Dominique Thread!

[Delight in Dominiques]

Rainy day. Incubator empty. Brooders full of nice pullets. Looks like I have a slight case of mites showing up on the vents of some of my birds. That is what I get for putting off spring clean out. And the European starlings did not help matters much with finding their way into the coup. Any one know of a mail order place to find Diametrious Earth food grade? Want to give it a try for the hens that will be setting broods inside for a dust bath.
centrachid, I copied off part of an email I got from Robert Blosi a couple of months ago,

"You know in your minds eye what you want in this bird. Then as you hatch and raise these birds from these different strains look for the old Dominique. The blood is there. Someone screwed them up by crossing barred large fowl on them but if you go looking for the type of this small bird I am sure the bird that is in this germ plasma will show up."

here is a picture of a pullet. Has that nice old time lacing on the breast. Now the pullet in front of her is her sister and as you can see in the saddle feathers their is allot of crisp barring that really shows the crossing of BR. The old genes are still there, they just have to be bred back out. Robert says he did an article in the APA year book about 20 years ago called "In search of the lost genes". I think if anyone on here could find that article it would be Chris.(hint) Finding good quality stock is hard to come by. But that is where to start. Everyone knows of Mike Stichler and Mr. Post. It is sad to say that the Dom clubs breeders list is outdated. I have been doing alot of research on finding quality available stock and it is hard to come by. Walltenters has given me a older gentleman's name up in Minnesota. I will be getting some chicks from him soon and will let everyone know what the quality is when I can. All the best, John

 

[WallTenters]

Nice looking pullet John, was her mother so light colored or did that come from the sire? She almost looks rooster colored! I'd love to see pictures of her sire and dam - did the sire have any all white feathers? The rooster in the background has very even barring too from what I can see in the photo.

I've been reading a lot about the slow feathering vs fast feathering genes... I haven't found too much definite information, but it seems that the weather the chicks are raised in can make a difference, though it may be a very small difference. The slow feathering vs fast feathering controls the shut off of the melanin - so a slow feathering breed will have very even shut off points, aka bars, where a fast feathering breed will have more scattered shut off points, aka the cuckoo coloring. Can I ask when these birds were brooded during their second molt (after losing their first set of "chick feathers")?

I think if all else was equal, you could get better looking birds in a cooler environment... Makes me wonder if that cool new england weather was what really shaped the Dominique to be a smaller, fast feathering bird for the farm, until means of sheltering chickens came into play... I can't imagine the early settlers were spending time and lumber to build well protected chicken coops. Then once folks had the time and means to build better shelter for their birds, a bigger, slower feathering chicken could be brought in.

Strange how the even barring works out... we had a hatch of all closely related hens, with the same cockerel covering them. None of them had bad barring. All but one of the chicks looks beautiful. The one cockerel had such even, perfect barring it was amazing. This was more of a test hatch than anything, and all but one of the hens have been culled/replaced so I doubt I'll see that breeding again, but since all birds were brooded and raised exactly the same I doubt it's environmental. He's snake dinner now, but one of his "brothers" is looking very nice, the other one that we kept I'll have to wait a bit longer to tell...

 

[centrarchid]

Genetics are something I have studied for a long time, although my vocation has dealt with quantitative traits almost exclusively while poultry fanciers deal with a great deal more qualitative traits (i.e. coloration, comb type, feather shape). An individual or even a group of individuals does not have all the genes / alleles of their ancestors or population unless they are the entire population, especially when the population has gone through a number of bottlenecks (very few breeders for single to multiple generations). The more generations in the bottleneck or trips through the bottleneck, the more alleles will be lost. When allele loss occurs, the loss is permanent unless restored by mutation or introduced by individuals carrying those genes. I am developing a pretty good handle on variation within the existing dominiques and they appear to differ greatly from dominique stocks existing during the dominiques hey-day.

 

[WallTenters]

centrarchid, I agree with you that there has been a lot of gene loss. Thankfully though, the #1 breed crossed on Dominiques was the Barred Plymouth Rock, which was developed from a Dominique cross. I believe that with extremely selective breeding a person could even take a "purebred" BPR strain and turn it back into a bird looking more like it's Dominique ancestor. However, the comb and a few other factors (fast feathering) would not be there, and it would probably take about fifty years or more and enough chicken dinner to make you puke.

Thankfully we don't have to work off of BPRs. We have the perfect rose comb. We have the long tail. We have the fast feathering. They're there, they are just hidden by a ton of other faults that have to be selected against.

We have all seen very nice individuals pop up out of nowhere. That alone is evidence that the genes are still there, we just need more dedicated individuals to be selective and careful in their breeding and to bring those genes out. Some of the Dominique breeders of the mid 1900s were still working in the dark as far, so their success is really commendable.

We now have more resources and information than ever before, and I do believe it's possible to bring this breed up to be better than ever.

 

[centrarchid]

The trait that is missing in dominiques will likely be a point of contention in that it relates to tail length, specifically the feathers. Older photographs show feathers that to my eyes appear way out side length range typical of even the best show birds of today. I wish feathers from such birds were available for measurements to support or refute my claims about feather length and width.


Multiple loci have alleles coding for slow feathering in the dominique, although not as many as in the barred rock, and possibly alleles at same loci code for slower feathering than analogous version in dominique.

My vision of a dominique of old has faster growing feathers relative to any existing dom and the contrast between dark and grey patches are not as strongly contrasting. That is unless some allele used to occur in doms that enabled greater contrast of feathers despite faster feather growth.

 

[pettec63]

Hi there,
I am just contemplating doing some heritage breed preservation, the two breeds I was thinking of was the Delaware and the Dominique. I have been to the ALBC website and thought that these would be good breeds to preserve. I could use some feed back as to the quality of birds available and if that is what others on this thread are doing or just information in general about the Dominique's !
Thank you!

 

[alabamachick]

Quote:
My Pet chicken as DE that I believe is food grade. Pretty cheap too!

 

[WallTenters]

Hi pettec!

Finding good Dominiques can be hard but is very possible. Have you looked at Mr. Field's website? It's a good site to start with to give you a feel about Doms, their history, problems in breeding, etc. Also read through this thread and look at the many photos posted and you will see what we're all up against, and who is having some good success with this wonderful breed.


Centrarchid..

Quote:
I'm not exactly understanding you here. Are you saying you'd rather see less contrast, or more? We hope to get that smutty appearance by crossing some hens that are too dark now, but have nice patterning on a lighter colored rooster. Unfortunately we have type to worry about first so color will have to come later. I guess my view of a Dominique is almost a blue bird - with the delicate, beautiful lace look to the patterns.

As far as the tail length, I agree that looking at today's stock it seems impossible to get the correct tail length on the roosters. We have some very long tailed hens that we are hoping will have nice cockerels (we'll know in a few more months when they all start getting big boy feathers!). The tail in the SOP looks impossibly long in the main tail feathers BUT if you look at the original photograph of the cockerel used for the SOP, he did not have all that tail! I know Schilling made an excellent picture for the birds, but I am more concerned that such a tail length cannot be obtained without outside influence. I'd love to see any photos you have of real birds of old with primary tails that long.

As far as the sickle length, I think that IS something we can work on. So many Dominique roosters have those short sickle feathers, and it's very hard to tell until they're almost two years old, and by then you may be throwing you hands up in the air like we are with the frustration of waiting

.

 

[buffalogal]

She is a pretty colored pullet Delight, but in future generations what you want to select for is a rounded, "U" shaped back. If there's a slope at all, it should be down the neck to the base of the tail, rather than from the base of the neck up to the end of the tail.

 

[pettec63]

Thank you for your prompt reply! Yes I will read through this thread and go to Mr fields website, thank you! I've heard chicken people are lots of fun! From what I've read so far that seems very true! have a great weekend everyone!