I do not know anything about the Urch thread. IMHO, Urch's current Buckeyes I have seen are proper size and weight & looked good type. Not everyone recognizes good type as a first criteria but will only look at color.
One thing about Urch's birds that you cannot say about other strains of Buckeyes and that is, Duane Urch does not mix any other breed in (i.e. they are pure Buckeye, no Cornish, no RIR, nothing else) since 1958-1959 when he acquired them from, if my memory serves me correctly, a Mr. Howard Tallman (FL). I started with Urch Buckeyes, and I have never got one single comb in my Buckeyes in 7 years. I am not against grading, but I do believe it needs to be done with a genuine and specific purpose & reason in mind (and then please, do not use a SC RIR).
Since Urch keeps and maintains many, many breeds, obviously, he cannot do the sort of selective breeding year in and year out that many of us who keep but 1-2 breeds and do very selective breeding; however, without question, he does know how to select breeder birds, but I assume, he selects mainly for type. I still have a hen I got from Urch, and she is 7 years old. Although I did not recognize it at the time, the old hen has excellent body type. She still lays an occasional egg. I have noticed recently, that she has become far-sighted. Does anyone else have a 7 year old Buckeye hen still laying? What is remarkable is that she has survived 6 brutal Alabama summers!
