Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry

[Lacy Blues]

I've chatted online with Walt and he's great. Have learned so much from him.


I'm a newbie to the serious breeding things, have only been doing it a few years. And of course I wanted birds that hadn't been kept very well, or by many folks, through the 20th century. So it's a big challenge to get our birds to where we want them to be. We finally have enough birds that I am not so worried if a predator gets one, that we can start doing more with our breeding. For these first few years, it has just been trying to get enough birds on the ground to have backups in case something happened, since I can't just run to the feed store and get more if some of them become part of a coyote buffet. We have seen some improvements in the pinched tail issues already. Still need to work on some other things and bring up production more both in egg laying and more meat on the breast. We have more eggs than we can use ourselves already, but we know that the birds can do better since we've seen the differences in the groups we have that came from different breeders.

Think you're right - the judges, and probably politics have played a large part in this problem of non-thrifty show birds. I was shocked to see that the APA put up a resource that said that show birds didn't lay as well. To even mention it means this is obviously a problem that is fairly well known and wide spread - yet it goes against what the SOP even says about having productive birds. Which does seem to indicate that the judges are not reading their SOP and they are placing pretty birds that aren't as productive, and so the breeders are breeding to win the judge's favor and not to have a well rounded, pretty yet utilitarian bird.

I found a reference in old literature regarding a change to the SOP for Mottled Javas that sounds like perhaps it was more about politics and making pretty birds that wrought the change in the SOP. And if that one small color change happened because of politics and personal views, it is more than likely that other changes in SOPs and in how judges evaluate the birds have also occurred for reasons not related to utility production.

I have no desire to show, but I know I need to because Javas need to be seen and they aren't shown much at all. And it would be interesting to have someone else lay eyes on our birds to see if they can offer any fresh insights to us. But I don't care for the showing that seems to be mostly about pretty birds and not a well rounded bird that looks nice but is also productive. I want my Javas to be what Javas used to be, back when the poultry literature talked about how wonderful they were as layers and as good eating, and being pretty birds that were also great for having on a farm.

From what I understand about breeding out pinched tails, we need to focus on abdominal capacity. That said, I'm wondering... is that how you're doing it or do you have another method that has proven beneficial?

 

[chickadoodles]

Quote: That is a possibility, as both of my breeds are supposed to be hardy winter layers. So I guess time will tell. Thanks Linda

 

[bnjrob]

From what I understand about breeding out pinched tails, we need to focus on abdominal capacity. That said, I'm wondering... is that how you're doing it or do you have another method that has proven beneficial?

That's it, nothing special. When picking who to consider for breeding, checking out the space between their pelvic bones as well as viewing them from above and noting who looks fatter in the butt end and has a better tail spread when viewed from behind on their level.

Am fortunate to have a breed with an SOP that dictates not only a long back, but is also supposed to have a broad back, with the wideness of the back that runs from "shoulder" to tail. So when standing in the pullet pen, I can see which ones look wider in the back end than the others, and then measuring pelvic bone distance helps to confirm their appearance. It might be more difficult to see if we had birds with shorter backs or fluffy feathered birds, but then checking for pelvic width can cut through problems with visualizing through feathers.

I found this photo a few years ago in a book and it helped me to better understand the different shapes and what a pinched tail looked like.

 

[uphilljill]

I love that illustration. Very informative for width of back. Where do you measure length of back? From what point to what point? Is there a similar diagram somewhere?

 

[bnjrob]

I love that illustration. Very informative for width of back. Where do you measure length of back? From what point to what point? Is there a similar diagram somewhere?

Mostly measuring the length of the back is eyeballing it in our birds because they all pretty much have long backs - one thing they don't have a problem with.

But you can actually measure with a ruler from the base of the neck to where their tail meets their back if you are trying to get a tangible measurement of your chicken's back length. That is helpful when you are trying to choose between a couple birds that have very similar qualities, since it can give you an actual measurement instead of just an ambiguous description such as "long" or "short".

As far as I know, the judges don't actually do any measurement of back length to get real numbers but sometimes I think they might ought to. It's interesting that recently a Java breeder took some birds to a show, and the judge told him that his cockerel's back was too long. Javas used to have an SOP that called for a back that was "medium length", but it was changed to a long back later on and is supposed to be one of the longest-backed chicken breeds. So to have a judge complain that the back on this Java was too long, told me that either that judge was not very familiar with Javas, or it showed just how subjective judging is - and that every one can have a different interpretation of what the SOP says. Which is likely why we have a plethora of unproductive show birds these days.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Thank you bnjrob.

There is something I have been wondering about with my andalusians. I try to choose those with the best capacity as you described above. I also choose males with this guideline. Some of my birds have nice long legs before they start to lay and then once they start laying, the abdomen drops somewhat and those long legs disappear. My birds are supposed to have long legs with the hocks visible "well below" the bottom line. I have some contacts in Australia that breed Andalusians and even though their birds are laying, you can still see those hock joints down below. I haven't asked if they breed for abdominal capacity or not so I'm kind of wondering if that is why mine seem to lose the leg length.

 

[bnjrob]

Thank you bnjrob.

There is something I have been wondering about with my andalusians. I try to choose those with the best capacity as you described above. I also choose males with this guideline. Some of my birds have nice long legs before they start to lay and then once they start laying, the abdomen drops somewhat and those long legs disappear. My birds are supposed to have long legs with the hocks visible "well below" the bottom line. I have some contacts in Australia that breed Andalusians and even though their birds are laying, you can still see those hock joints down below. I haven't asked if they breed for abdominal capacity or not so I'm kind of wondering if that is why mine seem to lose the leg length.

Interesting. Have you been able to feel if it is actually the flesh dropping down and obscuring the hocks or is it more fluff/feathering making the hocks disappear?

If it is actual flesh, I wonder if the Aussie birds have longer leg bones that keep their hocks more visible...Are the Aussie flocks in a similar hot climate? Are they closer feathered than your birds?

 

[Lacy Blues]

That's one of the things I was wondering about too... the fluff. I haven't gotten it figured out yet though. I'll have to make some examinations this year and see if its fluff or belly.

 

[Fentress]

A shame isn't it. It's because what wins isn't always productive. Several top breeders have flat out told me that what they breed and what they show are frequently not the same. I'm stubborn... if they don't lay well they never make it to the show cages. I may not have Best in Show but hopefully they'll be competitive and by golly they'll produce or they won't make it to a show OR the breeding pens.
But it's the judges who are determining this. Some breeds, as pointed out above, can be correct and productive. But it should be all breeds across the board. This divergence of form vs function is a problem in all breeds of livestock unfortunately.

Maybe the judging should be changed for large fowl, with less weight given to characteristics that are not as related to production and more emphasis on physical conformation that can be related. The fancy would still have the bantams. I'm worried that the Heritage Breeds are going to miss the train and not be part of the food/sustainability movement that I think is showing a lot of legs.

 

[bnjrob]

Maybe the judging should be changed for large fowl, with less weight given to characteristics that are not as related to production and more emphasis on physical conformation that can be related. The fancy would still have the bantams. I'm worried that the Heritage Breeds are going to miss the train and not be part of the food/sustainability movement that I think is showing a lot of legs.

The SOP says "Judges and breeders therefore, in all cases, are instructed to give full consideration to those fundamental characteristics which are necessary to maintain vigor and production at the highest level consistent with true breed type."

Judges and breeders have been given the directive that they are supposed to interpret the SOP and judge/breed with production in mind. But you can't really prove how well your bird lays or at what age they sexually matured or at what age they attained SOP goal weight. And since the APA has admitted on their website that most show birds don't lay as well, then obviously something has been missed in the judging process or the breeding process since there are apparently many breeders breeding to what the judges want to see in order to get a win, yet productivity is being lost.

The slow food movement also has its issues and part of that is the unrealistic expectations of the public. They want cheap food. No "heritage" standard-bred chicken is going to out-produce a modern-meat-mutt-hybrid chicken. Yet these modern meat chickens aren't very sustainable for a flock kept long term on a farm. I just saw a thread on one site recently where someone thought that the birds they had were sick - but it was because the birds had not yet been slaughtered and the folks didn't realize that these modern birds start keeling over from organ failure if they aren't slaughtered soon enough. Yet they were people trying to be "sustainable". I have not heard of anyone trying to breed from these hybrids at their home (probably because they are unhealthy and don't live very long anyway). Once they slaughter the birds, they order more from the hatchery. That is not a sustainable practice. But the amount of breast meat on those birds and the short time frame in which they are ready to be butchered is what the majority of people are interested in because it is less work and less feed than to raise a truly sustainable flock for the long term. Same thing with egg chickens - it is easier for folks to get more layers at the feed store than it is for them to raise birds that can keep the flock propagated for the long haul without having to restock from somewhere else.

You really have to enjoy the whole breeding process and the work it entails if you're gonna do it. And I don't think the public wants to do that much work. Even the slow-food/sustainability advocates are going to have to change some of their expectations of what a bird can and cannot realistically produce and then they need to work on retraining the public and getting the public to stop being in the "supersize fast-food mode".