BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

I am fortunate enough to be loosely acquainted with precisely this type of breeder. Here's her website if anyone is interested: http://featheredreptilesfarm.weebly.com/

My husband and I know a poultry judge who introduced me to these birds so I could see firsthand the difference between hatchery stock and quality breeder stock. Her birds are beautiful, but they're also production stock. As he explained to us, "What good is a pretty chicken if it doesn't keep you fed?"

DesertChic, this is not knocking this person. However, these lines of birds (I am familiar with them) are not utility lines. Some far from it.

These are strains that floated around and became popular on BYC. They are nice birds, but they are not production fowl.

What we need is focus and commitment to a single strain, even creating a strain. It would take that kind of effort to get them where they could be.
 
I am fortunate enough to be loosely acquainted with precisely this type of breeder. Here's her website if anyone is interested: http://featheredreptilesfarm.weebly.com/

My husband and I know a poultry judge who introduced me to these birds so I could see firsthand the difference between hatchery stock and quality breeder stock. Her birds are beautiful, but they're also production stock. As he explained to us, "What good is a pretty chicken if it doesn't keep you fed?" 


Yes she has some really nice looking birds. And would love to get my hands on some but... at $8 a head for straight run +SH that's a little out my price range. I'm thinking a utility breed also need to be price so the average house hold can afford.
 
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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?
 
DesertChic, this is not knocking this person. However, these lines of birds (I am familiar with them) are not utility lines. Some far from it.

These are strains that floated around and became popular on BYC. They are nice birds, but they are not production fowl.

What we need is focus and commitment to a single strain, even creating a strain. It would take that kind of effort to get them where they could be.

I ALWAYS value your insight and expertise, especially since I'm so new to poultry keeping, which is why I now request that you expand on how you would define the creation of a good "production fowl". Should I simple refer back to your comments regarding the Wyandottes you commented on, or were those comments more breed specific?
 
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?
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I was looking for the "Outstanding Post" emoticon, but this one will have to do. You're dead on with this post in my opinion. Like you I'm one of those people who has actually sought, purchased and read (and am reading) those antiquated books written and published in the early 1900s. I've been reading and studying poultry genetics, breeding programs, the evolution of the SOP standards....and like you I've come to the conclusion that we really haven't come that far in the past century. As you've so eloquently stated above, "chicken people" seem divided between the show breeder, the heritage breeders, the "let's-mix-these-two-and-see-what-we-get" breeders, and the "what's wrong with hatchery birds" breeders. And all of these groups seem to be on the attack and are being attacked.

I went to my first poultry show recently and saw some amazingly beautiful birds. I also insulted a few breeders when I asked them how many eggs their pretty hens lay. And I mean I SERIOUSLY insulted them. Okay...I'm ignorant...I get that. But I don't own chickens for show. The thought never actually occurred to me. I want eggs and I want meat. I thought that's what owning chickens was all about...and after reading nine books on poultry husbandry, all I've concluded so far is that nobody really seems to have THE answer I'm looking for, and maybe never did. I've learned that I can't expect everything from a single bird and I'm fine with that. But one "expert" claims that "that's a good looking bird" and another sees nothing but its imperfections. As a newbie, I'm downright perplexed.

Right now I'm seeing a slow evolution of people who are starting to see the value in keeping their own birds at least for eggs. I think that's a good thing. It at least starts to bring us closer to our food. But I get frustrated when a perfectly productive egg laying hatchery bird is condemned for not being a heritage, breeder-stock bird. I thought THIS thread was about "Breeding for Production...Eggs or Meat", not about breeding and preserving heritage birds. That's why I continue to ask for insight from those experienced in breeding for production.

Sorry...this was a bit more of a rant than I'd intended. I guess I'm a bit more frustrated than I'd realized.
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I ALWAYS value your insight and expertise, especially since I'm so new to poultry keeping, which is why I now request that you expand on how you would define the creation of a good "production fowl". Should I simple refer back to your comments regarding the Wyandottes you commented on, or were those comments more breed specific?

Don't value what I have to say. I am no authority. Mostly I try to share a perspective, and use examples to illustrate that perspective.

It would be difficult to define what I meant by creating a utility strain. The rationale would be all over the place because there is any number of scenarios.

I will try to illustrate the mindset behind the statement. This is just an illustration.

If we have a flock where the pullets only laid 140 medium sized eggs, and took 8 months to come into lay (that would be part of the problem, having lost two months of laying time before they go into molt) . . .
Then every female we had, had these characteristics. It would be difficult to select for improvement because you need variability to select from.
Sometimes new genetics need to be brought into the picture that would offer the variability needed to select for improvements.

Some crosses would be straightforward. Like a commercial Leghorn male over some exhibition females. Maybe going back to the exhibition side another generation or two. The dominant white of the commercial Leghorn would not pose a problem. It is a very simple color.
Others would not be so clear. The Barred Rocks maybe could use a large Delaware instead. The offspring would be barred, and going back to the exhibition strain another generation could help the quality of barring. With continued selection, a decently barred bird of good type could be had. With smart selection, the production characteristics could be improved.

It is just genetics, but a project of this sort would require a long term commitment. It would not be for the average poultry keeper.

Some of these breeds need some forward thinking to get them back to where they could be. Some are good enough to work with them as they are. Regardless, there has to be enough variability to select from. If they all perform poorly, then it would be hard to utilize the better performers.
 
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?

I agree with much of what you have said. I probably should just keep my thoughts to myself, and keep plugging along as I have.

It all boils down to what we do in our yards, and what judges pick from the line. I can handle a bird and say whether or not I would be interested in evaluating a bird further. They are more qualified than I. If they are all feather, I would rather not waste my time. They would require an outcross before I even started. Still, the judges have to pick from what is there.

I do not see much changing. Maybe a few will establish a few worthy strains along the way.

Concerning education. If the newcomers would read Call of the Hen, AND Genetics of the Fowl by Hutt, they will have a good start. They are both outdated. We have come a long ways since then. Both are readable though. They do offer a good foundation to the fundamentals.
And you are right. We have to try to get around other breeders. We should learn the craft from craftsman.

Learning to breed poultry is a good hobby. It is a good past time with a lot of history. There needs to be more interested in learning the actual breeding of these birds. I enjoy the learning, and the doing.

I hope that you continue to be successful. I will keep plugging at what I am doing. Maybe I will make some progress along the way.
 
Jumping in here (i'll go back and catch up tonight) but who has standard bred birds with productivity levels that they are pretty happy with?

Looking at starting up a CSA outside of Birmingham and want to offer eggs and meat, so I've kind of been looking at the heavy dual purpose breeds like Delawares, Barred Rocks, RIR and New Hampshires but I'm mostly unfamiliar with their status in the productivity department. I do not want hatchery birds, but my focus will be on production from birds that could possibly produce show winning stock with more selective breeding as opposed to the flock breeding I would be doing.

The other thing I have to think about though, is how much these heavy layers EAT. I'm almost leaning towards an egg breed and a separate meat breed. Are their any light, sprightly, efficient large BROWN egg laying breeds that I'm not thinking of? Unfortunately folks just don't want WHITE eggs from a farm share!
 
goodpost.gif
I was looking for the "Outstanding Post" emoticon, but this one will have to do. You're dead on with this post in my opinion. Like you I'm one of those people who has actually sought, purchased and read (and am reading) those antiquated books written and published in the early 1900s. I've been reading and studying poultry genetics, breeding programs, the evolution of the SOP standards....and like you I've come to the conclusion that we really haven't come that far in the past century. As you've so eloquently stated above, "chicken people" seem divided between the show breeder, the heritage breeders, the "let's-mix-these-two-and-see-what-we-get" breeders, and the "what's wrong with hatchery birds" breeders. And all of these groups seem to be on the attack and are being attacked.

I went to my first poultry show recently and saw some amazingly beautiful birds. I also insulted a few breeders when I asked them how many eggs their pretty hens lay. And I mean I SERIOUSLY insulted them. Okay...I'm ignorant...I get that. But I don't own chickens for show. The thought never actually occurred to me. I want eggs and I want meat. I thought that's what owning chickens was all about...and after reading nine books on poultry husbandry, all I've concluded so far is that nobody really seems to have THE answer I'm looking for, and maybe never did. I've learned that I can't expect everything from a single bird and I'm fine with that. But one "expert" claims that "that's a good looking bird" and another sees nothing but its imperfections. As a newbie, I'm downright perplexed.

Right now I'm seeing a slow evolution of people who are starting to see the value in keeping their own birds at least for eggs. I think that's a good thing. It at least starts to bring us closer to our food. But I get frustrated when a perfectly productive egg laying hatchery bird is condemned for not being a heritage, breeder-stock bird. I thought THIS thread was about "Breeding for Production...Eggs or Meat", not about breeding and preserving heritage birds. That's why I continue to ask for insight from those experienced in breeding for production.

Sorry...this was a bit more of a rant than I'd intended. I guess I'm a bit more frustrated than I'd realized.
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LOL, if you insulted people by asking that question, then the problem is with them. They let themselves be insulted and I have a feeling it is either because they felt dumb that they couldn't answer your questions because they didn't know, or they didn't care what production was and they felt that you should have just oohed and aahed over how pretty their birds were, or because their production sucks and they were embarrassed to be asked that question. In any case, that was their problem, not yours. Show people SHOULD be concerned about production, otherwise they will wind up breeding themselves into a corner because they can't reproduce the birds they have if their birds won't lay.

Seeing where I came from and where I am now, I better understand where some of the problem is with frustration from newbies. Like you mention, one person says a bird looks great and another says it doesn't. It's hard to know who is right. Thing is - both are right, depending on the perspective. It depends on what you are looking for. I have people tell me how beautiful my birds are, while I think "eh, that one is ok, but its tail is a little pinched". I'm looking at different things than other people. Same thing when I go to a show. I'm not looking at all the pretty feathers like a lot of people. I'm look at things like how crisp the barring is in a Barred Rock. How deep is the chest, how wide is a bird. Does that bird have an overall healthy appearance or does it look like someone washed it to make it pretty, but it really isn't as good as it could be. So much is about perspective. A bird that lays every other day or every few days is ok for my purposes. But for people that want to have an egg selling business, that is nowhere near enough eggs. Perspective.

Newbies also want specific answers on how to breed for best production, how to breed for best color, for best size, etc. What doesn't seem to get conveyed very well is that there is no one way to raise or breed a chicken. It's all relative to what each person's expectations are and what their situation is. But nobody tells you that. I think either the old timers either never were really "new" because they grew up learning as kids and have always known certain things, or they have forgotten what it is like to be new and haven't figured out how to pass on what they know in a way that other people can understand easily.

You can learn a lot from the old books, but after a while, there isn't any more that you can learn until you start doing. You have to be able to see the results of your choices before some of the questions get answered in your head. We just finished butchering today and saw the results of some choices we made and it was great to get the firsthand look at how certain things worked. The books only tell you so much, and people answering questions only tell you so much. It's the birds themselves that really show you how things fit together. Things start clicking a lot better and you stop being so frustrated after you just start doing and have real live poultry to make all the connections. My hubby and I were just discussing this today while we were butchering roosters and seeing the results of some of our husbandry decisions in the appearance of the carcasses. Every day is a learning experience that you just can't get from trying to piece it together in your head without having the birds there in front of you.

There isn't so much of a problem with hatchery birds except you can't continue to have hatchery birds if you don't have standard bred birds. Even hatcheries have to periodically reinfuse new blood from heritage lines, otherwise their birds will lose the characteristics that make each breed a breed. What would happen if nobody wanted to raise heritage birds and breed them to their standard? We'd wind up with a bunch of multi colored chickens that look alike except for color and maybe type of comb. And really, the work has already been done for you when you buy hatchery birds. You pretty much know to expect that you're gonna have higher production of eggs with a hatchery bird, and when you buy a meat bird from a hatchery, it's going to be ready to slaughter much earlier than a standard bred bird and have more breast meat on it. It's the standard bred birds that need more work on production. To me, I don't see how people can ignore either the standard or production, they really should go hand in hand.
 

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