Does not meet sop, not a breed?

[OhZark Biddies]

So I guess the question is how far away from the standard of perfection can individuals be, before they are not considered that breed any longer.

Let's say I raise a line of white plymouth rocks and I select just for friendly birds and not much else, and I never bring in any new blood.

And then 20 years from now I have all kinds of new traits... such as a few different sizes, a few different variations of white, maybe egg size and color of eggs are variable.... because I only culled for temperament.

Maybe I'd call them "farm quality" white plymouth rocks, but I surely still have white plymouth rocks, no?

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Skin color, ear color, egg color, body type, etc. These would put a bird out in it's "known" breed.

You mentioned a post back a Barred Plymouth Rock black sport. Yes, if it still looked like a Rock then it would indeed be a Plymouth Rock. A barred sport. There are no Black Plymouth Rocks as a variety. They do exist in the Blue Rock variety though. And this hypothetical black bird if it met most of the criteria for the Plmouth Rock breed could be used for Blue breeding. But then again we get back to pure breeding, or more apt what we know a breed should consist of genetically. In this knowledge we know there could never be a black sport Barred Rock of pure lineage. It's the result of yet another cross breeding.

When breeds were young sports occured with some frequency. They don't happen now unless that line was crossed with another breed to enhance some lacking criteria for the breed. And this brings us to taking two completely different breeds and mating them to then select from offspring all the qualities of a third breed and mate them. In relatively short order (3 to 4 generations) you will have birds that meet the criteria for that third breed. They then are that breed even though you didn't start with any parent stock. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a duck. Same with breeds. If a goose is born in a duck's clutch it's not a duck. It's a goose.

Edit to add a fun thing our town resident doctor used to say: If a cat has her litter in an oven does that make them biscuits?

 

[OhZark Biddies]

In this knowledge we know there could never be a black sport Barred Rock of pure lineage. It's the result of yet another cross breeding.

Would I be correct in saying that sports are typically not due to mutations, but due to an expression of something that is genetically leftover (or buried) from the early days of when breeds where developed.... or from when someone has brought in a different color/breed to improve this or that in a line?

Barring was probably the wrong trait to use as an example, because nothing covers up barring (to my knowledge).

I guess for my example of the back, unbarred bird, coming from barred parents, I was thinking more of when some new genetic mutation would occur. Let's say a pullet from 2 barred parents had a mutation that caused the barring gene not to be expressed and allowed the extended black under color to be shown.

I would guess this is very unlikely though? not really sure.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Mutations do occur. That's Darwin for ya. But in our relative limited lives breeding what's apt to pop up is areas like the comb side sprig or some other undesired trait that is result of mutation.

Edit to add: We safeguard against this by culling from breeding any undesired traits. Take my SPPR for example. I selected a pale legged sire last year. This was to my benefit as it greatly reduced the dark pigment on female offspring legs. Now I need to use the most yellow legged male to attempt to bring it back to standard of bright yellow and still little dark wash on pullet legs. If I continued with light legs and correspondingly light skin then eventually I'd be near white and definitely no longer a Plymouth Rock. It would be selecting for a color inhibiting gene that would turn the skin and legs white. That would be wrong to do and against the standard. Some dark wash is aceptible on females but undesired. Was the pale color a mutation or expression of limited pigment gene? Thinking it was a limiting pigment gene. It worked and now working back to standard. As we breed to standard to preserve the breed.

 

[Mosey2003]

Pedigreed dogs are somewhat the opposite of SOP chickens. In dogs, if the parents are pedigreed as a breed, the pups are the breed whether they look like it or not. In chickens, if the chicks look like a breed, it doesn't matter what the parents were, it's considered the breed.

 

[Penny spender]

Interesting post! When I started thinking about pure bred chickens, I could not believe there were no breeding records (I come from horse/dog background where it needs papers to be considered a particular breed). Now I see where the "walks like a duck, talks like a duck" saying came from. lol

Also interested in this post, as out of the 5 purebred blue Ameraucana pullets that I bought, one has yellow skin under her slate legs, making them dark greenish between her toes. The other 4 are a very good looking bunch and I was considering showing one of them come spring, but, I've been told to cull the whole lot of them because of Mrs. Greenfeet.

 

[Mosey2003]

I'm no expert yet, but I would want to know how pervasive a thing like the yellow in the legs is in your breed. And then, if it was something that was going to keep popping up with regularity and plaguing you, yes cull from breeding. But if it's something that one basically can't completely eradicate, you'd just cull any chicks that came up with it. Is that right?