Breed Stewards Thread

[Ducks and Banny hens]

What makes a good Hen? (in my flock, anyway...)
Well...
- Dedicated Mama. She should be an exquisite broody, a protective, fearless mother, and smart - raising chicks well.
- Easy to handle, of course.
- Breeding. Well, she should be willing to breed. I've heard of hens refusing to mate with certain roosters. This would be detrimental during Spiral Matings. She should be quite fertile, too. Feeding her poop or compost or MiracleGrow won't make more chicks sprout, er, hatch...
- And again be a quite hardy tough specimen, worthy of passing on that hardiness and vitality to another generation of tough-as-nails birds...

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

Standard of Perfection
Please don't get me started on that again... Okay, too late. There is only one thing that I don't like about the SOP: Uniformity. They say you're helping improve the breed by breeding towards a common standard. But are you really? Let's think about that. For APA shows? Yes then the SOP is good. For utility? Or hardiness? Or vitality? The thing is the SOP is perfectly uniform, but true value is so calcaphonous that the SOP means nothing positive or negative. It's neutral. Hard to understand? Let me explain. Now I have a certain Rooster that I am very fond of. He's near perfect. He is the best rooster I've ever heard tell of, and he's standard-looking. All of his brothers - equally perfect - are awful looking in the eyes of a show-breeder, but they are still protective, social, hardy birds. Need I say more? Beauty is shallow.

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

So nobody else wants to talk about what they are doing to improve they're flock?

 

[sjarvis00]

That is based on several criteria.. However we have a few here that we are working on very diligently, mostly type issues. One variety we developed a proposed standard for last year, working with a few others who will take the effort serious enough to allow us to seek APA and ABA recognition for the variety. It has been a long road but seeing considerable improvement and for teh first time in 9 generations I am somewhat satisfied with the birds. I could bore everyone to tears with that one.
I have some rigorous selection criteria when working these types of projects but they do not really agree with some of what you have posted. I do seek adult birds for breeding (over 1 year prefer 2+), hens must remain productive at least to age 5, males till at least 7, maitian feather and body condition a minimum of 3 years.
I start at egg size, then chick down color, growth rate, body size and proportion, weight, leg length, final plumage quality, plumage color is last.

 

[Pyncheon guy]

I'm pretty much doing the same thing as "sjarvis"......keeping the best (IMO)....going through my list of priorities.....feather texture.....leg shape and color.....comb shape and size.....body weight and size and color....laying ability and quality of eggs layed....any faults and/or DQ's for the breed/variety.....overall body stance and station of the bird.....fertility....etc....been doing it for over 45 years....and 16 years with the breed I have now..... works for me.

The ABA standard has been my guide...my breed is not recognized..(yet)...by the APA.....but over the years the SOP has been a great help...along with feed back from other breeders...I've learned from others and I hope others have learned from me....

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

Quote:
You seem to have longevity as good as it's going to get! Good work. A few questions tho', what type of climate are your birds hardy to? My birds are hardy to the mountain regions in eastern Canada here. And what varieties are you working with?

 

[sjarvis00]

Quote:
You seem to have longevity as good as it's going to get! Good work. A few questions tho', what type of climate are your birds hardy to? My birds are hardy to the mountain regions in eastern Canada here. And what varieties are you working with?

We live in Oklahoma, however I have shipped birds all over the US with no problems reported in the present or future generations from florida, Montana, Oregon, California, the carolinas, and the far NE.

I do suggest that anyone living in southern coastal regions vacinate for Fowl Pox as imunity can not be inherited it must be obtained by the bird. We do vacinate for Coryza since it is carried by the local migratory fowl and difficult to prevent, other than that we seem to have very few problems.

we raise primarily OEGB and have started projects with Rosecomb to re-introduce a few colors that have been lost namely Columbian and Birchen.

I am very selective about what goes into a breed pen, and even when I now everything about the bird I still progeny test and wait to see the results in the juvenile offspring, this allows me the ability to insure what I am using will be duplicated when I do allow some to leave here and go to other folks for breeding programs or show.

I do select against broodyness since we incubate and I need birds timed for specific months for shows it is difficult to maintain a schedule when I cannot count on hens to lay or hatch every month.

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

What makes a good Duck?
Well, I haven't raised ducks for long or kept them over winter, altho' I'm quite fluid with duck genetics and information, so I'm hoping somebody will kindly assist this thread in the field of Duck stewardship...
Thank you.

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

This thread still needs:
Bold text means it's been completed by someone

Chickens
-North Maritimes
-Canadian Appalachians (myself)
-Southern Appalachians
-East Coast
-Deep South
-Interior Highlands(sjarvis00)
-Midwest
-North Prairies
-North Rockies
-South Rockies
-Southwest
-West Coast
-Pacific Northwest
-Far North

Ducks
- (Anywhere)

Geese
-(Anywhere)

Pheasants/Gamebirds
-(Anywhere)

Guineas
-(Anywhere)

The goal in this thread is to get knowledgeable people from these places to educate people in those regions about how to improve their birds.

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

You may notice I've deleted turkeys from the list. They are probably hardy anywhere in NA and probably don't need much improvement.