Breed Stewards Thread

[sjarvis00]

What would you like me to cover? We breed heavily towards the SOP for the birds we raise and show, although we have some stringent selection criteria and cull very heavily toward body type and color traits but retain many traits required for the longevity of the birds.

everyone's selection criteria is a touch different based on thier desired goals and usage of the birds. I am not sure I can really discuss in great detail a scenario that will work for everyone as I know few who keep poultry as layer flocks and actively breed for exhibition as well.

 

[WyandotteTX]

Quote:
Just a comment about part B here. Dogs and chickens, DO NOT mix. I have been raising birds for well over 35 years and my family has for well over 75 and the number one tenet we have always adhered to.......no dogs around chickens. It does not matter if its your trusted dog it is something inherent in their nature to want to kill chickens. IF you need further proof, search through this site and see how many threads there are of people losing their treasured chickens to their own dog, neighbors or strays. Just a little sage advice from a veteran chicken breeder.
I love the idea of letting the chickens out to do as they please but in my neck of the woods there are Hawks, Owls, Coons, Ringtails, Martins, Coyotes, Foxes, Bobcats, Mountain Lions, Skunks, Possums and even Feral Hogs. Letting chickens out is not an option. I have to do my best to build a fortress to keep everything out on a daily basis so I dont need to send out an invitation by letting them outside.
I am also with you on letting them survive on their own. I have never used heaters or lights and if some of my birds die because of the cold, so be it. Mother hens are nice to hatch out those precious eggs but is very unpractical for the amount of birds that many of us need to hatch out each year. Plus they are very inconsistent in wanting to set or not. I would have to have a seperate flock of birds just for setting eggs on top of the birds that I am trying to raise and concentrate on.
I like your overall idea though.........I have never spoiled my chickens in any way. They need to be cold/heat tolerant and produce as nature intended them.
John

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

Quote:
What to cover? Well, anything that you honestly can cover would be good. I don't know how varied the climate is in OK, but if there is any number of climates represented there, so if you can cover anything, that would be good. Stewards seem to be quite scarce, so if there's only a few of us, we may have to cover more regions than just home. For example, I may cover Midwest, because the varied terrains and climate of this province allow me to. This is Backyard Chickens, and there seems to be mostly pet owners and other neutral flock owners, then there are breeders, just breeders, those who breed for such a specific trait or traits that they pay no regard to the future generations of his young dying, weak, idiotic, quickly degrading flock. Then there is us. All 5 of us... Those who want to manage are flocks in such a way the birds become smarter, and the input of our precious resource is no longer neccesarily waisted on the animals that shouldn't need it. And also, for anyone reading this, if there is a certain charicteristic in a breed that helps it in a certain biome (I don't mean SC or RC or PC, I mean long legs, body carriage, height, sppeed, etc...). For example, a breed that was traditionally raised in a harsh environ will usually gallivant and be able to go long distances at once (to gather food), while breeds that arose in oasi will be rather lazier, not traditionally 'programmed' to have to cover much ground to find food.

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

Quote:
Just a comment about part B here. Dogs and chickens, DO NOT mix. I have been raising birds for well over 35 years and my family has for well over 75 and the number one tenet we have always adhered to.......no dogs around chickens. It does not matter if its your trusted dog it is something inherent in their nature to want to kill chickens. IF you need further proof, search through this site and see how many threads there are of people losing their treasured chickens to their own dog, neighbors or strays. Just a little sage advice from a veteran chicken breeder.
I love the idea of letting the chickens out to do as they please but in my neck of the woods there are Hawks, Owls, Coons, Ringtails, Martins, Coyotes, Foxes, Bobcats, Mountain Lions, Skunks, Possums and even Feral Hogs. Letting chickens out is not an option. I have to do my best to build a fortress to keep everything out on a daily basis so I dont need to send out an invitation by letting them outside.
I am also with you on letting them survive on their own. I have never used heaters or lights and if some of my birds die because of the cold, so be it. Mother hens are nice to hatch out those precious eggs but is very unpractical for the amount of birds that many of us need to hatch out each year. Plus they are very inconsistent in wanting to set or not. I would have to have a seperate flock of birds just for setting eggs on top of the birds that I am trying to raise and concentrate on.
I like your overall idea though.........I have never spoiled my chickens in any way. They need to be cold/heat tolerant and produce as nature intended them.
John

Good. I like the way you've adapted to your situation. You have no other way to protect chickens than to barricade them. Up here, our Mountain dog chained in the yard right beside henhouse provides excellent predator deterrence. I've decided when he dies, not to replace him, because I know you're right about dogs and chickens, and I don't want to risk getting a new dog and having it have a different concept of what chickens are for... Our dog is 10 years old, and doesn't have anything better to do than spend all day trying to remember where he burried that 3 yr-old groundhog carcass or spoiled seafood. As for about the broodies, I slightly disagree with you. I feel it would be better to raise 1 flock that I concentrate on (like you), but have the hens of that flock be very reliable broodies, for to hatch there own eggs. Basically, the way I manage my flock, the goal would be to have a strain that you'd be able to drop a flock in the middle of nowhere in this environment and have them be able to thrive. (That was just a speech figure. I wouldn't waist my birds actually doing that last bit).

 

[Gresh]

Well, here's my two-cents about stewardship. A lot of it will be similar to your own opinions, Banny, but that's probably 'cause we believe in the same Source of all stewardship

1. Return to nature
Though I don't believe in a lot of this "Save Mother Earth," "Go Green," and "Peace through Green" crap (excuse the use of the word), I do believe that, when it comes to chickens, the closer to nature, the better. This means, as Banny said, that a group of chickens could be dumped out in the middle of nowhere and still have a good chance at survival. They should be able to raise their own young, find their own food, escape from most ground predators, run fast enough so as to reach cover from aerial predators, endure their original climate (heat, cold, temperate, etc.) and also fly well enough to roost in trees at night, just like wild chickens. However, as an obvious necessity, they should not be so feral as to become aggressive towards or frightened of people. They should be people-friendly enough to hang around the house and let you hold them, but wild enough not to depend on human intervention for survival. (Note: I do not mean "organic" when I say "return to nature." For chickens, truly returning to nature means being 100% omnivores, not the veggie-tormented organic chickens raised by hypochondriac environmentalists

)

2. Return to purpose
A breed should always do what it was bred to do. If it was bred for egg-laying, it should lay like crazy. If it was bred for meat, it should be stocky and muscular. Anything less should be altered. However, it is my personal opinion that most chickens should be dual-purpose, since that way it is more practical and economical for the chicken owner.

3. Return to simplicity
I admire certain aspects of the APA's Standard of Perfection, but in all honesty, when a person focuses overmuch on showing, they wind up with chickens that are pampered with such an outlandish degree of pomp that they no longer represent the breed well. Do they look like the breed? Of course. Are they purebred? Probably so. But do they lay if they're supposed to lay? Do they produce meat if they're supposed to produce meat? Are they dual-purpose if they're supposed to be dual purpose? Sometimes showbirds lose their basic qualities in favor of show qualities.
I believe that chicken breeds should be bred to a basic standard of perfection, i.e., they are purebred and have enough "show qualities" to be considered the breed, but are not so perfect that their hardiness, intelligence, and purpose are down the drain. For example, a Buckeye should basically follow this simple standard: a hardy, medium-to-large mahogany-colored chicken with green sickle-feathers, bluish saddle and hackle feathers, a pea-comb, and a certain look of gamey-ness. (This may not be the best example, but it is an illustration.)

Hope this is helpful. It's a lot of repetition, but I'm just glad there aren't too many opposing views on stewardship here

~Gresh~

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

Quote:
This is what separates us from the hippies.

Okay, now returning to non-humor, Thank you Gresh for your input. I do agree fully with all your points. I do have some things that I haven't talked about that your post made me think of. 1 of them is about Air Predators. We have Kestrels (Pigeonhawks), Goshawks (Accipiters), Marshawks (Harriers), Eagles (Goldens), and the odd chicken hawk, and I have discovered something about them: None of them will be successful during an over-water attack. Gos-, Mars- and Chickenhawks and Eagles are fully able to kill any size of Duck. But when the ducks are swimming during an attack, the birds-of-prey seem inept, or afraid of, killing waterfowl over water. The other point I thought of was about the chickens being afraid of us. My birds are not afraid of me, though some would certainly think so. But I prefer to use a different word: Reverence. My birds are very loyal, trusting enough to come inside their coop every night and not flee at the sight of me, but smart enough to realize what I am capable of doing to them. The seem to think I always have food for them, and come running up to my feet when they see me, but if I begin upon them, they will flee because they have NO IDEA what I'm trying to pick them up for. WHY is this GIANT trying to catch ME? And, altho' a few former-pet hens are very tame, the ones that were hen-raised will put up just the biggest squawck when I first pick them up, and the Rooster, even though I'm evidently 'harming his hen and could 'harm' him, comes valiantly running over to rescue the damsel in distress. But once I get the hen in a comforted position in my hands, and she stops fussing, my rooster backs off, seeing everything is okay. The Rooster trusts me enough to back off when everything is obviously okay, instead of continuing his defensive ingress and mauling me anyways, although, and this is good, he follows closely to see to it that his lady does not end up in the stew pot. My birds trust me, but know when I'm 'attacking' (catching them), and are always (except for 1 hen I don't like) easy to handle.

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

Quote:
Yes, I again agree with you completely. I know there are show fanatics out there, and I know they care, so I apologize to them for this, but, who should care how widely spaced barring is, or how many black hackles a columbian bird has, or how wide the wingbar is etc.

 

[Gresh]

Quote:
Yes, I again agree with you completely. I know there are show fanatics out there, and I know they care, so I apologize to them for this, but, who should care how widely spaced barring is, or how many black hackles a columbian bird has, or how wide the wingbar is etc.

Exactly! I mean, they call it the "Standard of Perfection," but really, I don't know that there truly is a perfect bird out there.

The APA tries to base their SOP on what birds were like in the past. But I've been thinking: the birds of the past did not have perfect barring, exact wing-carriage, six sickle feathers even, etc. They just had some basic characteristics that made them a breed and that made them unique from any other chicken.

There ought to be a contest on hardiness or something

~Gresh~

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

Quote:
There isn't a perfect bird out there. There hasn't been since Creation and there won't be until after the Second Coming. But still, although our human ruin-everything-we-tough-ness disallows perfection, we are called to, with His help, improve our birds as much as we can towards the like of those first two chickens, 6,000 some odd years ago....

On that note, although this doesn't have anything to do with stewardship, I had a thought a while ago about the original chickens. There are 4 'species' of junglefowl, and the hybrids they produce (2 types of 'Bengals' and the 'Bekisar') can reproduce themselves. Also, there is often DNA from several 'species' found in the same chicken (MI gene from Greys, ER Gene from Ceylons, etc..). All this evidence could be used to argue that the 4 'species' are just archaic breeds... And if that's true, perhaps the originally Created Junglefowl were totally different. Perhaps the chickens that walked off the Ark were from Noah's mixed flock. This is just something I find interesting to imagine...

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

Quote:
And like I said be for, if raised extensively, chickens always look beautiful.

There used to be lots of year-long laying competitions, but those have long since dissappeared in favour of a less practical - but much shorter - contest. That's the other thing: Everyone seems to treat the SOP like the Poultrimen's Bible, when in reality it is just a game! Showing is just a big, detrimental game that has only led to the preservation of careless breeding and futile efforts in hopes that one is maintaining 'High-Quality Poultry'. There are some you will meet or correspond with or just read of who will get quite snoody when it is implied that anything less than a perfect SOP type specimen can be considered of 'good quality', or even "Please remember that it is NOT a breed until it is recognised by the APA. All others are mongrels"... what about Dorkings or Krombelkeends? Were they mutts for 2500 yrs and suddenly appeared out of nowhere when the APA decided to recognise them?