Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry

[gjensen]

Bob did recommend single colored varieties. He also recommended breeds that were already in good shape, and were not especially uncommon. There is a lot of wisdom in starting there.

I started these Catalanas, and I will admit it is a bit intimidating seeing how far they need to go. It is not for the faint of heart. I will kill a lot of birds in the next five years, and only God knows whether or not I will be successful. That is what I wanted though. I wanted something that was a ground up effort. The challenge is appealing and whatever I do or don't, it will be on me.
The New Hampshire I started are well bred birds, and need work (that never ends), but they are a reasonable bird to start with. I would recommend them, but I have not found mine to be reliably broody.

White Dorkings are white, but they do have a rose comb. But . . .I can't see that being a deal breaker. It only requires learning what to look for in the comb. The breed has a lot of history, and a reputation for a good table bird.

 

[bnjrob]

BGMatt-- my point was to be careful to ask the right questions. I have read multiple times that laying has become poor in such and such a line. It should NOT be this way but some breeders apparently get caught up with stressing other traits. At the NEPC show in January, Walt specifically showed me a bird that lacked in breast muscling--it does happen. I'm not saying all breeders do this, I"m saying enough do this that it is important to ask the right questions before investing in a road trip.

It has been a pleasure to find like minded people on this thread that treasure the value of meat and egg production in a good bird.

I think there are people that believe that they are breeding to the SOP in that the feathers look right, the tail angle looks right, but maybe they aren't checking weights on their birds, they aren't checking the keel or the pelvis to see what the underlying structure is, etc. And since feathers can hide all kinds of things, a bird can have an appropriate silhouette and overall look that seems true to type, but not have the foundation and utility there.

I have had some people telling me that they didn't want to get birds from a breeder that is close to them but they wouldn't tell me why. Come to find out, even though the breeder says that they breed to the SOP and has some show wins, this person has 15 different chicken breeds, along with other types of birds. And this person apparently keeps several hundred birds at one time. That's an awful lot of birds and different breeds to have to be familiar with each SOP to try and breed. I seriously doubt this person has the time to put their hands on each of their birds or monitor egg laying, weights, etc. when I know that they have a job outside of chickens.

And people with show wins - well if you don't have much competition at a show, you can still win first place. Doesn't mean that you have an exquisite specimen.

There is just so much more to chickens but so many people can't get past the pretty feathers and then some don't want to because it's a lot of work to have more than just some chicken eye candy.

 

[Arielle]

We all enjoy eye candy, but you are right, a great deal more goes into breeding and raising a good chicken. I feel like the more I know, I'm still at the bottom of the mountain, because there is 100 x more to learn. Makes for a good lifetime hobby.

 

[bnjrob]

We all enjoy eye candy, but you are right, a great deal more goes into breeding and raising a good chicken. I feel like the more I know, I'm still at the bottom of the mountain, because there is 100 x more to learn. Makes for a good lifetime hobby.

LOL. I swear, sometimes I am just so irritated thinking "Why didn't I find this information sooner?". So much to learn. And it's the little things that someone will mention, and then a conversation starts going and things click together and you didn't realize what you didn't know.

 

[gjensen]

Some people will never get it.

 

[Arielle]

While some don't get it, that is ok. Maybe at some point it will click. IMO if a person doesn't have a complete base of information, the building blocks don't have a place to fit. MOst of us didn't grow up around livestock, I envy those that did because they gained a lifetime of information while growing up.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: Yup. lol

 

[LindaB220]

Thanks for the feedback on the Dorkings. Which color varieties are easier?

I have 5 White Dorking ordered from Sandhill Preservation. I don't know the waiting time. I ordered in Jan and supposed to get them later this month or May. I've heard quality is not as good. But.....

 

[Yellow House Farm]

My thought is that you can only raise as many breeds as you have the infrastructure to maintain properly. For most that's one or, perhaps, two. However, a pen of hens with a cock is not housing breeders. One needs multiple spaces for cocks and females. Then there are growing-out facilities, which although they can be simple, must be adequate.

I'm not really into discussing "breeds". A breed is what the SOP says it is, I think it is much more valuable to discuss strain because that's what birds are. They are strains. Names are labels. Types are breeds, Strains are what is in your backyard.

If I were to have to choose between a bird that wasn't a top producer but matched the SOP or a bird that was a great producer but did not match the SOP, I'd go with the bird that matched the SOP. As BGMatt pointed out, it is easier to get production into a bird that matches the SOP than it is to get SOP onto a random bird.

I think that the right bird for you is the bird that you want to look at, read about, study, breed, hatch, cull, weight, etc... That's the right bird for you. The internet and lots of books for that matter are full of folks saying things about breeds that they have no business saying. This false information brings people to fall for breeds they shouldn't and reject breeds they shouldn't.

What is rare? Almost every single thing in the Standard is rare in SOP form. The rarest chickens are well-bred chickens. I'd relinquish the rare label. I'd choose a breed or choose a color. If you choose a breed, raise the variety or, if the case be, one of the two or--in the rarest cases--three varieties in that breed that are actually of quality. They are carrying the breed; they are that breed. Color really is skin deep, and I am a firm believer that we need to concentrate on specific varieties in breeds if want anything to survive in high quality at all. There are some breeds with multiple varieties, it might seem like it's a tragedy if one or even several die out, but it's really not. Lots of color varieties were just someone's experiment that caught on long enough to get into the SOP; however, every breed has specific colors, or a specific color, that is its anchor. That's the one, or those are the few, that people should back, because those are the varieties that will usher that breed into the future. Whenever I see color projects, I feel sorry for the breed, because it's core is being neglected for some fad. Take Cuckoo Dorking for example, much effort was exerted into getting them into the Standard, but to what avail. The Dorking was a dying breed, and here people were--neglecting the breed in order to promote an historically unimportant variety. Who cares about Cuckoo Dorkings? The only Cuckoo variety of anything that has any hopes of being impactful is the Dominique. Cuckoo in anything else is never more than a fad. While folks were "working on" the Cuckoo Dorking, the Dorking itself was slipping away.

Just because a color exists in the SOP doesn't mean it is, or even ever was, any good. There are Blacks and White in many varieties--they are lovely. People often micro-focus their vision on an aspect of a pattern, but the beauty of a flock is in the symmetry and the balance of the type of the birds of the flock. If you're new to chickens, read that sentence again until it makes sense. When you look out at good birds and they make you go, "Wow" it is in their symmetry and balance of type. Color on scrappy birds looks ragamuffin. If it is a specific color that calls you, find the breed or perhaps breeds that own that color and then go there. For example (and this is just my crazy, unfounded, and silly opinion):

If you want Blue and a Wyandotte, you can get Blue Wyandottes. Then you can kick and scream for 30 years until you've got them good and strong (maybe if you're lucky), but to what avail? Blue belongs to Andalusians, and Wyandottes are White, SL, and Columbian. I'm of the opinion that those efforts should go in a direction that will matter in the long-run and be impactful for the breed and the next generation. If I wanted Blue Wyandottes, I'd sit quietly and decide what was more important, Blue or Wyandottes. Then I'd make up my mind and do one or the other. I believe that this would lead to efforts that would actually promote and preserve a breed as opposed to simply self-isolating with a fad that won't go anywhere.

So:

1. If you're raising less than 100 a year, have one breed.

2. If you choose a breed--adopt the primary variety, or ONE of the primary varieties (a hint only two breeds I can think of have 4 primary varieties; some have three; most have two; the luckiest have one (I say the luckiest because everyone who raises that breed raises them, and then they actually stand a chance of being awesome))

3. If you choose a color--find the breed or, perhaps, breeds that own that color and go with ONE of them (unless you can raise 200 chickens a year and then go with two of them (maybe))

4. Find the strain(s) that best match the SOP that you can find, and if their production isn't where you want it to be, hatch a 100 and start selecting.

5. Don't give up, and if you need a distraction, get a bantam.

 

[bnjrob]

I have 5 White Dorking ordered from Sandhill Preservation. I don't know the waiting time. I ordered in Jan and supposed to get them later this month or May. I've heard quality is not as good. But.....

You know, sometimes you just have to work with what you can find if you really want a particular breed at a particular time. It took several years to find someone that had Javas that I could get, because the waiting lists were full or the breeders didn't want to sell any until their birds had grown out so they could sell good specimens rather than sell chicks that may not mature into the best looking birds. I finally found some and they need work, but it was worth it and we are thrilled to have them and be working on improvements to get a really good homesteading bird out of them.