Dominique Thread!

[Alaskan]

Very nice looking boy.

I second the great comb, I also like the wattles, good and tight.

 

[centrarchid]

Legs also look a little rough. What is he being fed?

 

[centrarchid]

I just setup two breeding pens. Three 3-year old hens where placed into pen with best cock and six pullets where placed in with second best cock. In just over a month the cocks will be switched then a cockerel will be given a go with the old ladies. Out 2 dozen cockerels surviving till frost last fall, only one made the final cut which resulting in 3 others not making last round. Virtually all the culls where out of a single cock from last year that otherwise looked good. He is gone now. Some of his daughters look good but man he had ugly sons.

 

[Alaskan]

I have been thinking of you since I read this post. Interesting, since I think your Dominique recreation (forget what you call them) looks so very wonderful to me, but I think I remember you used quite a bit of Game in them. This person thinks that there was either no Game, or at least only very little Game used in the creation of the Dominique. He has done a great deal of research and reading old texts etc. anyway, food for thought!

I also keep wondering HOW any Dorking can be in a Dominique, I don't see that.


Quote from Mark Fields:
I have studied this in great detail in most all of the old texts available in the English language and come to the conclusion there is no way to know the exact details of it's origin. In the earliest texts the Dominique is described as a mongrel fowl (crossbreed) of indeterminate origin. With the Eastern US being a melting pot of both peoples and livestock it is anyone's guess. However I've long thought it would be a mix of Dorking or Sussex, Hamburg and Mediterranean (probably, but not necessarily what later became known at Leghorns). The Asiatic fowls that spurred "Hen Fever" came later and the Dominique was already and old breed at that time. so they contributed little if anything to the breed. Something to keep in mind is that the genetic makeup of the fowls of the mid to late 1700s were probably significantly different than today as the "Hen Fever" era saw the refinement of most breeds and a trend towards elimination of crossing in a breeding
program.

We cannot use feather color or pattern to trace heritage in chickens - especially something as common as the cuckoo pattern. Any group of fowl thrown together will in time, with indiscriminate cross-breeding result into a small set of color patterns with Black Breasted Red being one and cuckoo or "hawk color" being another. Therefore I put little credibility in lineage based on color or pattern.

I wrote a lengthy paper on the etymology of the Dominique name itself. This was as interesting as studying the breed itself. In short, there appears a tenuous link to Saint Dominic but even that is suspect. We simply do not know for sure where the Dominique name comes from, nor how it became applied to the chicken.

Back to patterns. In old texts - pre-1850, most farm breeds were given names relating to their descriptions (i.e. Large Black Hog, Black & Tan hound, Shorthorn cattle, etc). In some of my oldest texts I find American Dominique, Dominique Pit Game and Dominique Leghorn. Rather than implying they are all related, it is more a case of their having a similar color and pattern.

I am always open to modifying my beliefs if better documentation can be found. If you should find anything written before 1875 that provides a clue, I'd be very interested in reading it. I have found that almost everything written since 1875 on breed histories is a rehashing of previously written texts - at least that's how it is in the English language.

Sincerely,
Mark Fields

 

[centrarchid]

They are are Missouri dominques and they range from 25 to 50% American game in the two current sublines.

Even if written documentation can be found, I would give it very little weight without genetic evidence to back it up.

 

[Alaskan]

They are are Missouri dominques and they range from 25 to 50% American game in the two current sublines.

Even if written documentation can be found, I would give it very little weight without genetic evidence to back it up.

I agree....

I just really have problems 'seeing' the breeds he mentions in the Dominique.

Do you think that any Dorking could actually be in them?

I suppose that he thinks that the more sprightliness of the Dominique came from the Mediterranean breeds, but I see the Mediterraneans as no where near to the Dominique type as the Game fowl.

Of the breeds he mentions, I think the Sussex is closest to the Dominique body type, and I could see a little bit of the Hamburg.

All very interesting to think through.

 

[centrarchid]

Several other breeds existing at time but not listed by Fields such as Scott's Grey's and other continental breeds could have been involved. Also some breeds if we are to call them such are not reflected in literature and no longer exist.

 

[Alaskan]

I agree, the Dominique looks alot like the Scots Grey, not only in color but in body type, temperament, both dual purpose etc.

(Now, I haven't seen a Scots grey in person, but just from what I have read)

 

[centrarchid]

I still think doms are a composite and whatever they derived from has either changed greatly since giving rise to doms or no longer exists.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

I still think doms are a composite and whatever they derived from has either changed greatly since giving rise to doms or no longer exists.

All chicken breeds are essentially composites. There is no registry for chickens, no pedigree. Read the history of the "heritage breeds" of Europe, and you quickly learn that breeders even used birds imported from America to "improve" their local breeds.

I think the contribution to the Dominique from the "hen craze" is possibly the egg color - I don't know where the Welsumer got its egg color.

The thing is, it doesn't strike me as unlikely that both Dutch and British poultry made it to New England. It also wouldn't surprise me if some game birds were imported. We know that cocking was in incredibly popular sport in Colonial New England, which is why today the University of Delaware Athletic mascot is the Blue Hen, from the "Blue Hen's chickens" kept for recreation by a Delaware unit in the Revolutionary War, a unit that came to be named after their fighting stock because of their great effectiveness and determination in battle.

The Puritans disapproved, but much of New England did not tend to Puritans.