Yup, just for clarity, I'm not recommending the old "rotten road kill on stakes over the hen run" trick. That may have been something Harvey recommended, maybe not, I don't know. As was implied on here a bit back, chickens are built to eat it, but anything can toxify The difficulty with allowing meat to rot in enclosed runs for the production of maggots is that it's going to lead to a level of consumption without the moderation that access to free-range would support. Frankly, I wouldn't do it. We don't eat sick; we don't eat rot. To each his own.
As to the notion of "selecting to one's own "standard'", I think that's more of an excuse, which stands for "didn't start with good stock and can't be bothered to find any." There are so many different types available in the Standard that developing a new one is going to take some doing. If one's selecting away from the Standard towards something else, chances are one's going somewhere already in the Standard. Why not just start with the breed that is there to satisfy that typical goal. Once type is set, one is always doing the work of selecting for productivity, etc...
When folks talk about selecting for productivity as if it were an alternative form of selection that differs from SOP selection, it is an expression of their misunderstanding. Specific types exist to serve a particular production. Selecting for that type is like setting the stage. However, once the stage is set, then comes the work of selecting individuals within the breed parameters that exemplify the production criteria for which the particular type was developed. If one is "selecting for production" in a direction that diverges from breed type, one is leaving the breed of origin and developing something different. A pure example of this is the development of the NH out of the RIR. "Pure" RIR's were selected in a different typical direction over a period of 15 or so years and the product was a NH. Now, this was no accident, and it happened via cooperation between serious farmers with vast resources. When random folks just start crossing this or that with a pipedream and naught more, one's just jumbling genes. The development of the NH wasn't just a random experiment; it was the work of poultry professionals with a very clear goal and the resources to attain that goal.
As I mentioned above, when dealing with standard-bred, aka heritage, breeds, one needs to be chicken-focused, SOP focused. Otherwise, one is serving a different goal, which is of course fine, but it's not to develop poultry of quality. It is good to state that it's important to be clear on the "issue" with hatchery poultry. First of all, chickens are strong resourceful birds, and hatchery birds aren't bad birds. The major criteria behind what they have selected for is egg-production, which one can feel when holding them, if one knows what to feel for, which is why most hatchery stock lay fairly decently. Now, all hatcheries are not created equal, and many hatcheries have healthy and productive lines of one bird, while having lines that are generally "less than" of another bird. Now I say "bird" and not "breed". They're just birds, not breeds, even if hatcheries get away with selling them under the title of a specific APA breed because the market is not regulated. The SOP type for each breed is the pedigree of that breed. Chickens are "standard-bred", it is their standard type that establishes them as a representative of that breed. Just because a chicken is Buff with white legs doesn't mean that it is a Buff Orpington; it just means it's a buff bird with white legs that lays eggs. Hatcheries sell birds by feather color and pattern, but feather color and pattern is a variety statement and not a breed statement. Their birds are mutts because they do not breed to the SOP. Now, having said that, if one starts with healthy and productive hatchery stock and then one starts breeding them "for production"--what's that about? Hatcheries aren't run by know-nothings, especially large hatcheries. They have all sorts of employees, consult and sometimes employ experts, conform to regulations, confront diseases professionally, maintain gene pools en masse. If one gets hatchery Silver Spangled Hamburgs, they're going to lay strongly, forage excellently and have strong predator instincts. What "new" criteria does one think one is going to select for?
If one wants to see an amazing bird, one wants to see a good, healthy, bird that has the basic size, type, and feather quality that forms the base of an excellent SOP specimen. Upon that base is painted the variety. This is the work where art and science et to breed thee fowl in the first place. That's what breeders do, and it's what we do that hatcheries don't do, I dare say, even can't do, because this is the work that comes from hands-on, specimen by specimen selection: focus, discipline, self-imposed limitation, commitment, uber-adequate floor-space, free-range, individual bird knowledge. Modern meat production? They win. Modern egg production? They win. Old school, drop-dead beautiful farm fowl with adequate small-farm and homestead appropriate adaptations? We hold the key to that--because we hold the Standard. You're not going to develop birds that lay better than hatchery birds. You're not going to develop meat crosses better than their meat crosses. What you can do is make one, or perhaps two, breeds visually stunning with honestly dual-purpose, family appropriate, small-scale, diversified farming worthy specimens of fowl that embody the ideals of the SOP that date from a time when land owners were more fluent in the lingo of strong, on-farm poultry production.
