Famous Hatchery 'Pure Bred' Appearances

[cholland]

This is a great thread.

Any organism will adapt to environmental conditions over a few generations. A lot of animals have way more chromosomes than humans. And that will be expressed as all sorts of traits within a bred line.
Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, for a total of 46.
Chickens have 39 pairs of chromosomes, for a total of 78.

Private breeders and backyard owners will influence their line by selecting for traits they desire, be it SOP, size, feather color, egg color, etc. After several generations birds from the same breed line might be quite different with two different breeders. Yet still be the same "breed".

Hatcheries are breeding for profit. There is going to be a lot of variation in their chicks because, you get to sort out the desirable traits to continue the line if you want.
Hatcheries can continue a breed without paying a lot of attention to the finer traits that define SOP of the breed.
I believe some hatcheries may focus on one or two breeds and maintain "show" quality, but the rest of their catalog is going to be just kind of generic. There are just too many breed for hatcheries to maintain high standards for all of them. Most people just want eggs and a good bird.

I have been raising Barred Holland's for a few years and have some from two different sources. Both are true to the breed, but the hatchery stock is nowhere near to SOP. Many of the less desirable traits like comb points, small size, even recesive feather coloring start to show up because the hatcheries are not taking the time to raise many mature birds and select traits within the breed. They are just breeding the line.
The ones I have from a private breeder, are closer to SOP. But still a ways to go considering I started with just 24 random eggs from a desirable breeding of several birds from the same breed.
I'm not raising mine to show, but I would like to keep them as close to the described breed as possible. Still it takes a little effort (human influence) to keep the desired traits present in that big bowl of genetic soup.

If you are not interested in keeping true to a breed then a backyard mutt chicken is the way to go. Just keep the traits you want and eventually you will have your own backyard super breed, unique to you.
If you just want eggs or meat, some of the hatchery crosses are hard to beat.

 

[MissChick@dee]

I like the “then” magnificent!!!

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Club champions aren't completely correct?? Well I'll be darn

I wasn't trying to be rude, I just think that rooster has a very odd shape for a welsummer, unless the photo is just angled badly. I also don't understand why a top-of-the-line show quality specimen would have a completely wrong earlobe color?

So, do Wellies have white shanks/feet? Mine are yellow, but then again, mine are hatchery birds.

They are supposed to be yellow.
#1

Why such floppy combs? They aren't supposed to have those. They look like my hatchery birds!

This is correct; some of those pictures look a bit flawed. I just wanted to show the right body shape, unless both a private breeder and the welsummer club have birds with a completely off body shape for the breed.

 

[BreanneRN]

I actually think they are their own species ???
Someone please correct me

About the Dingo... https://australianmuseum.net.au/dingo

 

[MROO]

I actually think they are their own species ???
Someone please correct me

You are correct. The taxonomy of dingoes (and yes, the proper plural has an "e") lists them as canis lupis dingo, a subspecies of the grey wolf, split off like the dog split, but at a different time and place, through the Asian Wolf. There's been a lot of study on them, including doing DNA and other studies on specimens collected before 1900. They show dingoes to be separate from dogs. That's changing, now. The dingo is now being watched more closely as more and more dog interbreeding occurs. They can mix freely, and some conservation groups speculate that at least a third of today's dingoes are actually dog crosses - which is leading, they hope, to conservation efforts. One new thing I just learned about them tonight is that there are three distinct types of dingoes - desert, alpine and northern.
Fun Fact - Dingoes have a "wrist" that rotates so they can use their paws like hands, and they can rotate their heads a full 180 degrees.

PS - I'm not really a dingo geek. May moons ago, when all the other kids were writing elementary school research papers about famous people and their favorite snack foods, I did mine on dingoes. What can I say? I've always been a bit animal-crazy!

 

[Amer]

Chickens then-
View attachment 1522262
Chickens now-
View attachment 1522263

What happened to the graceful colorful bird of the jungle? Now we have a furry dim puffball headed chicken.

 

[Amer]

I wasn't trying to be rude, I just think that rooster has a very odd shape for a welsummer, unless the photo is just angled badly. I also don't understand why a top-of-the-line show quality specimen would have a completely wrong earlobe color?




This is correct; some of those pictures look a bit flawed. I just wanted to show the right body shape, unless both a private breeder and the welsummer club have birds with a completely off body shape for the breed.

Ah. Yeah. Mine aren't great quality. But I keep them for the dark brown eggs.

 

[MROO]

They show dingoes to be separate from dogs. That's changing, now. The dingo is now being watched more closely as more and more dog interbreeding occurs. They can mix freely, and some conservation groups speculate that at least a third of today's dingoes are actually dog crosses - which is leading, they hope, to conservation efforts. !

A thought just occurred to me ... we'd better keep that Boston Terrier in Reykjavik. Or better yet, leave it in Boston, where it belongs. The dingoes have enough crossbreeding trouble already!

 

[Mimi13]

Exactly, because that is what a landrace breed is... However, take some of those birds out of Sweden and follow that same "free-range" in the wide open with the head rooster accomplishing breeding landrace style etc., in let's say, Tucson, Arizona, you might quite probably wind up with a different looking flock of birds within 5 years or so... (And if it got a little adaptive edge or jumpstart from interbreeding with a Sage hen while it wandered out on the desert it would really look different..., but we won't go there). My whole point is, once the breed adapts to an Arizona environment, it most likely will not have all the characteristics it had when adapted to a Swedish environment and instead have ones that make it more heat tolerant and be colored in a way that will help it avoid predation in the desert and keep it from soaking up too much heat.

Correct. That’s what nature does!

 

[MissChick@dee]

A thought just occurred to me ... we'd better keep that Boston Terrier in Reykjavik. Or better yet, leave it in Boston, where it belongs. The dingoes have enough crossbreeding trouble already!

I’m still getting over the whole tick-dog comment.