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I'm going to offer up an opinion that I know a lot may differ with. Many only want to buy eggs or chicks, because they don't want other people's "culls". If you are buying from a reputable breeder with a well established quality line, you can do extremely well buying their "culls" (I hate that word!). If you are buying birds at 6 months to a year or year and a half, they have already been thru a couple rounds of culling, and the worst traits have already been weeded out. Again, with a reputable breeder with a well established quality line, your chances are pretty good that the older the bird is, the better (assuming the bird is still of a good breedable age). IMHO.
So is it possible to take a pair that don't quite meet the standard and have offspring that does? Or is this a dumb question?
There is no such thing as a dumb question. I've certainly asked my fair share.
Keep in mind that the SOP is the Standard of "Perfection". It describes the perfect bird. Any bird can meet the standard and be considered show quality as long as it doesn't have any disqualifying traits, such as vulture hocks or bare middle or outer toes. But just because you can show a bird without disqualifications doesn't mean its a good bird. I really don't think that you should expect to "breed up". Don't expect to take 2 birds with poor typed backs and expect to get quality backs. But if you have one with an exceptional back, you can pair it with one of a slightly lesser back, but you don't want to pair it with one that has a poor back. The worse the 2nd bird is, the lower your chances are of producting good offspring, and you will have to hatch that many more to see any good results. That being said, I used the "back" as an example because it carries the most judging points. So as far as the conformation of the 'back', I would always try and pair the absolute best I could find to start with, and not try to make any allowances here.
I put the attached worksheet together for myself a couple of weeks ago, to help me in my culling decisions. Please keep in mind that I am a novice and still learning. I based the entire worksheet on the SOP "Scale of Points" (excluding weight and condition/vigor). Basically, a "perfect" bird can earn 100 points: 48 for shape/type, 38 for color, 10 for condition/vigor, and 4 for weight/size. Different parts of the body receive more points than others. I broke it up into three sections: judging for shape/type, judging for color, and judging for both. It might help you in determining what factors are most relevant.
