Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry

[flowerchild59]

Well said Joseph-- your concepts solidified or confirmed many ideas about breeding chickens that I have been mulling over for the last 6-9 months.

x3, What a wonderful post Joseph.

 

[NotAFarm]

Wow! So much thought.

The difficulty is that there's so much to know, and it is always hard to resist drawing hasty conclusions or not thinking things through. Let's try to break things down.



If one wants to produce fowl of quality both for the table and for exhibition, one must first and foremost remember that this used to be a profession and not a hobby, and these breeds were developed by poultry professionals not a hand-full of folks looking for amusement on the weekends. If you want professional quality birds, you must run your set-up professionally. If you can only raise 100 chicks a year, then you can raise one breed well. "Well" implies selecting for meat, egg and fancy points. If you try to do more than one breed and variety, you will fail to maintain all of these qualities; that is all. It's not a matter of how you "feel" about it; it's a question of the exigencies of the profession. The best breeders in the country run their spaces in a professional manner. Many fanciers are in it because they love the shapes, sizes and colors. They keep more breeds than they should if there goal were for production. However, they do maintain their breeds in much better form than any hatchery, and anyone willing to specialize can procure stock and then begin a specialized program of selection.

This!...and some of us are getting started on this at an age where learning does not come as easily to us as it once did and may not have decades to dedicate to it. If some of us seem to be in a hurry, it may be because we feel time running out.

Here is the problem for many....not so much the people who read this thread, since it's title of "Farming and Homestead Heritage Poultry" may not interest a hobby owner and seems to lean toward more production/business discussions than the pet/hobby discussions. Some are just not naturally "business owner material" and need to be educated on the subject.

Thank you, Joseph, and to everyone who is wiling to take the time to educate those who are willing to learn.

 

[cubalaya]

there were some very good posts on the last 5 pages of this thread concerning modern chickens. chickens need fresh air, fresh water, and fresh grass to thrive. if we cannot free range then at least put them in moveable pens. i still have a couple of unmoveable coop and run pens but am moving more to tractors and free range. i still have incubators but moving towards letting the hens raise all chicks. i have been concentrating on cubalayas for quite a few years and feel they can be very good homesteading breed. they lay good, their meat is gourmet, and they look good in your yard. they are also very brave concerning predators and tame towards humans. they were small to start off with but i am seeing improvement with every new generation. i am this spring only planning on breeding from 2 year old hens that lay good, get broody, are in the 4 lbs range, and show overall health and vigor. i let the stags run free all summer and begin to cull to the freezer in the fall. the biggest and best get to go thru the winter and breed. all this being said, i feel like if i took them to a show, would probably win or place highly.

 

[juststruttin]

Wow! So much thought.

The difficulty is that there's so much to know, and it is always hard to resist drawing hasty conclusions or not thinking things through. Let's try to break things down.

1. Before the mid-19th century, no bird received so much attention in breeding as the OEG. The OEG was the end all be all of chickens. One book I like to read from the 1600's which addresses the respectable hobbies of the country gentleman goes into great length in describing the care of the game cock. Indeed, for a post-fight game cock, his instructions are very specific: Suck the puss out of the head wounds with one's mouth; once wounds are clean, seal them from the elements with butter; give them no food and naught but your own fresh urine to drink; put them in a wicker basket and place them in a low oven for a sweat. If he's still alive in the morning, repeat process. What's weird about this is that, with reflection, all of it is pretty sensible from a pre-science point of view. Point over point, he's close (but no cigar).
2. The first modern bird that really reigns for a mass-produced, farming-focused, dual-purpose fowl is the Dorking. Strong documentation exists through the 1700's. The dominant color was white and a color referred to as "partridge" which is a cocker term for BBR pattern(s). There are other breeds that hold strong presence throughout this time period in the Western European world: the Spanish, Hamburg, Polish, La Fleche, and Crevecoeur are the extra-Dorking breeds most praised. Thoughts on this time period: Strong poultry keeping is definitely localized. There are areas of good production. There are areas of absolutely horrible production. There is no universally read instructive literature concerning poultry that informs the industry; thus, poultry and the husbandry thereof were not consistent across the board. In most regions, poultry was of dismal quality and highly unproductive by any current standard.
3. In the mid-1800's onward, new and published scientific understandings lead to a new interest in genetics and the possibility of animal improvement. This does not only happen in poultry but in all aspects of animal husbandry. At the beginning of this time period, most breeds of anything are mediocre producers at best. There is much pressure rising from a very quickly increasing human population for an increase in protein production. University extension services are on the rise, the need for a more systematized food production is felt. Transportation improvements, as well as improvements in commodity grain production, allow for more imaginative and expansive moves by food producers. Among university agricultural and extension publications the clear superiority of pure-bred stock is established for both egg and meat production both in North America and in Europe. Breed registers are established and quickly rise in importance. The APA becomes the centrifugal force of poultry production in North America.
4. During this time period, a hen that lays 150 eggs a year is a boon, remembering that 80 +/- eggs had been the reigning average. The SOP and the rise in (trade) shows leads to the highest level of form and feather production ever to have existed in poultry production. Shows provide a highly publicized venue for peer-review and the establishment of reputation for quality. The nature of agriculture and habits/modes of transportation encourage localized production of stock and reputable breeders of SOP quality purebred fowl are able to sell stock in strong number and earn a considerable income. Some make it as a sole income; others use it as a strong augment to other incomes.
5. From the late 1800's to the early 1900's several breeds come to the fore, four have the greatest impact: the Leghorn, the Plymouth Rock, the RIR, and the NH. Breeds such as Orpingtons, Wyandottes, Sussex and Minorcas are also significant. The dynamic stories of these breeds are great to study very carefully as they really do a lot to help one develop an understanding of the nature of the rise of purebred poultry as the heart of poultry production. The story of the "Danish" Brown Leghorn is very telling and indicative of the transformation of poultry production as a marriage of Extension/Academia and farmers for the goal of food production. The emergence of the RI Red is a fantastic tale. The Plymouth Rock redefines farm poultry. The Leghorn quickly becomes the early star of mass egg-production, replacing the Hamburg if not for volume than for egg-size, and the NH is the first meat chicken qua meat chicken developed since the Dorking. The 100 years between 1850 and 1950 mark an absolute transformation in food production throughout the industrialized world, and standard-bred poultry and livestock are at the heart of it as well as the contemporaneous developments in the scientific understanding of how animal systems actually work such that one might capitalize on production. Insofar as family farms were the core of food production, there was room for multiple breeds and varieties to hold influence and opportunity to shine on a local/regional level.
6. Crosses are of very little importance before WWII and really before the 60's. The single most important market for hybrid broilers was for early broilers, i.e. broilers that were going to be dressed out between January and May. They tended to be produced by crossing a fast growing breed, i.e. Leghorn on a slower growing, bulkier female, Brahma, Rock, etc... In 1940, 40% of all poultry in NH were NHs. In New England there was a very sizable poultry industry up through WWII and even into the 70's numbering in the millions of birds. New England over-wintered a lot of chickens The old poultry barns still dot the landscape, but most folks don't know what they're looking at. Poultry was one of New England's most significant products. NHs, RIRs, and White Rocks, which emerge onto the scene in Maine dominate the landscape.
7. Many biases emerge throughout the first half of the 20th century which are to the advantage of some breeds and varieties and to the disadvantage of others. Most of them were of no actual farming value, i.e. white or yellow skin, white or brown shelled eggs, etc.... Nevertheless, these biases shaped much of what was developed breed-wise.
8. The breeds that emerged supreme did so because they were the unique focus a many farms which did a lot to increase the general quality of the breed because selection to the Standard could be an industrial-sized mass effort. Eventually the productive qualities of certain breeds came to consistently outshine others.
9. Just about WWII and the decade or so that followed, a general shift happened in the ability of refrigeration to allow for larger production and longer product retention, medical improvements allowed for larger-scale production, and contemporaneously instituted government food-safety, etc regulations forced producers to higher levels of food-safety professionalism. Those who had the funds and knowledge could make the jump, those who didn't could not. Continued expansion and ever stricter regulations made it more and more difficult for any one individual to break into the market in a profitable way. The overhead was more and more threatening. In the fifties and sixties, certain producers began to buy out the most renowned strains of productive standard-bred fowl. The Delaware was the swan song of standard-bred poultry in industry.
10. In 1982, the invention of McDonald's chicken nugget blew the demand for chicken sky-high and the world of poultry production utterly transformed.
11. Thus, although standard-bred poultry is not currently the vital core of the poultry industry, it was for almost 100 years, and the American Poultry Association and the Standard of Perfection demarcate clearly the critical link between backyard, mongrel scrub fowl and modern industry. The scientific understanding needed to support the current poultry industry was slowly gleaned and developed with cooperation between extension services and small-scale APA-based farmers. Without this essential time period of study and growth the poultry industry of today would not exist.
12. It is also essential to understand that there was no old-time poultry industry of any size or national importance before the 1800's save a certain localized productions that fed the London and Parisian markets. Germany was a desert; Italy and Spain were disorganized. Six foundational breeds ran the show for food production, and the Game cock was king.
13. The single most valuable work I know to give anyone a clear understanding of the standard-bred, which was the only, poultry industry 100 years ago, is John Henry Robinson's work the Principles and Practice of Poultry Culture. Read it from cover to cover. It takes a lot of reading and research to begin to form a clear idea of poultry history. The current notion of food-fowl versus fancy fowl really only dates from the 40's. Nevertheless, insofar as the poultry industry, born of the 1850's and afterward, was always changing and new breeds were always being introduced or developed, several breeds, which originally held strong productive importance, did become more relegated to folks committed to them for nostalgia or because their markets were more limited and controlled. Leghorns and Minorcas replaced Hamburgs, Polish, and Spanish, and eventually the Leghorn took the bag. Rocks replaced Dorkings. Wyandottes almost made it, but White Rocks cut them off. The RIR eventually took over the brown egg market, and the NH reigned in meat for a good few decades.
14. The credit that any high quality specimens of any single breed and variety of poultry exist today is due exclusively and unequivocally to APA breeders who are grounded in the SOP. Without the SOP and without poultry shows, there would be nothing but industrial stock, because nothing of quality is produced at all outside of APA or industrial breeders.
15. The reason that SOP stock is not always as productive as it could be is that a relatively few fanciers are sustaining a mammoth sum of breeds and varieties. The vast majority of people with chickens get them from hatcheries and are genetic dead-ends. They know nothing of good poultry culture. In order for standard-bred poultry to reach high levels of production, specialization is necessary, and outstandingly few people are willing to limit the number of breeds and varieties they raise. Almost without exception folks with whom I speak are trying to figure how to raise two or more breeds with two or three small coops and a capacity for 30 chicks a year. Nothing will ever come of this, and if I try to tell them, they're full of excuses and bla-bla, but one is not above the rules of the game.
16. If one wants to produce fowl of quality both for the table and for exhibition, one must first and foremost remember that this used to be a profession and not a hobby, and these breeds were developed by poultry professionals not a hand-full of folks looking for amusement on the weekends. If you want professional quality birds, you must run your set-up professionally. If you can only raise 100 chicks a year, then you can raise one breed well. "Well" implies selecting for meat, egg and fancy points. If you try to do more than one breed and variety, you will fail to maintain all of these qualities; that is all. It's not a matter of how you "feel" about it; it's a question of the exigencies of the profession. The best breeders in the country run their spaces in a professional manner. Many fanciers are in it because they love the shapes, sizes and colors. They keep more breeds than they should if there goal were for production. However, they do maintain their breeds in much better form than any hatchery, and anyone willing to specialize can procure stock and then begin a specialized program of selection.
17. If you haven't done this, you don't really know what you're talking about. If you haven't done this, i.e. raised out a minimum of 100 birds per annum over the course of several years, you don't really know what improvement is or how it is had. If you are not working with large fowl on this scale as a minimum, you don't really know what it means to select for production. I don't say this to insult, it's just the facts of poultry life. If you want to improve a truly rare breed and increase its production think of 150 to 200 birds raised a year. If you want to raise under 100, raise only one breed. If you want to raise under 50, raise one variety of one breed that is in relatively good condition.
18. Maintaining #17 over a period of multiple years, showing as actively as possible, and conversing with and learning from those who have gone before is the number one way, and perhaps the only way, of becoming a breeder of high quality fowl.

Thank you for taking the time to put this together. Awesome information.

 

[BGMatt]

Wow! So much thought.

The difficulty is that there's so much to know, and it is always hard to resist drawing hasty conclusions or not thinking things through. Let's try to break things down.

1. Before the mid-19th century, no bird received so much attention in breeding as the OEG. The OEG was the end all be all of chickens. One book I like to read from the 1600's which addresses the respectable hobbies of the country gentleman goes into great length in describing the care of the game cock. Indeed, for a post-fight game cock, his instructions are very specific: Suck the puss out of the head wounds with one's mouth; once wounds are clean, seal them from the elements with butter; give them no food and naught but your own fresh urine to drink; put them in a wicker basket and place them in a low oven for a sweat. If he's still alive in the morning, repeat process. What's weird about this is that, with reflection, all of it is pretty sensible from a pre-science point of view. Point over point, he's close (but no cigar).
2. The first modern bird that really reigns for a mass-produced, farming-focused, dual-purpose fowl is the Dorking. Strong documentation exists through the 1700's. The dominant color was white and a color referred to as "partridge" which is a cocker term for BBR pattern(s). There are other breeds that hold strong presence throughout this time period in the Western European world: the Spanish, Hamburg, Polish, La Fleche, and Crevecoeur are the extra-Dorking breeds most praised. Thoughts on this time period: Strong poultry keeping is definitely localized. There are areas of good production. There are areas of absolutely horrible production. There is no universally read instructive literature concerning poultry that informs the industry; thus, poultry and the husbandry thereof were not consistent across the board. In most regions, poultry was of dismal quality and highly unproductive by any current standard.
3. In the mid-1800's onward, new and published scientific understandings lead to a new interest in genetics and the possibility of animal improvement. This does not only happen in poultry but in all aspects of animal husbandry. At the beginning of this time period, most breeds of anything are mediocre producers at best. There is much pressure rising from a very quickly increasing human population for an increase in protein production. University extension services are on the rise, the need for a more systematized food production is felt. Transportation improvements, as well as improvements in commodity grain production, allow for more imaginative and expansive moves by food producers. Among university agricultural and extension publications the clear superiority of pure-bred stock is established for both egg and meat production both in North America and in Europe. Breed registers are established and quickly rise in importance. The APA becomes the centrifugal force of poultry production in North America.
4. During this time period, a hen that lays 150 eggs a year is a boon, remembering that 80 +/- eggs had been the reigning average. The SOP and the rise in (trade) shows leads to the highest level of form and feather production ever to have existed in poultry production. Shows provide a highly publicized venue for peer-review and the establishment of reputation for quality. The nature of agriculture and habits/modes of transportation encourage localized production of stock and reputable breeders of SOP quality purebred fowl are able to sell stock in strong number and earn a considerable income. Some make it as a sole income; others use it as a strong augment to other incomes.
5. From the late 1800's to the early 1900's several breeds come to the fore, four have the greatest impact: the Leghorn, the Plymouth Rock, the RIR, and the NH. Breeds such as Orpingtons, Wyandottes, Sussex and Minorcas are also significant. The dynamic stories of these breeds are great to study very carefully as they really do a lot to help one develop an understanding of the nature of the rise of purebred poultry as the heart of poultry production. The story of the "Danish" Brown Leghorn is very telling and indicative of the transformation of poultry production as a marriage of Extension/Academia and farmers for the goal of food production. The emergence of the RI Red is a fantastic tale. The Plymouth Rock redefines farm poultry. The Leghorn quickly becomes the early star of mass egg-production, replacing the Hamburg if not for volume than for egg-size, and the NH is the first meat chicken qua meat chicken developed since the Dorking. The 100 years between 1850 and 1950 mark an absolute transformation in food production throughout the industrialized world, and standard-bred poultry and livestock are at the heart of it as well as the contemporaneous developments in the scientific understanding of how animal systems actually work such that one might capitalize on production. Insofar as family farms were the core of food production, there was room for multiple breeds and varieties to hold influence and opportunity to shine on a local/regional level.
6. Crosses are of very little importance before WWII and really before the 60's. The single most important market for hybrid broilers was for early broilers, i.e. broilers that were going to be dressed out between January and May. They tended to be produced by crossing a fast growing breed, i.e. Leghorn on a slower growing, bulkier female, Brahma, Rock, etc... In 1940, 40% of all poultry in NH were NHs. In New England there was a very sizable poultry industry up through WWII and even into the 70's numbering in the millions of birds. New England over-wintered a lot of chickens The old poultry barns still dot the landscape, but most folks don't know what they're looking at. Poultry was one of New England's most significant products. NHs, RIRs, and White Rocks, which emerge onto the scene in Maine dominate the landscape.
7. Many biases emerge throughout the first half of the 20th century which are to the advantage of some breeds and varieties and to the disadvantage of others. Most of them were of no actual farming value, i.e. white or yellow skin, white or brown shelled eggs, etc.... Nevertheless, these biases shaped much of what was developed breed-wise.
8. The breeds that emerged supreme did so because they were the unique focus a many farms which did a lot to increase the general quality of the breed because selection to the Standard could be an industrial-sized mass effort. Eventually the productive qualities of certain breeds came to consistently outshine others.
9. Just about WWII and the decade or so that followed, a general shift happened in the ability of refrigeration to allow for larger production and longer product retention, medical improvements allowed for larger-scale production, and contemporaneously instituted government food-safety, etc regulations forced producers to higher levels of food-safety professionalism. Those who had the funds and knowledge could make the jump, those who didn't could not. Continued expansion and ever stricter regulations made it more and more difficult for any one individual to break into the market in a profitable way. The overhead was more and more threatening. In the fifties and sixties, certain producers began to buy out the most renowned strains of productive standard-bred fowl. The Delaware was the swan song of standard-bred poultry in industry.
10. In 1982, the invention of McDonald's chicken nugget blew the demand for chicken sky-high and the world of poultry production utterly transformed.
11. Thus, although standard-bred poultry is not currently the vital core of the poultry industry, it was for almost 100 years, and the American Poultry Association and the Standard of Perfection demarcate clearly the critical link between backyard, mongrel scrub fowl and modern industry. The scientific understanding needed to support the current poultry industry was slowly gleaned and developed with cooperation between extension services and small-scale APA-based farmers. Without this essential time period of study and growth the poultry industry of today would not exist.
12. It is also essential to understand that there was no old-time poultry industry of any size or national importance before the 1800's save a certain localized productions that fed the London and Parisian markets. Germany was a desert; Italy and Spain were disorganized. Six foundational breeds ran the show for food production, and the Game cock was king.
13. The single most valuable work I know to give anyone a clear understanding of the standard-bred, which was the only, poultry industry 100 years ago, is John Henry Robinson's work the Principles and Practice of Poultry Culture. Read it from cover to cover. It takes a lot of reading and research to begin to form a clear idea of poultry history. The current notion of food-fowl versus fancy fowl really only dates from the 40's. Nevertheless, insofar as the poultry industry, born of the 1850's and afterward, was always changing and new breeds were always being introduced or developed, several breeds, which originally held strong productive importance, did become more relegated to folks committed to them for nostalgia or because their markets were more limited and controlled. Leghorns and Minorcas replaced Hamburgs, Polish, and Spanish, and eventually the Leghorn took the bag. Rocks replaced Dorkings. Wyandottes almost made it, but White Rocks cut them off. The RIR eventually took over the brown egg market, and the NH reigned in meat for a good few decades.
14. The credit that any high quality specimens of any single breed and variety of poultry exist today is due exclusively and unequivocally to APA breeders who are grounded in the SOP. Without the SOP and without poultry shows, there would be nothing but industrial stock, because nothing of quality is produced at all outside of APA or industrial breeders.
15. The reason that SOP stock is not always as productive as it could be is that a relatively few fanciers are sustaining a mammoth sum of breeds and varieties. The vast majority of people with chickens get them from hatcheries and are genetic dead-ends. They know nothing of good poultry culture. In order for standard-bred poultry to reach high levels of production, specialization is necessary, and outstandingly few people are willing to limit the number of breeds and varieties they raise. Almost without exception folks with whom I speak are trying to figure how to raise two or more breeds with two or three small coops and a capacity for 30 chicks a year. Nothing will ever come of this, and if I try to tell them, they're full of excuses and bla-bla, but one is not above the rules of the game.
16. If one wants to produce fowl of quality both for the table and for exhibition, one must first and foremost remember that this used to be a profession and not a hobby, and these breeds were developed by poultry professionals not a hand-full of folks looking for amusement on the weekends. If you want professional quality birds, you must run your set-up professionally. If you can only raise 100 chicks a year, then you can raise one breed well. "Well" implies selecting for meat, egg and fancy points. If you try to do more than one breed and variety, you will fail to maintain all of these qualities; that is all. It's not a matter of how you "feel" about it; it's a question of the exigencies of the profession. The best breeders in the country run their spaces in a professional manner. Many fanciers are in it because they love the shapes, sizes and colors. They keep more breeds than they should if there goal were for production. However, they do maintain their breeds in much better form than any hatchery, and anyone willing to specialize can procure stock and then begin a specialized program of selection.
17. If you haven't done this, you don't really know what you're talking about. If you haven't done this, i.e. raised out a minimum of 100 birds per annum over the course of several years, you don't really know what improvement is or how it is had. If you are not working with large fowl on this scale as a minimum, you don't really know what it means to select for production. I don't say this to insult, it's just the facts of poultry life. If you want to improve a truly rare breed and increase its production think of 150 to 200 birds raised a year. If you want to raise under 100, raise only one breed. If you want to raise under 50, raise one variety of one breed that is in relatively good condition.
18. Maintaining #17 over a period of multiple years, showing as actively as possible, and conversing with and learning from those who have gone before is the number one way, and perhaps the only way, of becoming a breeder of high quality fowl.

Fantastic thoughts, may I borrow this for another group I'm part of?

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Fantastic thoughts, may I borrow this for another group I'm part of?

Certainly!

 

[Arielle]

Today is a sad day-- Bob BLosl will be missed. He is the one responsible for switching this noob onto heritage birds rather than hatchery, and with that planted the idea of a sustainable farm flock. Which led me to this thread which he visited once in awhile. Bobs favorites:

KISS
go down the middle
keep kicking the can down the road


Will do BOb.

 

[finnfur]

Today is a sad day-- Bob BLosl will be missed. He is the one responsible for switching this noob onto heritage birds rather than hatchery, and with that planted the idea of a sustainable farm flock. Which led me to this thread which he visited once in awhile. Bobs favorites:

KISS
go down the middle
keep kicking the can down the road


Will do BOb.

Yes Arielle - what I remember Bob pounding out over and over and over in addition to a lot of great technical data was;
1 Start with Quality stock
2 Keep it simple stupid
3 Stay in the middle of the road
4 Keep kicking the can down the road and it will happen

It all made me switch stream and Thanks Bob

 

[Webechickens]

Quote:
What happened to Bob?

 

[Arielle]

Quote:
What happened to Bob?
BOb passed away on Friday--last Friday.