Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry

[KenK]

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Hi KenK, by that do you mean gamefowl with no game?

I think comparisons could be drawn from some of the chicken as pet discussion up thread. By not very game I mean birds that may look the part but that have not been diligently bred towards the purpose for which they were originally intended.

An analogy could certainly be drawn from hunting dogs that have lost most of their hunting prowess over the years.

So, people want gamefowl or beagles or coon dogs, but don't want to be a cocker or a hunter, what happens to the breed?

I continue to enjoy this thread and sure appreciate all the folks who are contributing their wisdom.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Quote:
Hi KenK, by that do you mean gamefowl with no game?

I think comparisons could be drawn from some of the chicken as pet discussion up thread. By not very game I mean birds that may look the part but that have not been diligently bred towards the purpose for which they were originally intended.

An analogy could certainly be drawn from hunting dogs that have lost most of their hunting prowess over the years.

So, people want gamefowl or beagles or coon dogs, but don't want to be a cocker or a hunter, what happens to the breed?

I continue to enjoy this thread and sure appreciate all the folks who are contributing their wisdom.

Cool, that's what I thought. Have you ever heard the term "mean game" or something like it? Once and old cocker told me, in relation to what I'm refering to as bantams, that cockers referred to them as mean games (I think). I'm sure, though, that they weren't just game-less games. Bantams had other bits crossed into them, but there was no rime or reason to what was done. They were just running around the barnyard, and most of the time it was just for fun. The owner might cull out cockerels for the table, but it was only to keep the crowing down. It wasn't really the game plan.

Just now I was down voting, and I struck up a conversation with someone about the old bantams, instantly two other people chimed right in, which just drove the point home to me. As we talked, I dropped statements like, "do remember them? Everyone had them, right?" "oh, yes..." the answers came, followed bu tales of fights, and surprise broods showing up on the back step.

They started to disappear in the 80's, I think. Now, I can't think of anyone with them, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were the commonest chicken when I was a kid.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

Quote:
Hi KenK, by that do you mean gamefowl with no game?

I think comparisons could be drawn from some of the chicken as pet discussion up thread. By not very game I mean birds that may look the part but that have not been diligently bred towards the purpose for which they were originally intended.

An analogy could certainly be drawn from hunting dogs that have lost most of their hunting prowess over the years.

So, people want gamefowl or beagles or coon dogs, but don't want to be a cocker or a hunter, what happens to the breed?

I continue to enjoy this thread and sure appreciate all the folks who are contributing their wisdom.

This is a good point and a real sore spot for me. To me, preserving key personality traits and historic uses of various breeds is every bit as important as preserving "the look".

It's not a Border Collie if it doesn't herd with a proper eye, it's not a Beagle if it's not following its nose into trouble, and it's not a game fowl if it isn't game. This is all just as valid as, say, "It's not a Barred Rock if it doesn't have yellow shanks and a single comb," or what have you.

If modernization and the environment dictates the original intended purpose of the animal no longer desirable, change the name, particularly if some are still intent on preserving those uses.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

The chickens currently being called Icelandic are in many ways what I would have called bantams when I was a kid; they're just Icelandic bantams.

 

[KenK]

Have never heard the term "mean game". Do you take it as poor/not very good as opposed to angry/wanting to fight?

All my ancestors that I can remember mentioning banty chickens are all dead and gone. It's funny the things you wish you had asked (and remembered) when you had the chance. It's been twenty years since my dad died and I still have a question for him several times a week.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

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Oh dear heart, it's true that a hundred times and then some.....

Yes, I did interpret the term "mean" as meaning poor/not very good. I imagine the problem was that they weren't mean enough.

 

[Jake Levi]

Icelandics are at the least THE Landrace chicken of Iceland, in size they are as big as Leghorns, some larger, they are a pure line for over a thousand years with no other genes added in. They WERE the common chicken of Iceland because they were the ONLY chicken in Iceland until commercial imports of production birds.

They never in any sense have been 'Bantams', not in breeding, size or any other way other then common to all farms. They may well have some shared ancestry but that would be way back in the Dark Ages before Iceland was found.

 

[vnsseed]

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Really? OK, so that gives me something to go on. I'll keep you posted.

OK, I have corresponded with a view people and looked at some zooarchaeology reports and the general consensus is that a typical dunghill fowl in the 17th- early 19th century was 5-6 lbs... a good bit smaller than a large fowl today. So now the question is what breeds best represent, based on primary source doc, an early dunghill... I may be going back to the drawing board on this one.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

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Hi Jake, as I've mentioned, we, meaning folk in these parts, used the term "bantams" to refer to the barnyard chickens in the area, they were in no way bantams in the ABA-sense, meaning in no way were they tiny. I'm not sure how the term arose. It would probably qualify as a misappropriation of the term, but at the end of the day, when they were still commonplace, if you said bantam around here, chances are you meant a Old English Game/Leghorn size bird. When I compared them to the Icelandic, it was to give reference to their size, type, variations in color, and the quality of being obviously based in games. Given the disparate histories of New England and Iceland, I would imagine that the basic themes of the two histories of the Icelandic chicken and the old New England bantam would be similar.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

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Really? OK, so that gives me something to go on. I'll keep you posted.

OK, I have corresponded with a view people and looked at some zooarchaeology reports and the general consensus is that a typical dunghill fowl in the 17th- early 19th century was 5-6 lbs... a good bit smaller than a large fowl today. So now the question is what breeds best represent, based on primary source doc, an early dunghill... I may be going back to the drawing board on this one.

Well, considering that cockfighting was the most popular sport in the world before the 1850's and certainly didn't go anywhere after prohibition. It would be safe to assume that there were plenty of gamecocks about. Add to this mix a shot of Dorking and Hamburg, the combo of which could be the Dominique, which would be in there for sure. One could envision some Nankin and Pyncheon. Throw them all into the barn, where they sleep on the rafters and nest in the hay loft. During the day they scrath out the dunghill, which is right outside the barn door slightly to the left. Voila--New England bantams.

What's interesting is that often one had production chickens, too. We had Buff Rocks. The dairy farm down the road kept Speckled Sussex; our neighbors had New Hampshires. If one could have called them pets, minus the sacrine anthropomorphism, their primary purpose was to be a barnyard archetype. The cocks were cocks who fought and called the hens in for a treat. The males showed the hens where to build their nests. You never knew which color was to arise, and very often the hens and chicks were afforded no special protection. It was survival of the fittest. I used to sit and watch them fly up into the trees for the night. They could fly, ascending 20' or more. They'd walk out to the tip of the branch in the morning a fly down ffrom 40 or 50 feet without a moment's thought.