The Northeastern Poultry Congress was a big success. The large fowl of quality....and not...were up. The show was large and well attended. There were some fabulous birds. The Langshan display was outstanding. The Faverolles were super. There were some very nice White Wyandottes, outstanding NH, strong White Rocks, strong Australorps, excellent White Leghorns.
The size of the Langshan exhibit was so impressive with multiple breeders exhibiting especially their black Langshans. How to choose? It authenticated the judging in that it made it a true feat. It's easy to judge six of this or ten of that, but staring down thirty Langshans of good quality--nice.
This leads to something I've been thinking about for ages now. How lovely to walk through a class of uniform brids in strong number, of high quality, in one variety. It is so much more impressive than a bunch of sloppy this or that, laced Orpingtons...honest to Pete.
Cuckoo Marans? Why and to what end? What will ever come of them? At least in the Black Copper and Wheaten the Marans offer something unique to the dual purpose category. Multi-colored Spitzhaubens and Brabanters? Again, what does it matter? There's not even one variety of either in the SOP. Even if they are imported or made available, they'll last for a time and a bit and then peter out into a mess of inbreeding nothingness.
I'm not being harsh here, just real. Breeds can't support more than a few varieties. Visiting any quality show will make that very plain. Each breed has one, two, three, or in the rarest of cases four varieties that actually exist and persist in quality. The rest just show up and look pathetic, because they are pathetic. Tone-wise, I don't say this in a spitting way, but with a sad kind of wounded puppy way. They look pathetic because there's no investment in them, and they represent what is "more than the market can bear."
To give an example close to home, not so long ago, Dorking folks pushed and pulled to get the Cuckoo Dorking into the SOP. To what end? There aren't any Cuckoo Dorkings of any quality to speak of available today. All of that effort was spent on some romantic notion of a marginal color pattern, and it availed nothing but an addition to the SOP. Moreover, all of that time and energy was not spent on ameliorating Dorkings in general. As stated above, "What about the enthusiasm for substance?"
The Marans folk were there with the table set up distributing eggs. It was nice to see their enthusiam. Marans, though, are of OK quality only. They're in the SOP--great. Now it's time for substance, and subsance, like what was visible in the White Wyandottes, does not come over night. Neither will it come if everyone's trying to worry about the Cuckoo, which will only detract from the Marans regardless of whether or not it's recognized. Between the Dominque and the Plymouth Rock, cuckoo and barring are exhausted. Any other breed that has a recognized variety of cuckoo/barred just watches it peter out to nothing. Why not take all of that energy and funnel it into substance for the two recognized Marans?
Eventually the part of us that clings to truth points and admits that the emperor has no clothes. Breeds can only support a very small number of varieties. The luckiest have one. Those with two can have a king and a queen. Three is a magic number of perfection, and only Cochins have four varieties that actually exist with long-term quality.
There is a lot of wisdom to be drawn from the wish to refrain from the superficiality and, frequently, redundancy of color. Instead we can turn to substance. When we really begin to know what good chickens are, color only moves us when it is adorning a bird of substance.
