I have been on the phone for two hours talking chickens with two guys and you are all ready on 102 pages. Hard to believe that so much activity has been going on in the last few hours. We were discussing the pictures taken today at the show in Indiana and all of us agreed our favorite large fowl in condition and for type taking points away for top line, cushions breasts on all the pictures we saw ect we like the Silver Laced Wyandotte from Kentucky. What a pretty female with such great lacing and oval Wyandotte type.
The first fellow was in a deer stand this evening and was thinking what he wanted to talk to me about. His first comment was a new judge and a breeder of Plymouth Rocks has an interesting method of judging he puts marks and checks on his coop cards when he is judging. He told me that his mentor who has helped him learn how to judge uses the marks to score defects or to cut for points in making his decesion for placing the top five birds in the class that he is judging. This is a modification of the old score card judging system, but it is refreshing to see this new judge use this method. When I look at a bird I look at him as a possible 100 point bird. Then I start cutting him for defects in my mind and then I can almost give you a score off of the top of my head.
We had a White Rock Female that my new partner really liked but she has some defects that I saw that I have seen years ago. She had a cushion in her back almost what we call a bunny tail in Plymouth Rocks. Then I saw that her skirts where dragging or the loose fluff under her vent are. Then I looked at the pullet that I liked two months ago and she was lean, tight feathered had a nice lift on her back with her tail still going up on the angle. Or no dropping or bunny tails on her. He told me tonight he thinks he has two more females just like her. To me these are once in ten year females. To get one is a dream, but to get three in one season is just hard to believe.
I dont like dual purpose chickens with loose feathering especially in Rocks and Reds and when I see one I cut them from the breeding pen especially the females. Well enough said on this subject. You got to handle them and look at them to so looking at pictures is not always fair to the birds, breeder or the judge.
In regards to this thread being more towards dual purpose meat and egg laying chickens it kind of got this way as most of the people who has chickens on this web site have those style of chickens. Also this thread is been geared to large fowl and not toward bantams as. There are very few people who even know that great old chickens from the 1930s and 1950s could have been Buff Leghorns, Buff Minorcas or say Black Faced White Spanish. They truly are as I talked a day or two ago about New Hampshires and how a good male can look as nice and pretty as a light brown leghorn male bird . Many of you have never seen a good Brown Leghorn and there are two colors Dark and Light. A Heritage chicken could also, be a Silky or a white rock frizzle large fowl or a new breed I am going to get a Dark Cornish Bantam.
There are so many different breeds egg layers, meat chickens or the dual type that many people would like to have. I met a fellow fishing today who wants to build a chicken coop and just have five egg laying females. He does not want to eat the hens he just wants them for fresh eggs to eat and then get rid of them in two or three years when they loose production. I suggested getting some pullets from the feed store in the spring when the shipments come in from Ideal Hatchery. Thats all he needs and if he wants something else latter he can get it or go with some little bantams that I have. He just wants fresh eggs no roosters, go fishing and have a nice garden. We talked about the Old Farmers Almanac and how it effects chickens and hatching and planting by the signs of the moon and how it can effect fishing . Ever here about the old timers talking about this book? bob
