MrandMrsChicken: I am not good a judging the Bantams as I only have the large fowl. Laura is better at that (as she has both Bantam and Large Fowl & she has a name in the Dutch Bantam World too). I will say that I looked real good at the ones at the Ohio Nationals and your Bantam Buckeyes look better than some in the show -that much I can tell.
CARS: asked: If the ALBC created their own strain, that looks different from the others, is that what you need to win a judged show??? That bird was created by judges, wasn't it???
It isn't that it looks different in that sense, I think they win because they are larger. ALBC breeders put more than a pound on average on the birds & squared them up. No, the ALBC breeders aren't judges. two or three of them were master breeders from showing other poultry breeds and I found they just had an excellent eye at picking out the best birds-- I think this came from literally handling hundreds and hundreds of Buckeyes.
Chocolate_Muscovy: If Brown strain was derived from Cornish, does it still qualify as a heritage strain?
The Brown strain wasn't "derived" from Cornish, but Mr. Brown used Cornish to shore up his bird's genetic vigor and to obtain some qualities he was seeking (by doing an outcross to the Cornish). This is acceptable when done right and by a breeder who knows what he is doing which John Brown does. It is not something I would do. There is no doubt others have done this for the Buckeye by using RIR, which, just my opinion, the Cornish is a better choice to use IF YOU'RE GOING TO DO THIS. Also, I am not naive enough to think that only Mr. Brown has outcrossed to a Dark Cornish -- this helps give them their thick shanks and for Brown, the shorter legs he seeks (as well as darkens them up). The Game ancestry of the Buckeye was some kind of Indian or Asian Game anyway-- was it Cornish? We'll never know. For one thing, different terminology was used to describe them around the 1890s and the Cornish of that day did not look like the Cornish of today.
The Brown Strain is still pure Buckeye as he would then have bred the bird back enough generations to purify it, so yes, still a heritage breed, & still Buckeye. Laura and I (and others) believed the black splashing we were seeing occasionally on our females was from this Dark Cornish infusion but then when Brown told us of the possible Partridge Chantecler connection, we have guessed that as another possibility of the black splashing. As I indicated in an earlier post or somewhere else, Mr. Brown says he gets good results breeding to the black splashed females. He said they make good breeders.