Definition of Heritage Breeds

[punky rooster]

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[rtroxel]

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Which again makes me ask the question: Why include the word "Slow" when we define how our "heritage" breed MUST grow? How do "slow" and "productive" not make an oxymoron? Kind of like a fast snail? or an efficient waster (I think I have some students who do this with their time)?

Wow this thread grew quickly! Catching up.....

I wonder if the word "slow" was used not so much to mean slow but to pitch them against the Cornish X. Is so, it creates a negative definition. The intent may have been to say something like "a natural or balanced rate of growth", which would read differently and seems both more pleasing and more desirable. The first juxtaposes the industrial hybrids and heritage fowl, but, if one doesn't even think about industrial hybrids, then one wouldn't talk about slow, one would talk about healthy.

This is/was my original point. And as you stated a few posts down, it seems like there is a militant aspect to this definition, not just an idea of helping the birds survive. I would make a bet that if push came to shove, the industry with the most importance politically and power/money would win. Sorry to say this, but I don't think we are that industry. Having powerful friends is much better than powerful enemies!!

 

[centrarchid]

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Wow this thread grew quickly! Catching up.....

I wonder if the word "slow" was used not so much to mean slow but to pitch them against the Cornish X. Is so, it creates a negative definition. The intent may have been to say something like "a natural or balanced rate of growth", which would read differently and seems both more pleasing and more desirable. The first juxtaposes the industrial hybrids and heritage fowl, but, if one doesn't even think about industrial hybrids, then one wouldn't talk about slow, one would talk about healthy.

This is/was my original point. And as you stated a few posts down, it seems like there is a militant aspect to this definition, not just an idea of helping the birds survive. I would make a bet that if push came to shove, the industry with the most importance politically and power/money would win. Sorry to say this, but I don't think we are that industry. Having powerful friends is much better than powerful enemies!!

The growth rate description for heritage breeds can be looked at in different way. It is a quantitative trait (many genes involved) that is characteristic of the breed. Therefore changing the growth is like changing coloration or conformation. You wind up with something that different from where you started.

 

[rtroxel]

Ok, I agree with you. It is changing the breed. Isn't that what the "heritage" breeders were trying to do, too? There is no logical way that anyone can say that old-time breeders were not trying to improve their stock and it's productivity traits. The most successful breeders gave their breeds a head start for the future. Most of those have survived while others are long since departed (Lamonas, etc.).

 

[Yellow House Farm]

A thought, though, about rate of growth--for so many reasons, it is emphasized. If there's any sort of forage-less confinement going on, it makes sense to want them off the feed bill as quickly as possible. However, if they're on a small-scale farm or homestead, which makes good use of Mother Nature, rate of growth reduces in importance because the forage supply keeps coming.

Also, heritage cookery is such that it is built to work with fowl at various ages. A 12-week broiler that dressed out to 1-1 1/2/lbs is perfect. A fryer that's 2-2 1/2/lbs. A roaster/fricasee that's 3-4/lbs. An older roaster or capon that's more up there. A poularde, or stewing fowls, that's 3-5/lbs. All of these have a place in traditional cookeries and are excellent--really quite good. In a way, it may be more generally beneficial to re-learn the art of heritage fowl cookery than to try to make a broiler a roaster when it's still supposed to be a broiler.

 

[centrarchid]

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I am not in agreement with the usage of "improving" the breed where heritage breeders are concerned. Improving means a directional change (i.e. bigger, faster, smaller, darker, more, less etc.). "Improving" by many interested in conservation of heritage breeds is synomous with refining. Refining means breeding for a particular appearance and reducing variation within selected flock so as many as possible reflect the ideal. The process over time tends to loose genes typical of breed because the number of breeding birds for many of the rarer heritage breeds is too small. Efforts to restore genetic variation through outcrossing are frequent but a problem arises where genes not associated with type or color are changed over time such that only the outward appearance is concerved. We are trying to conserve too many breeds relative resources at hand. Some breeds already effectively dead with only distantly related look-alikes in their sted.


My opinions on this issue are derived from conservation efforts concerning wild species where the breeding pattern used for breeds would quickly doom a wild species to a demise promoted by inbreeding. In rare cases where interspecies hybridization has been a component of restoring a natural species, it is realized the resulting population is very different from the original it developed to replace.



Part of the conservation effort for the heritage breed should also be maintaining the rearing conditions used in their original development and to allow that process to exhibit selection pressure as much as the breeder's eye and hands. The rearing conditions selective force is slower, sloppier and not always in agreement with the SOP but, if employed with care to ensure a more complex mating system, it will aid in conservation of genetic variation.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

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I wonder if the problem with Lamonas, Hollands, Delawares, etc... is that they are pretty late developments. There are those that might argue that really ranking them a heritage fowl, or heritage fowl with deep history, at least, is a bit dubious (Please, don't read this as my personal opinion

) I'm not sure if they ever really held strong, or even moderately strong, place in American homesteading and farming. They came as later developments, in a fairly industrial manner, within an industry that was fast moving toward the cross-breeds of today. Rocks, Wyandottes, Dorkings, Orpingtons, Houdans, Hamburgs, Minorcas, Leghorns, Anconas, Sussex, RIR, these are fowl that had anywhere from many decades to many centuries of household presence.

For the more recently developed breeds, was it just a case of too little too late?

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Wow, Centrarchid, you raise two tough, but valuable issues.

Are there too many breeds to be saved? Does proper selection in accord with one's environment eventually lead away from the Standard--touching on certain landrace notions. I'm a little gun shy to touch on the second one at the moment, but...

I do often wonder what will be about in 20 years. How many breeds? How many varieties? Are there just too many darned colors in too many fowl? Does all of this superficial variety undermine the longterm healthy of a breed by dividing the efforts of those working with the breed? Is 2 flocks each of seven different varieties of rocks as valuable to farmers and homesteaders, in the long run, as 14 flocks of one variety?

I do intend these as questions, and I imagine that only time will tell. I imagine, though, in 20 to 30 years much will be revealed as to the value of flock size per breed.

 

[CharlieVoda]

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Punky, I saw Buckeye bantams in the new Sand Hill catalogue that he seems to think are of nice quality. I thought of you. Good luck!

Thanks, I am going with Urch to start with then I will have to check them out! they may just be from urch tho

You are getting smart in your old age.

Good Luck with the birds
Charlie

 

[CharlieVoda]

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Have you created a Faverolle like this that meets the APA standard?

Good luck with the birds
Charlie

Still waiting for an answer.

Good luck with the birds
Charlie