a "necklace" of pure black around the
bottom of the hackle ( as far as the hackle surrounds the neck).
The hackle in your boy is very nice and can be used as an example of a proper coloring in Light Sussex hackle.
Best,
Karen

 

[3riverschick]

Guy ormiston says in his book " the new breed is in the old reviled, the new is in the old conciled" he is talking coondogs, however his book is a great read for a breeder of any type of stock. I have the mind set with any type of stock the type and style we want or wish for is there. we as breeders must cull hard and bring it out.

Oh, I want to read this book, what's the title? Another good one for any breeder of stock is "Reaching For The Stars, Advanced Labrador Breeding" . It's about dogs.
Merry Christmas,
Karen

 

[Texasmja]

I understand this. It took several years before I found a breeder that was willing to part with some chicks of my chosen breed. Everytime I tried to get anything - hatching eggs, chicks, juveniles, adult - I kept being told that there were none available. And that was AFTER I finally found some breeders that were either within driving distance or were willing to ship. There just doesn't seem to be enough breeders willing to get online. And when they are, they don't do much in the way of search engine optimization so they can be found quickly and easily by people who don't have a name or connection to find them through other means.

I agree!!

 

[Fred's Hens]

I understand this. It took several years before I found a breeder that was willing to part with some chicks of my chosen breed. Everytime I tried to get anything - hatching eggs, chicks, juveniles, adult - I kept being told that there were none available. And that was AFTER I finally found some breeders that were either within driving distance or were willing to ship. There just doesn't seem to be enough breeders willing to get online. And when they are, they don't do much in the way of search engine optimization so they can be found quickly and easily by people who don't have a name or connection to find them through other means.

I agree!!

Not sure how wise it is to apply that to small, top breeders. Breeders of top quality birds do not crank out thousands of chicks a day, like the hatcheries do. This is not an industry, of even small scale proportions that produce enough birds to justify the effort of maintaining a web presence of any kind. Urch does. A few others do, but not many. Many breeders may only produce 100 chicks or less, far less, each year. Some only hatch 50 quality chicks a year, or less. This is a specialized hobby, not a going business concern for them.

This is very, very small scale, folks. If I understand Bob's intent with this thread, it is to help connect folks and to encourage more participation.

 

[Texasmja]

Not sure how wise it is to apply that to small, top breeders. Breeders of top quality birds do not crank out thousands of chicks a day, like the hatcheries do. This is not an industry, of even small scale proportions that produce enough birds to justify the effort of maintaining a web presence of any kind. Urch does. A few others do, but not many. Many breeders may only produce 100 chicks or less, far less, each year. Some only hatch 50 quality chicks a year, or less. This is a specialized hobby, not a going business concern for them.

This is very, very small scale, folks. If I understand Bob's intent with this thread, it is to help connect folks and to encourage more participation.

Finding them is the hard part. I searched all over the internet, it is not easy if you are new to a breed. If I had not found Backyardchickens, I would of never found the names of the breeders I found.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Finding them is the hard part. I searched all over the internet, it is not easy if you are new to a breed. If I had not found Backyardchickens, I would of never found the names of the breeders I found.

Sure, I understand. BYC has quite a few threads where one meets the right people. It is a valuable resource. This is a huge part of it's success!! People today expect to Google anything and everything and order what they want in a snap. Well, old time poultry folks just don't operate quite that way. Again, it is a niche hobby, really.

The Poultry shows. That is one reason people, breeders and especially clubs dedicated to these birds conduct these poultry shows. There are many high quality shows that a subset of breeders will attend any given show. There, one sees the actual birds, up close and personal, not just some web based, sales oriented pitch. There are countless websites pitching the supposed quality of the birds, but without verification from knowledgeable folks here or seeing their stock, in person, at a show? I'd take most of those web sites (or Ebay listings) with a huge grain of salt.

Each breed club also has a web presence, be it ever so amateurish in nature. At least it is beginning place to start.

The reality is that 99% of the people give no thought to true bred birds. They just order from a hatchery website or hatchery magazine. Done.

The 1% of people who do come to desire better birds must then meet up with the 1/10th of 1 percent of the population who knowledgeably breed quality birds. Again, this is all a matter of scale. The recent interest in heritage fowl has come at a time when there are simply so few good breeding flocks to meet the demand that appears to be growing. If this interest holds for another 5 years and doesn't fizzle out like a meteorite, there will be plenty of quality birds in just a few years as more people step up. We'll see what the future brings.