breeds dying out

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chookrodney

chookrodney

Hatching
5 Years
Jun 27, 2014
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I live in south Australia . I have seen lots of breeds dwindle down to next to nothing . the main problem is most councils not allowing roosters . neighbours complaining about them crowing . city people only wanting hens , usually the best looking ones . ones that should be in a breeding pen . the way we are going breeds will die out and the only place to get a chook will be from some one in the country because that will be the only place you will be able to have a rooster.
 
G'day and
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I'm in Queensland.

I think the biggest threat to breeds in Australia is the import restrictions; just recently we had a few thousand rare breed chickens imported that were culled for carrying Salmonella, even though almost all were clear of it. We've already got Salmonella here. That just boggles the mind, what a waste, and of rare genes too.

If you look into the history of Australia many of our breeds are very inbred because few were imported to start with, and then import restrictions or bans were implemented rapidly and that doesn't leave a lot of options.

There are some great breeders out there, doing their bit for rare breeds, but lack of public awareness is one big hurdle to overcome. Chronic inbreeding is probably best managed by forging links to every purebred breeder, but people are doing that.

While I support the idea of roosters and chickens responsibly kept in suburbia, roosters like to make noise. When someone comes up with a safe control for that, councils could be more easily persuaded to allow chickens.

My mongrel flock, I've realized, contains many rare breed samples. They were mongrelized before I got them but someone, somewhere down the track, or many someones more likely, had some rare and unusual breeds which later someones mixed apparently at random. Still, you can get heritage birds in Australia, of all domestic species we've got.

Best wishes.
 
I agree with you , but if you went back about 30years ago every second back yard had chooks . and no-one complained about roosters crowing . it's like living next to a train line , after a short time you hardly hear it . with the imported bird they should have been placed into smaller separate groups so if some were crook not all would be put down
 
lol, I just recently did live near a trainline and a few people there had chooks, noisy motorbikes, etc despite it being suburban. Didn't stop the roosters keeping me awake. The trains didn't bother me.

Yes, the debacle with the chooks was terribly shortsighted, but there it is, new genes wasted rather than used to recharge our small genepools.
 
I would have about 200 chooks ( hamburgs [ black , white , ss ,blue.] , andul. , polish , frizzle polish , dorkin , blue laced gold wyndotte , modern game lg & bant. , opington lg & bant. [buff & cuckoo] , Minorca , buff leghorn , blue ancona & ancona bant. )
about 200 ducks (indian runner [ black , choc. , white & khaki ] rouen , pekin , saxon , mallards [ white , silver , buff , blue fawn ] blue mascovy & mammoths & crested
and about 350 chiness geese , lavender turkeys & assorted pigeons
not to mention about 150 rabbits & 4 cats
 

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