Heel low:
Nerve or not, good opportunity to highlight how hatching a 100 chicks could be one way or the t'other.
The confusion stems from many persons play they are "breeders" and have no concept whatsoever of the term. My pet peeve are the ones that know nothing about the Standard on the breed or variety and yet, have good birds. "Good" in what aspect?
A great way to not tread on too many toes here on BYC is to use an animal that is not a bird...like dogs.
At least in the purebred registered dog world, breeders are a term used that is a serious title. You are a kennel so to speak...but still there are many forms of breeders. We here fall into the category of "replacement" breeder in the dogs. I've seen some almost puppy millers take on the phrase "we breed for replacements" and whilst they DO keep a dog back from each litter, it is not in the same sense of what we do here. I have not shown dogs in a dozen years because I title them and then we live to enjoy them otherwise until they pass. I figure no sane person needs more than five or six of my particular dog breed and with a life expectancy of Bluey (Guinness record of 29 and a half years!), if you just title your dogs, you will have decade and more gaps between show dates, eh.
Breeders that are in essence puppy millers...could well be a term we might use for some of these auction sites. To become a sanctioned judge in my country for dogs, you have had to produce something like TEN CKC Conformation Champion titled dogs. In many cases, good rule of thumb is out of each litter on average of six pups, ONE canine will be worthy to pursue a show career and get their major and ten CKC points. So in that sense, ten litters for that qualification to become a judge would result in sixty puppies on average that you brought into this world. Anyone that follows my Pear-A-Dice thread and has seen the escapades my two girl pups lavish upon us with daily, would realize that sixty of these beasts would be difficult to find willing knowledgeable homes (victims?) for. Not everyone's cuppa tea, eh.
On average a person that "breeds dogs" goes into this for a period of five years. It takes that long for them to realize they are not going to pay off their garage that they built to produce puppies in. In poultry, we see hatcheries come and go. I oft see heritage chick sellers (and eggs) pop up for, oh maybe three seasons tops. Just long enough to realize it is way smarter to get a REAL JOB and work for wages..."will you have fries with that" pays better than thinking there is any profit margin available selling eggs and day olds. Usually they get their attitudes adjusted and can be quite morbid by the first year's time...the people wanting one female chick, the ones that get 75% roos in the mix and blame the seller, the down right nasty attitudes of people, the ones that up and cancel their order, etc...
Basically the common theme in animal and bird sellers, if they DO make any income off the enterprise, they are not doing something they should be. I have a part time job that buys bird seeds and the many costs over and above the contributions I make towards purchasing the "seed" is paid for by my spouses full time job. We don't kid ourselves one iota this is anything but a big black pit you pour resources down the drain in. My one litter of three pups in 2001 cost $10,000 in direct expenses (mind I am a retired accountant and CAN count beans well)--showing, herding, DNA testing, health tested in hearing, hips, elbows, annual eye CERFs, etc...after canvassing potential owners for five years prior, I sold the two pups for $750 each on full contract that for any reason, I would pay them back the $750, if only to have the dogs die in my arms...for any reason whatsoever. Basically, we dished out ten grand so we could have Fixins, daughter of Makins. No regrets and tons of joy for it but we never kidded ourselves there was money to be made...only spent.
The world is full of good intentions, the concept we need to eat them to save them and all the rah rah rah about the genetic pools we hope we can reserve in our time of need when the commercial factory farms screw our food supplies past the points of no return. I get it and we went into this hobby farm of ours thinking we could make some sort of difference past just us...at the very least, not to be too cynical, there will be heritage stocks here until we cannot any more and that will be that.
If you think any effort you make to "save heritage" stocks matters, it does to a point but then again, it doesn't. There is a heavy sense of burden put upon us that do see value in our heritage strains of livestock and poultry...will what we do matter, does anyone even know what they are potentially losing? I just don't know and quite frankly, do what we do and like David Suzuki says (just about to turn 80) about his legacy, pretty much all we can do is try and hope we show some sort of example. Past that, I feel we are responsible for our own actions, nothing more, or less. I cannot die with the guilt that maybe my Higgins White Dove bantam Chantecler project will be going kapoot when I pass...I can't handle that magnitude of responsibility thanks. So I get up each day, glad I made it another and do my chores and suck in the happiness that I have surrounded myself in for that day. That be that.
How can I be this cynical...seen that before. I draw from one observation of a fella that ran a preservation/trust farm for poultry. He sold day olds and at the end of the season when he had replenished his own stocks with breeders to grow out and select from, he would ship out hatching eggs to persons merely willing to cover the mailing costs. He ran this poultry trust preserve for about 20 years. Him and the wife decided to take a well deserved road trip and he was going to shut the place down for a year to do this. He thought it would be grand to tour the country side looking at the birds he had worked and supported (his wood working business picked up the tab where the farm never covered the expenses) all that time. So he kept meticulous records and before the holiday, in preparation of the route they would take, he called his customers that he had sent stocks out to. He began calling and to his terror, realized the holiday was a bust if that was the reason he wanted to use. Every single person he made contact with...had NONE OF HIS BIRDS. Excuses ranged from; kids grew up and we let them die out, predators ate them, I sold them all at auction, we quit hatching replacements, divorce happened, job ended and had to move, zoning changes (some cases not correct zoning to keep birds in the first place and forced to get rid of them), etc., etc. Not one of the people he thought would take up the cause in all the heritage breeds he worked at distributing were in existence. His life's work, he had better found the reward from his experiences with the time he spend with the birds...he has no legacy left, his lines are gone like the winds as are many. Murray, that sent us half our line of Brahmas, he summed it up..."you die and they come in and kill your birds."
I keep what I keep because we LIKE them. Not about popularity period. You will oft see these sellers have the latest hot number...like the dark skinned chooks which makes me cackle like a laying hen. I've had black skinned Booted for decades. I will have them for years long after people realize there are commercial entities already growing and processing black skinned mush meats...usually found in the freezer section of your grocery stores. We have what we have because we like them come heck or high water (literally been flooded and still kept it going). Long ago decided to keep East Indies, beetle green sheened ducks. Laugh as like black cattle, the markets ebb and flow, and I don't give a fig what is popular.
I am not an advocate for hatch-a-longs! I realize that in principle, it seems a great idea. Newbie has people for support, great way to have questions answered but I find the structure of some hatch-a-longs incites addiction. If one signs up and says, "I'm hatching such and such," I'm OK, but oft you find people join in to be part of a group without fully thinking the consequences of their actions. Did you know that Humane Societies are being inundated with "chickens!" They are not even set up to deal with farm animals and all, but these people get swept up in the concept of innocent hatching eggs, then becoming cute day olds and then lots of poop, responsibility of daily chores, and the birds get bigger, some cases picking on each other, diseases rear up from over crowding, etc. and suddenly the innocence of those dozen cackle berries are no fun whatsoever and by adding in the COSTS, never mind roosters fight and crow and suddenly a happy springish endeavour is a nightmare where someone ends up dumping their problem on a Shelter that is not geared up for birds.
To hatch out poultry, my conclusion is you have to have full realization of what to do with the end products...if you think you are going to save money, that's a joke. If you will eat better and happy foods, that is a bonus in given, but as with all things good, goodness takes effort and costs more to accomplish. So anyone saying they can save money raising their own food is not paying themselves even at minimum wage and if not able to buy train cars or grow their own feed on the cheap, just kidding themselves and bound for ending it off on a bad note.
Hatch enough birds to be able to make or maintain their initial goods, basically you need to be able to KILL and consume your cull birds to make use of the resources you have extended. Yeh, that is rash and hardcore, but once someone will realize if you harvest (eggs and meat) what you hatch...alot of the problems end there. You become lord and master of your own destiny and if you are going to hatch, you have to be able to take care of your own or never hatch any more until they pass on and make room for more (or build more additional facilities). You can hatch as much as you are able to handle ethically and morally.
When our first ducklings from a Rouen natural hatch became five drakes and one hen...we asked our vet to "capon" the drakes. He laughingly refused and it brought to our attentions, you better deal with the extra males...even in all male pens, they can fight (not as badly as male chickens do, but still worry each other to misery), so a happy situation with lots of ducklings can quickly become misery for the masses.
A regular ring steward once commented on seeing this photo above of our retired yard chickens and stated, our "yard birds are better than what he sees being shown" which quite likely remains true.
I have double the space here empty right now. That is what it takes to be able to hatch and grow out birds without overcrowding and all that negative entails. Without the facilities, you are doomed to have a miserable time.
People that do not have at least three generations in on a strain of poultry, know squat about their genetic potentials. Any hidden recessives won't rear up until F2's are produced, so anyone's guess till they are grown out and studied. Unless you have had the line for six years (cock and hens, not cockerels and pullet breedings) to breed up birds from, there is no experience knowing what that line produces. People that buy stock from sellers like this, get what they deserve in my books. Unknowns. So long as the market supports that kind of practise, the general quality of poultry will never reach the pinnacle it use to hold when people like Brother Wilfrid would produce 7,400 hatchling Chanteclers in 1925 in one season. Sheer numbers ensures selection of the best of the best and improvements up and up. It was not so much people were better at breeding past the magnitude of how important producing their own birds were...by default you ate what was crap and bred forward on the better ones you kept back (as time went on; you ate the fryers, then the roasters, then the stew hens and hoped to doG you did not run out before spring came and you could set eggs from the ones you saved best to last) --your life depended more on what you could grow so we had more carrots on sticks to make better birds that were easy keepers (smart good foragers, amiable temperaments, molted quick and got back to lay).
Feeding the family and self-sufficiency was a high goal at one time. Chooks use to share a spot in the very house you resided in by living in your rafters at night...not only to protect them from predation but from being taken by two legged thieves... Who amongst us would not laugh heartily today at the thought of being robbed by bandits. Home invasions...for a chicken?
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Nerve or not, good opportunity to highlight how hatching a 100 chicks could be one way or the t'other.
The confusion stems from many persons play they are "breeders" and have no concept whatsoever of the term. My pet peeve are the ones that know nothing about the Standard on the breed or variety and yet, have good birds. "Good" in what aspect?
A great way to not tread on too many toes here on BYC is to use an animal that is not a bird...like dogs.
At least in the purebred registered dog world, breeders are a term used that is a serious title. You are a kennel so to speak...but still there are many forms of breeders. We here fall into the category of "replacement" breeder in the dogs. I've seen some almost puppy millers take on the phrase "we breed for replacements" and whilst they DO keep a dog back from each litter, it is not in the same sense of what we do here. I have not shown dogs in a dozen years because I title them and then we live to enjoy them otherwise until they pass. I figure no sane person needs more than five or six of my particular dog breed and with a life expectancy of Bluey (Guinness record of 29 and a half years!), if you just title your dogs, you will have decade and more gaps between show dates, eh.
Breeders that are in essence puppy millers...could well be a term we might use for some of these auction sites. To become a sanctioned judge in my country for dogs, you have had to produce something like TEN CKC Conformation Champion titled dogs. In many cases, good rule of thumb is out of each litter on average of six pups, ONE canine will be worthy to pursue a show career and get their major and ten CKC points. So in that sense, ten litters for that qualification to become a judge would result in sixty puppies on average that you brought into this world. Anyone that follows my Pear-A-Dice thread and has seen the escapades my two girl pups lavish upon us with daily, would realize that sixty of these beasts would be difficult to find willing knowledgeable homes (victims?) for. Not everyone's cuppa tea, eh.
On average a person that "breeds dogs" goes into this for a period of five years. It takes that long for them to realize they are not going to pay off their garage that they built to produce puppies in. In poultry, we see hatcheries come and go. I oft see heritage chick sellers (and eggs) pop up for, oh maybe three seasons tops. Just long enough to realize it is way smarter to get a REAL JOB and work for wages..."will you have fries with that" pays better than thinking there is any profit margin available selling eggs and day olds. Usually they get their attitudes adjusted and can be quite morbid by the first year's time...the people wanting one female chick, the ones that get 75% roos in the mix and blame the seller, the down right nasty attitudes of people, the ones that up and cancel their order, etc...
Basically the common theme in animal and bird sellers, if they DO make any income off the enterprise, they are not doing something they should be. I have a part time job that buys bird seeds and the many costs over and above the contributions I make towards purchasing the "seed" is paid for by my spouses full time job. We don't kid ourselves one iota this is anything but a big black pit you pour resources down the drain in. My one litter of three pups in 2001 cost $10,000 in direct expenses (mind I am a retired accountant and CAN count beans well)--showing, herding, DNA testing, health tested in hearing, hips, elbows, annual eye CERFs, etc...after canvassing potential owners for five years prior, I sold the two pups for $750 each on full contract that for any reason, I would pay them back the $750, if only to have the dogs die in my arms...for any reason whatsoever. Basically, we dished out ten grand so we could have Fixins, daughter of Makins. No regrets and tons of joy for it but we never kidded ourselves there was money to be made...only spent.
The world is full of good intentions, the concept we need to eat them to save them and all the rah rah rah about the genetic pools we hope we can reserve in our time of need when the commercial factory farms screw our food supplies past the points of no return. I get it and we went into this hobby farm of ours thinking we could make some sort of difference past just us...at the very least, not to be too cynical, there will be heritage stocks here until we cannot any more and that will be that.
If you think any effort you make to "save heritage" stocks matters, it does to a point but then again, it doesn't. There is a heavy sense of burden put upon us that do see value in our heritage strains of livestock and poultry...will what we do matter, does anyone even know what they are potentially losing? I just don't know and quite frankly, do what we do and like David Suzuki says (just about to turn 80) about his legacy, pretty much all we can do is try and hope we show some sort of example. Past that, I feel we are responsible for our own actions, nothing more, or less. I cannot die with the guilt that maybe my Higgins White Dove bantam Chantecler project will be going kapoot when I pass...I can't handle that magnitude of responsibility thanks. So I get up each day, glad I made it another and do my chores and suck in the happiness that I have surrounded myself in for that day. That be that.
How can I be this cynical...seen that before. I draw from one observation of a fella that ran a preservation/trust farm for poultry. He sold day olds and at the end of the season when he had replenished his own stocks with breeders to grow out and select from, he would ship out hatching eggs to persons merely willing to cover the mailing costs. He ran this poultry trust preserve for about 20 years. Him and the wife decided to take a well deserved road trip and he was going to shut the place down for a year to do this. He thought it would be grand to tour the country side looking at the birds he had worked and supported (his wood working business picked up the tab where the farm never covered the expenses) all that time. So he kept meticulous records and before the holiday, in preparation of the route they would take, he called his customers that he had sent stocks out to. He began calling and to his terror, realized the holiday was a bust if that was the reason he wanted to use. Every single person he made contact with...had NONE OF HIS BIRDS. Excuses ranged from; kids grew up and we let them die out, predators ate them, I sold them all at auction, we quit hatching replacements, divorce happened, job ended and had to move, zoning changes (some cases not correct zoning to keep birds in the first place and forced to get rid of them), etc., etc. Not one of the people he thought would take up the cause in all the heritage breeds he worked at distributing were in existence. His life's work, he had better found the reward from his experiences with the time he spend with the birds...he has no legacy left, his lines are gone like the winds as are many. Murray, that sent us half our line of Brahmas, he summed it up..."you die and they come in and kill your birds."
I keep what I keep because we LIKE them. Not about popularity period. You will oft see these sellers have the latest hot number...like the dark skinned chooks which makes me cackle like a laying hen. I've had black skinned Booted for decades. I will have them for years long after people realize there are commercial entities already growing and processing black skinned mush meats...usually found in the freezer section of your grocery stores. We have what we have because we like them come heck or high water (literally been flooded and still kept it going). Long ago decided to keep East Indies, beetle green sheened ducks. Laugh as like black cattle, the markets ebb and flow, and I don't give a fig what is popular.
I am not an advocate for hatch-a-longs! I realize that in principle, it seems a great idea. Newbie has people for support, great way to have questions answered but I find the structure of some hatch-a-longs incites addiction. If one signs up and says, "I'm hatching such and such," I'm OK, but oft you find people join in to be part of a group without fully thinking the consequences of their actions. Did you know that Humane Societies are being inundated with "chickens!" They are not even set up to deal with farm animals and all, but these people get swept up in the concept of innocent hatching eggs, then becoming cute day olds and then lots of poop, responsibility of daily chores, and the birds get bigger, some cases picking on each other, diseases rear up from over crowding, etc. and suddenly the innocence of those dozen cackle berries are no fun whatsoever and by adding in the COSTS, never mind roosters fight and crow and suddenly a happy springish endeavour is a nightmare where someone ends up dumping their problem on a Shelter that is not geared up for birds.
To hatch out poultry, my conclusion is you have to have full realization of what to do with the end products...if you think you are going to save money, that's a joke. If you will eat better and happy foods, that is a bonus in given, but as with all things good, goodness takes effort and costs more to accomplish. So anyone saying they can save money raising their own food is not paying themselves even at minimum wage and if not able to buy train cars or grow their own feed on the cheap, just kidding themselves and bound for ending it off on a bad note.
Hatch enough birds to be able to make or maintain their initial goods, basically you need to be able to KILL and consume your cull birds to make use of the resources you have extended. Yeh, that is rash and hardcore, but once someone will realize if you harvest (eggs and meat) what you hatch...alot of the problems end there. You become lord and master of your own destiny and if you are going to hatch, you have to be able to take care of your own or never hatch any more until they pass on and make room for more (or build more additional facilities). You can hatch as much as you are able to handle ethically and morally.
When our first ducklings from a Rouen natural hatch became five drakes and one hen...we asked our vet to "capon" the drakes. He laughingly refused and it brought to our attentions, you better deal with the extra males...even in all male pens, they can fight (not as badly as male chickens do, but still worry each other to misery), so a happy situation with lots of ducklings can quickly become misery for the masses.
A regular ring steward once commented on seeing this photo above of our retired yard chickens and stated, our "yard birds are better than what he sees being shown" which quite likely remains true.
I have double the space here empty right now. That is what it takes to be able to hatch and grow out birds without overcrowding and all that negative entails. Without the facilities, you are doomed to have a miserable time.
People that do not have at least three generations in on a strain of poultry, know squat about their genetic potentials. Any hidden recessives won't rear up until F2's are produced, so anyone's guess till they are grown out and studied. Unless you have had the line for six years (cock and hens, not cockerels and pullet breedings) to breed up birds from, there is no experience knowing what that line produces. People that buy stock from sellers like this, get what they deserve in my books. Unknowns. So long as the market supports that kind of practise, the general quality of poultry will never reach the pinnacle it use to hold when people like Brother Wilfrid would produce 7,400 hatchling Chanteclers in 1925 in one season. Sheer numbers ensures selection of the best of the best and improvements up and up. It was not so much people were better at breeding past the magnitude of how important producing their own birds were...by default you ate what was crap and bred forward on the better ones you kept back (as time went on; you ate the fryers, then the roasters, then the stew hens and hoped to doG you did not run out before spring came and you could set eggs from the ones you saved best to last) --your life depended more on what you could grow so we had more carrots on sticks to make better birds that were easy keepers (smart good foragers, amiable temperaments, molted quick and got back to lay).
Feeding the family and self-sufficiency was a high goal at one time. Chooks use to share a spot in the very house you resided in by living in your rafters at night...not only to protect them from predation but from being taken by two legged thieves... Who amongst us would not laugh heartily today at the thought of being robbed by bandits. Home invasions...for a chicken?
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
