Great stuff
Could be years ago when they first started but I’m sure hatcheries don’t routinely cross breed their stock. Also if they don’t cull birds with the wrong stance or body type and if they retain breeders from the parent stock and keep doing this year after year they eventually will end up with birds with all kinds of flaws.Great stuff
How does one get a standard cochin to look like a furry legged leghorn that lays 330+ eggs a year without crossing in another breed? Possibly they could have bred garbage for 50+ years to attain pure bred cochins with a bizarre shape that can't even compare to the original appearance
Aside from Easter Eggers, Sex Links, & specialty crosses hatcheries don’t mix breeds. Also most hatcheries get new breeding stock every year.
Technically speaking, if you took the time to combine other breeds and created a bird that looks exactly like the SOP of another breed, it would be considered that breed even if it doesn't have any of that breed in it's heritage.Okay... hold now, let's clarify what you mean by pure bred birds, so that there isn't some misinformation being put forth.
I like the thread idea, but I think this idea that hatcheries don't sell purebreds is not correct in most/many cases (I'm sure there are some hatcheries out there that have some stock that are less that pure though).
Birds can be pure bred, but stray from the standard of perfection.
But your supposition seems to be that because a bird does not closely match the SOP and/or does not match as closely as the best of the best stock of exhibition breeders, then anything less are not pure breds???
This is not true, it's just that hatcheries simply make no effort to cull in the same way that exhibitions breeders do.... and if they did they would likely not be profitable and would be out of business.
That is not to say that some hatcheries do have some polluted genetics in their breeding stock, and that backyard chicken keepers should be aware of this and purchase from the hatcheries that provide good quality birds, or purchase from an exhibition breeder if they are looking for something close to the SOP.
But this idea of: "Lets take and average bird and compare it to the best of the best, and poo-poo on commercial hatcheries and suggest that they all offer birds that are not purebred perpetuates a bit of a falsehood as far as what hatcheries are really about.
If anyone thinks that hatcheries are going to be producing or should produce the "best of the best" with in any breed, then that is likely just not in line with the reality of poultry production when comparing the two ends of the the spectrum: exhibition breeders and hatcheries.
Still it is nice to look at the pictures of the "best of the best" in each breed, such as this Leghorn pic taken from the book "The Magnificent Chicken: Portraits of the Fairest Fowl".... "Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds" also has some great pics of outstanding specimens.
But let's do so with the understanding of the truth of what we are comparing. Carry on... and my apologies for any distraction this posts creates.
With chickens they would be sold as pet quality or the breeder will keep them or cull them.
If so, where on earth do they source from?
Other hatcheries, private breeders pet quality stock, or they might incubate eggs from each breed and replace the parents with the chicks.
The problem is is that a lot of backyard breeders don't
Well they should say that the bird they are selling came from show quality parents but the bird itself isn’t show quality.
