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Honestly how many breeders do this? I don't want to come down on the many who keep their birds in small to medium runs, but really, this is indeed a very important thing. Yes, you could lose your birds by free ranging/pasture raising, but it is far more natural and healthy as well as what we originally did decades ago when raising dual purpose breeds. Birds were fed the scraps of the farm's produce and good quality food, not commercial hen feed mashed into pellet form in a metal/plastic feeder, with nothing else more to eat than a couple bugs that fly through the run.
Illia, you hit a very interesting note, here, and something about which I feel strongly. In the Standard, "economic qualities" proceed all other information, barring basic bio. However, this is a point that might ask us all to bend....far. I think that we'd all have a rude eye opening were we to be able to quantify how many SOP-bred birds with high productivity were floating around. Now, I say this with the caveat of live and let live, but on our farm, we have zero time for a pretty bird that can't produce. We watch diligently for early maturity, and that which doesn't pass meets the pot, I don't even consider it. I literally do not allow my eyes to look at it.
I find that I'm pretty middle ground when it comes to purist stances. For example, I do not think that there is a strong, productive flock of White Dorking in the country. Ours are improving yearly, but that is improvement. Our breeds have not been part of a rigorous, Standard-based breeding program for decades. Someone kept them alive, and we received them as hatchery quality. If forced to bet, I would say that this generally describes the vast majority of all our breeds. The only breeds I am seeing commonly discussed here are relatively newly developed birds that used to enjoy an enormous population, i.e. Barred and White Rocks, NH, RIR, etc... They were much better positioned to withstand the process of agricultural depopulation that is the legacy of the latter half of the 20th century.
The Dorkings, the Crevecoeurs, the Houdans, the La Fleche, the Redcap, these breeds were already counting far fewer when depopulation began. There are no fowl up to snuff in any of these breeds in the country, at least to the extnent we have seen in this thread with regards to Plymouth Rocks, RIR, etc.... Of all of them, the Dorking is probably the strongest. Anyone wanting to save these birds is going to have to be contented with the dregs, most of which will come from hatcheries, and then, with longsuffering, will they pull them back from the brink.
Honestly how many breeders do this? I don't want to come down on the many who keep their birds in small to medium runs, but really, this is indeed a very important thing. Yes, you could lose your birds by free ranging/pasture raising, but it is far more natural and healthy as well as what we originally did decades ago when raising dual purpose breeds. Birds were fed the scraps of the farm's produce and good quality food, not commercial hen feed mashed into pellet form in a metal/plastic feeder, with nothing else more to eat than a couple bugs that fly through the run.
Illia, you hit a very interesting note, here, and something about which I feel strongly. In the Standard, "economic qualities" proceed all other information, barring basic bio. However, this is a point that might ask us all to bend....far. I think that we'd all have a rude eye opening were we to be able to quantify how many SOP-bred birds with high productivity were floating around. Now, I say this with the caveat of live and let live, but on our farm, we have zero time for a pretty bird that can't produce. We watch diligently for early maturity, and that which doesn't pass meets the pot, I don't even consider it. I literally do not allow my eyes to look at it.
I find that I'm pretty middle ground when it comes to purist stances. For example, I do not think that there is a strong, productive flock of White Dorking in the country. Ours are improving yearly, but that is improvement. Our breeds have not been part of a rigorous, Standard-based breeding program for decades. Someone kept them alive, and we received them as hatchery quality. If forced to bet, I would say that this generally describes the vast majority of all our breeds. The only breeds I am seeing commonly discussed here are relatively newly developed birds that used to enjoy an enormous population, i.e. Barred and White Rocks, NH, RIR, etc... They were much better positioned to withstand the process of agricultural depopulation that is the legacy of the latter half of the 20th century.
The Dorkings, the Crevecoeurs, the Houdans, the La Fleche, the Redcap, these breeds were already counting far fewer when depopulation began. There are no fowl up to snuff in any of these breeds in the country, at least to the extnent we have seen in this thread with regards to Plymouth Rocks, RIR, etc.... Of all of them, the Dorking is probably the strongest. Anyone wanting to save these birds is going to have to be contented with the dregs, most of which will come from hatcheries, and then, with longsuffering, will they pull them back from the brink.
