Dominique Thread!

[Chris09]

Chris,

I disagree with that as the only criteria. My grandma (born in 1893, died in 1991) referred to chickens that roamed around and scratched in the manure piles as dunghill fowl. She never raised Gamefowl. I personally feel it is a general term applied to common yard chickens as well.

The term Dunhill fowl has been around since before the 1800's and for the most part referred to a chicken that would not fight.

Chris

 

[Chris09]

While that is true in the Game Fowl world, prior to the 1870's you see Dunghill fowls mentioned in ledgers, journals, etc. Here is an interesting exerpt
http://books.google.com/books?id=Gi...0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=dunghill fowl&f=false

Read this description and look at a old picture of a American Gamefowl, sounds very close to the description of a Gamefowl.
I look at when the term dunhill was first used and who is still commonly using the term. The term was first used and is still used today by people with gamefowl so I tend to think they know what the term means if they were the first to use the term to describe a chicken.


Chris

 

[wsmith]

Sir,
While I respect your opinion regarding game fowl, I still feel you are mistaken to assume that ALL fowl referred to as DUNGHILL fowl, are those who wouldn't fight. Please provide solid documentation supporting this claim. The docs referred to above do not support your claim. too many other contemporary mentions of dunghill and barndoor or barnyard fowl without reference to fighting.

 

[vnsseed]

Read this description and look at a old picture of a American Gamefowl, sounds very close to the description of a Gamefowl.
I look at when the term dunhill was first used and who is still commonly using the term. The term was first used and is still used today by people with gamefowl so I tend to think they know what the term means if they were the first to use the term to describe a chicken.


Chris

Chris,
I disagree. The term was used by farmers concurrently. Here is the earliest mention you will find (I have been researching this topic for 2 years and have volumes of doc):


"Tell me now, if you please, Merula," said Axius, "what I should
know of raising and fattening poultry and wood pigeons, then we can
proceed to the discussion of the remainder of our programme."

"There are three kinds of fowls usually classed as poultry," replied
Merula, "dunghill fowl, jungle fowl and guinea fowl. The dunghill fowl
are those which are constantly kept in the country at farms.

"He who wishes to establish an [Greek: ornithoboskeion] from which, by
the exercise of intelligence and care, he can take large profits, as
the people of Delos do with such great success,[180] should observe five
principal rules: 1° in regard to buying, what kind and how many he
will keep: 2° in regard to breeding: 3° in regard to eggs, how they
are set and hatched: 4° in regard to chicks, how and by whom they are
reared, and 5°, which is a supplement of all the foregoing, how they
are fattened.

"The females of the dunghill fowl are called hens, the breeding males
cocks, and the males which have been altered capons. Cocks are
caponized by burning the spurs[181] with a hot iron until the skin is
broken, the wound being poulticed with potters' clay.

"He who wishes to have a model [Greek: ornithoboskeion] should equip it
with all three kinds of fowls, though chiefly the dunghill variety. In
purchasing these last it is important to choose fertile hens, which
are indicated by red feathers, black wings, unequal toes, large heads,
combs upstanding and heavy, for such hens are more likely to lay.

"A lusty cock may be known by his muscular carriage, his red comb, a
beak short, strong and sharp, eyes tawny or black, wattles a whitish
red, neck spotted or tinged with gold, the second joint of his legs
well covered with feathers, short legs long spurs, a heavy tail, and
profuse feathers, also by his spirit and his frequent crowing, his
readiness to fight, and that he is not only not afraid of such animals
as do the hens harm, but even goes out to fight them. You must be
careful, however, not to buy for breeding any fowls of the breeds
known as Tanagran, Medean and Chalcidean, for, while they are
beautiful to look at and are fit for fighting with one another, they
are practically sterile.

From "Roman farm management: the treatises of Cato and Varro" circa 234-149 BC

=============
In fact, the way I interpret the last line, Merula doesn't have much use for "game fowl". If you have doc to the contrary I am very interested in seeing it, rather than here say and opinion.

 

[Chris09]

Sir,
While I respect your opinion regarding game fowl, I still feel you are mistaken to assume that ALL fowl referred to as DUNGHILL fowl, are those who wouldn't fight. Please provide solid documentation supporting this claim. The docs referred to above do not support your claim. too many other contemporary mentions of dunghill and barndoor or barnyard fowl without reference to fighting.

Your seeing what I am saying incorrectly, the term Dunghill fowl was first used to describe a fowl that would not fight.
Now that fowl could have been pure game, a game cross or a fowl the looked like a gamefowl but had mixed origins (barn yard mutt). Now you can Google the information if you like, but if you want the true term and and the most earliest use of that term you have to look into the gamefowl world. There may be a lot of slang or different meanings for a Dunghill fowl but most if not all refer to a bird that does not do its purpose for being bred.

The term Dunghill fowl is as misunderstood as the term "Dominique", everyone believes the the term Dominique is a breed of fowl and only a breed, but if one looks into the whole world of poultry they would see that the term Dominique is a pattern more so than a breed. Nearly every old breed of chicken had a Dominique or Dom pattern and it could range from clean black and white barring to crele and even a mostly solid color fowl with some barring in the tail.


Chris

 

[Chris09]

Chris,
I disagree. The term was used by farmers concurrently. Here is the earliest mention you will find (I have been researching this topic for 2 years and have volumes of doc):


"Tell me now, if you please, Merula," said Axius, "what I should
know of raising and fattening poultry and wood pigeons, then we can
proceed to the discussion of the remainder of our programme."

"There are three kinds of fowls usually classed as poultry," replied
Merula, "dunghill fowl, jungle fowl and guinea fowl. The dunghill fowl
are those which are constantly kept in the country at farms.

"He who wishes to establish an [Greek: ornithoboskeion] from which, by
the exercise of intelligence and care, he can take large profits, as
the people of Delos do with such great success,[180] should observe five
principal rules: 1° in regard to buying, what kind and how many he
will keep: 2° in regard to breeding: 3° in regard to eggs, how they
are set and hatched: 4° in regard to chicks, how and by whom they are
reared, and 5°, which is a supplement of all the foregoing, how they
are fattened.

"The females of the dunghill fowl are called hens, the breeding males
cocks, and the males which have been altered capons. Cocks are
caponized by burning the spurs[181] with a hot iron until the skin is
broken, the wound being poulticed with potters' clay.

"He who wishes to have a model [Greek: ornithoboskeion] should equip it
with all three kinds of fowls, though chiefly the dunghill variety. In
purchasing these last it is important to choose fertile hens, which
are indicated by red feathers, black wings, unequal toes, large heads,
combs upstanding and heavy, for such hens are more likely to lay.

"A lusty cock may be known by his muscular carriage, his red comb, a
beak short, strong and sharp, eyes tawny or black, wattles a whitish
red, neck spotted or tinged with gold, the second joint of his legs
well covered with feathers, short legs long spurs, a heavy tail, and
profuse feathers, also by his spirit and his frequent crowing, his
readiness to fight, and that he is not only not afraid of such animals
as do the hens harm, but even goes out to fight them. You must be
careful, however, not to buy for breeding any fowls of the breeds
known as Tanagran, Medean and Chalcidean, for, while they are
beautiful to look at and are fit for fighting with one another, they
are practically sterile.

From "Roman farm management: the treatises of Cato and Varro" circa 234-149 BC

=============
In ct, the way I interpret the last line, Merula doesn't have much use for "game fowl". If you have doc to the contrary I am very interested in seeing it, rather than here say and opinion.

The earliest mention of Dunghill Fowl? You better dig deeper the therm Dunghill fowl was being used way before most new what a Capon was.

Chris

 

[vnsseed]

The earliest mention of Dunghill Fowl? You better dig deeper the therm Dunghill fowl was being used way before most new what a Capon was.

Chris

Love to see your documentation on this...

 

[Chris09]

Love to see your documentation on this...

Look up the word Nergal,
Nergal was mentioned[FONT=arial, sans-serif] [/FONT]in the Hebrew Bible and translates to Dunghill Cock. The term dates back that far. Now there use of the word since then may or may not mean the same as you or I have described but the word was still used. I believe that out dates your farmers concurrently.

The term Dunghill fowl was first used in the the late 1700 to early 1800's and according to what I have read means;
A coward: a cockpit phrase, all but gamecocks being styled dunghills.

Chris

 

[Sumatra503]

I suspect there is a lethal gene in my line.

I began with a batch of 20 chicks, all from the same parent stock. At around week 3 in age the birds began to die off unexpectedly, showing no symptoms.

The batch before these produced the same results from the same parent stock.

I incubated a batch of 40 eggs. Of the ones that were fertile, only 5% of them hatched successfully. Where as the other chicken eggs in the incubator produced the regular 95% hatch rate that I usually acheive.

I will be setting another batch of eggs soon to see if the results change at all. If they are consistant I will be sorting through a lethal gene.

I have dealt with a lethal gene before when breeding bantam leghorns. When the hen and the roo were bred together, the babies would die before week one of age. When i bred the hen to a different roo, however, all the babies survived and grew into healthy adults.

For those of you that don't know, a Lethal Gene, is a genetic defect that is passed on by parents to their offspring. This gene causes death in young birds, at different ages and for different reasons depending on the gene, and often times the chicks die as embryos. These genes are often consistant to the T in terms of mortality rates. An easily grasped example of a lethal gene is the Lethal White produced in dogs. When breeding a merle male to a merle female, 20% of the babies will be born pure white and dead.

 

[buffalogal]

Personally, I'm not convinced that "Dunghill" originally meant "this bird is a pile of crap", I think it meant "common barnyard chicken, nothing special, so we don't go out of our way to feed them and they can just rustle their own grub from the big pile of bedding and dung we raked out of the barn/stable". IOW, "Dunghill" referred to the source of the bird's sustenance.

I think the meaning "Dunghill" referring directly to the *bird* as a "pile of crap" came later, from more modern times from game chicken breeders who were watching public support for gambling on animal fighting shrinking, until they ended up being marginalized to the unsavory, so called "outlaw" (criminal) elements of society as "blood sports" became illegal from state to state. I see it as a sort of "sour grapes" effect, if you will.