Calling all APA and/or ABA breeders!

[FluffyBottomBantams]

I’ve seen it mentioned here and there across this site but haven’t found a thread for it yet (my apologies if there is already one ) but I’m curious how many people here are a member of the ABA or APA, or breed towards the standard? I’d love to hear about what breeds or varieties you work with as well as pictures (of course!) As well as how you are managing the lack of shows...

 

[FluffyBottomBantams]

Anyone?

 

[ronott1]

I am going to suggest that the thread be moved to:
Exhibition, Genetics, & Breeding to the SOP
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/exhibition-genetics-breeding-to-the-sop.16188/post-thread

 

[aart]

I am going to suggest that the thread be moved to:
Exhibition, Genetics, & Breeding to the SOP
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/exhibition-genetics-breeding-to-the-sop.16188/post-thread

Just did about 40 minutes ago

 

[ronott1]

Just did about 40 minutes ago

It is a good idea for a thread!

I found this one in the unanswered thread project thread

 

[aart]

I found this one in the unanswered thread project thread

Same here.
Will be interesting to see if it picks up...not sure there's many serious breeders still around tho.

 

[FluffyBottomBantams]

Thank you for moving it! I’m not sure why that didn’t occur to put it there in the first place I know most hard core breeders are older and therefore may not be as tech savvy, but I was still hopeful that there may be a couple out there...anyone??

 

[EmilyRobb]

I'm relatively novice when it comes to this, but I've shown to a handful of APA/ABA sanctioned shows and I've recently got into breeding towards the SOP, like within the last year, and have since become an APA/ABA member as I'm friends with my provincial rep (if anyone here is from District 11 let me see you in this thread!). I know that it's gonna take quite some time to establish anything significant, and I've got some pretty good results so far in breeding, but everyone has to start somewhere right?

Finding breeders that work towards the SOP seems like a very hard task these days. Maybe it's because they don't really use social media, or maybe it's because there's not a lot of them at this point. I find that people seem to breed chickens just to breed chickens, but they don't care about the general disposition of the breed and they don't strive to maintain a standard which is sad to some extent. Even though I'm not even an adult, but I suppose that it's good to pick up something when you're young and take time to work towards a goal. It's better to get a job done correctly over a decade than to rush a job over 5 years. Hopefully, breeding season after breeding season, I can work my way up the up the ranks, become reputable, and maintain one if not a few heritage breeds for the generations to come

 

[aart]

I know most hard core breeders are older and therefore may not be as tech savvy,

There used to be quite few here when I first joined,
they got fed up with pet keepers and hatchery/farm store buyers.

 

[Amer]

Hi! I’m Amer!
I used to breed other breeds, including Ameraucanas, but now I found my focus.
I raise quail, bbs, and cuckoo d’Anvers bantams as well as bantam Buckeyes.
I’m a fairly new breeder.
I bought bbs and cuckoo d’Anvers first from Aubrey Webb, spring, 2017. Since he was unable to produce fifteen of these, which I totally understood, he sent blue and lavender cuckoos and lavenders as well.
Unfortunately, my birds got sick from a respiratory infection. At the time, I didn’t understand biosecurity. It took me quite a long time to remove this disease from my flock. Few of these birds remained, and Aubrey Webb discontinued breeding.
The birds left over were mediocre at best. I had some lavender cuckoo and cuckoo cockerels, no pullets. I had black pullets and a lavender blue pullet.
I bought more stock that fall at a show but the quality just got worse. I also had lots of lavenders... and lavender splits, which I didn’t want. I had just been trying to get blues from the lavender blue. And the blacks I bred had leakage.
Eventually I removed all of these but two lavender blue hens (for pets) and one black hen (for blue breeding.)
I also ended up with a cuckoo hen who was 1/4 Dominique bantam, who I tried to breed for her superior stripes (cuckoo d’Anvers have very bad patterning, as a rule) but she ended up being an egg eater.
Spring 2019 I got a pair of young quail d’Anvers and a blue quail pullet from Tyler Johnson, since there were no d’Anvers of the preffered colors in Wisconsin. I just wanted something to work with, I guess.
Summer 2019 I bred them.
Fall 2019 I went a swap. John’s Poultry was there with a couple nice blue d’Anvers pullets and a few decent black cockerels. I bought one each, but my friend Wyatt Burnside promised to sell me a pair at the Ohio Nationals, so I hoped to get a better cockerel, and another pullet.
At the Ohio Nationals I got a splash cockerel and a blue pullet from Wyatt and a cuckoo pair from Robert Todd Herren.
The cuckoo cock died.
I ended up having to breed the cuckoo hen with the black cockerel. I also used the 1/4 Dominique hen, but I never got eggs from her and she became a pet.
I bred the blue pullets with the splash cockerel.
I bred the quail pair, blue quail pullet, and two quail pullets hatched that summer.
Now I have many young quails and quite a few single-barred cuckoo cockerels, black pullets, and blue and splash d’Anvers running around. We will see how they shape up.
I hope to acquire a Dominique bantam cockerel this fall to breed with my cuckoo hen to improve the barring, introduce silver to the cuckoo, and cut the gold brass out of the cock.
I hope to clean up the blue lacing.
The non-quail d’Anvers are quite a work in progress, but this year, I finally started with the birds I can use to get them going in the diret

Mike Sullivan was kind enough to give me a pair of bantam Buckeyes.
I got my first pair of bantam Buckeyes
fall 2017, but the hen died of prolapse with her first egg so I got a replacement hen from Mike fall 2018.
I bred the pair and got enough chicks to sell broodstock to others and improve in the next generation in the pullet department.
Fall 2019 I kept the cock (he was better than the cockerels I hatched) and received a nice cockerel of a different line from Mike.
I bred these with my 2019 pullets.
I’m currently the only breeder of bantam Buckeyes that I know of in Wisconsin, but I hope that will change. I love competition.

I will show you current pictures of my four-month-olds when I can get them and they aren’t totally soaked from the rain.