Differences between Barred Plymouth rock and Partridge Plymouth rock.

[oegbantamsftw]

Aside from different feather color is there difference of being broody or egg production or egg size because when i check the breeds section for byc there is two entries for plymouth rocks. I may pass of the information as unreliable.I want to know if its solid facts or just opinions on the breed.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I haven’t read the articles, but consider them opinion based on observation of their individual chickens. Certain breeds do have tendencies but individual chickens within that breed can be as different as two different people that are cousins. What I consider more important is strain.

An individual flock of chickens can develop certain traits that differ from another flock. If the person selecting which chickens are allowed to breed in that flock has as part of the criteria “lays large eggs” and only hatches large eggs with in just a few generations will have a flock that mostly lays large eggs. If they only hatch eggs from hens that go broody, they will soon have a flock where the hens often go broody. Or if they only hatch eggs from hens that don’t go broody, you’ll have a flock that has few hens that go broody. These can all be purebreds of the same breed.

A few years ago I read an article where a breeder split a flock and started breeding them for size. He bred one flock to be small and the other to be large. I don’t know how long it took him but he would up with two flocks where the average weight of one chicken was 9 times the average weight of a chicken from the other flock. Same ancestors with no outside blood brought in. That’s the power of strain and selective breeding.

It’s hard to determine strain. Each hatchery has different people selecting the chickens that are allowed to breed. These people have different skill levels and different goals.

Something to consider is that you have to have enough chickens so the averages mean something. You can’t take the actions of one chicken and assume those apply to every chicken in that breed any more than you can take the actions of one individual policeman or teacher and assume their behavior is standard for everyone in that profession worldwide.