If you could get 160-180 large eggs, 6 month layers, and 16 wk fryers in a blue laced variety that has good type . . . you will have something worth talking about. That is a challenging, but beautiful color. A variety like that does not have to set records to be worth something. I would be proud of a flock like that. Not to mention varieties like this are often good broody mothers, which is useful in the right setting.
The Wyandotte is somehow overlooked overall and particularly among those interested in utility. There is already a lack of interest in the practical merits of keeping poultry.
A Wyandotte's carcass should be more like what we have become accustomed to than the other American breeds. There should be a good dual purpose meat strain of White Wyandottes.
The exhibition Wyandottes that I am familiar with have good size, but are excessively feathered. That kills a bird's practicality. A lot of protein and energy goes into all that feather. Both during growth, and in maintenance. If I had the ability and resources, I would be interested in creating a line of blacks and whites. Birds that were tight feathered, had good type, and had good fleshing. Birds that could lay 200 eggs per year. Maybe not win a beauty contest, but would be respected by those that knew Wyandotte.
This goes for all of the American dual purpose breeds. The Rocks, Reds, NHs, Dels, etc. It would be interesting to see more take on projects like this, and commit to them. Many like the idea of it. Some pay it lip service. Some are sincere, but do not know how. The good breeders are breeding for other reasons all together. There is nothing wrong with that. It would just be nice to see some old fashioned utility lines available.
I would take a flock of good typed Reds that were productive that may not have the color etc. over a non performing show winner any day.
I hate to offend, but the hatchery Barred Rocks are awful. They are not Rocks. They are junk. The exhibition strains are useless. That is just the truth. They have size, even too much size. They are poor Jersey Giants. The hatchery NHs are not NHs. They are small red birds. The production reds are good layers, but they are as much like a Rhode Island Red as my Catalanas are.
We need some that will roll up their sleeves and develop good bids with good type, that are worth having around. They may not win shows, but that are respectable for their breed. We need some good old fashioned utility lines of these breeds.
Thinking there are a couple of reasons for having pretty but unproductive birds - besides the fact that a lot of people don't feel like taking the time, money, and effort to do serious breeding.
For one thing, people no longer have to rely on growing their own food. Most of the people that I know that have poultry, are not able to bring themselves to even eat their own bird - don't even suggest that they kill and process their own birds. People cannot even say the word "die" and use the euphemism "passed away" instead and the word "cull" has become a euphemism for kill even though it doesn't always mean that. And now we want people to actually slaughter an animal themselves and eat it? One they raised from a baby and named? An acquaintance of mine this week said that they would not even consider butchering their own birds unless there was some major catastrophe and they were no longer able to buy chicken at the store. And why worry about egg production when just a handful of hens can provide enough eggs for the small families that most people have these days? And if you run out of eggs in the winter, the store always has them. We have so much food abundance in this country, most people just aren't motivated enough to want to breed productive birds. If their survival depended on it, like our ancestors, I think we would see more people looking at poultry in a more utilitarian way.
Another problem I see is a lack of education on breeding for production. The APA is out there with a book that talks about what poultry should look like, but there isn't much out there about what to look for when breeding for production unless people know where to look and sometimes spend a good deal of time and/or money to find the information. So much of the good, informative stuff is in antique poultry literature that is not going to find its way into the hands of the general public.
Yes, the APA states right in the SOP that productivity is supposed to be a consideration when breeding birds and when judging them at shows, but it doesn't tell anybody how to do that. A hundred years ago, raising chickens for production was a much more commonly known skill - just like the majority of woman were taught to cook, clean, sew, garden, etc. But these are skills that are no longer passed down to the majority of the population and these skills have become lost because our society no longer needs them to actually survive. The APA stance seems to be that poultry husbandry and breeding is something that people should be able to figure out for themselves and that their only responsibility is to regulate the breed standards. I was pleased to see in the latest newsletter that the APA and the Livestock Conservancy are trying to get a better relationship going, but it's going to take more than that to bring back the lost skills of poultry husbandry and breeding for both production and appearance to the general masses.
There is a part of me that gets frustrated because I feel like people that want to do these things should get off their butts and do what I did - go searching for the information, read really boring, sometimes not-very-well-written antique poultry literature to learn some of these old skills. But the teacher in me knows that everybody learns differently at a different rate and is motivated by different things. So you have to meet people where they are and if you want them to learn something, you have to motivate them to have the passion to learn, and then figure out how to help them learn. Just telling people "Go to a show and find a mentor" is worthless advice. For one, not everyone has a lifestyle that lets them take the time to go to poultry shows. And people are not as friendly and outgoing as they were 100 years ago. They are not accustomed to just talking to everyone they meet or asking people for help. It's asking people to get out of their comfort zone and tell them they need to go to a show and just find someone and ask them to teach them things. And at the shows I've been to, I have yet to have any of the exhibitors see me looking at their birds and come up to me and ask if I have questions or just talk to me about poultry in general. All the exhibitors sit around in chairs looking bored or ignoring everyone else and chat in their own little groups like high school cliques. Poultry people that want to help others learn poultry need to be more approachable and not sit on their butts and wait for others to come to them. They need to be proactive in reaching out. So far I am not seeing that happening very often.
I understand how you feel and wish that more people would want to do more with poultry, and breed for both appearance and production rather than trying to cross breed everything under the sun and just play around, but until there is a concerted effort by some kind of authority to do more with outreach and education, which includes educating people on WHY they should worry about productive poultry when the grocery store rarely runs out of chicken products, I don't see a big change happening. Right now I just see fighting between breeders, fighting within breed clubs, animosity between groups like the APA, The Livestock Conservancy, and the Sustainable Poultry Network, everyone griping about how good poultry is disappearing, but not a lot of action. The old breeders want to do it the way it's always been done and the younger crowd is angry that the APA won't put out a digital version of the SOP, but few are looking at the root of the problems, much less considering many solutions. And everybody wants something to be done, but nobody wants to volunteer their time to get it done.
I laugh my butt off every time I see a fight in the APA social media groups over the same things that the antique poultry journals show people fought about 100+ years ago. We have not come very far. In fact, I think we are losing ground as many old fashioned skills are being lost to a high tech world. Why worry about raising great poultry when
Walmart is open 24 hours and you can play Farmville on Facebook?