Breeds of chickens your ancestors had?

[lostinthewoods]

One of my grandmothers had leghorns..not sure what breed the other grandmother had. None of my other family have ever raised chickens.

 

[McGoo]

This is my great grandma feeding the chickens. Not sure, but think the dark ones are RIRs. Any suggestions on the others? They lived up in the mountains of upstate NY, so whatever type had to be hardy.

 

[Suisan]

Well, this is sort of a hard one to answer. My grandfather was an Armenian refugee from Persia. They had chickens in his village in NW Iran, but I have no idea what kind they were.

During the Depression he brought home 40 chickens (I think leghorns and RIR) to my grandmother with great pride. They lived in the garage and produced egg after egg after egg. Grandpa was quite pleased. My grandmother was not. She hated those chickens. My great-grandmother and grandmother fought constantly over how to preserve the extra eggs, how much to sell them for, and which chicken was ready to be turned into stew.

My mother says that when the last chicken was in the stew pot the three kids had a party in the back yard since they would no longer have to hear the constant arguing. My uncle and my mother are *amazed* that I am working out how to keep chickens in suburbia. (I keep reminding them that their little sister recovered form the childhood chicken trauma and kept chickens on her horse farm, but they don't quite believe that she liked them all that much.)

 

[Cuban Longtails]

My dad raised american game, his dad (my grandfather) had chickens but I don't remember what kind just that they were black breasted red and wheaten colored. My mom's father (my maternal grandfather) told me his parents kept leghorns, rhode island reds and barred rocks.

 

[tiki244]

My mom remembers collecting eggs from Barred Rocks

and her little brother got attacked by a goose.

My maternal greatgrandfather raised and fought american game fowl and he was even featured in the American Game Fowl Fancy magazine

Nice Thread

love the pic McGoo and the story Suisan

 

[farm_mom]

My children are the 5th generation on my husbands side to live here on this land. My children's great-great grandparents raised turkeys, geese, ducks and chickens (as well as horses and cows.) Here are a couple pics from the early 20's, your guess is as good as mine as to which varieties these are.

 

[horsejody]

Mostly mixed heavy breeds with some leghorns thrown in.

 

[Guitartists]

My grandfather and grandmother had some bantam chickens. No clue as to what breed they were, sounds like they were mostly just mutts

But one little partridge colored one was my mom's pet when she was growing up.

I wish we had pictures.

(edited to add) I honestly don't know why we don't have pictures. My grandfather's brother was an avid photographer and we have pictures of everything else. I guess the chickens just weren't that cool???

Here is a pic of my great-uncle's rescued fox cub - Rusty. Maybe they got rid of the chickens when Rusty came along

 

[Betsy]

White leghorns and bantams and I think Rhode Island Reds with my paternal grandma. My maternal grandma also grew up on a farm but I don't know what kind of chickens they had.

 

[ncgnance]

I don't know what kind of chickens we had, probably mutts. They belonged to my grandmother, but we all lived together, like most farm families back then. I was born in '45, and one of my earliest memories was this black rooster that would attack me every time he caught me outside. I even remember the day my dad grabbed him and wrung his neck. I must have been 3 or 4 years old. I also remember the night the weasel got in the hen house. I think daddy killed more chickens than the weasel did when he shot into the hen house with the shotgun. My sisters and I still laugh about that. My aunt had Domineckers, as we called them.