Faverolles Bred back to Dorking project

[Bobbie14243]

I am looking forward to following the outcome of this experiment. I have a pair of Dorkings and a trio of Faverolles (7 wk old hatchery chicks) and was considering crossbreeding at some point just because they are both supposed to be such good meat birds. I have a good bit of time before that time will be upon me so I will get to live vicariously through you for the time being.

 

[heritagehabitatfarms]

sounds like a good project i have a few Faverolles and will defiantly be following your project... and next year i might well be interested in some eggs...

 

[heritagehabitatfarms]

any updates for us ???

 

[heritagehabitatfarms]

 

[draye]

Any updates?
Is the project dead?
Anything at all?

 

[sandiklaws]

I'm BAAACCCKKKK LOL sorry for the lapse, was posting and writing for the club newsletter and forgot about here. Lots of updates on the way.

 

[sandiklaws]

this was the first newsletter post:
Hello fellow Faverolles enthusists!
I will hopefully be writing a regular article for the newsletter for a while regarding my Faverolles X back to Dorking project. I have searched far and wide for the best possible Faverolles genetics short of importing them from Europe. Now that I have my beautiful birds, I realize how much they have slipped away from their former farm fowl glory. I am undertaking this project to re-introduce good meat qualities back into the Favs gene pool. I do love my chickens- especially with a side of garden fresh green beans and fluffy mashed potatoes.
I have successfully worked within my flocks genetics to improve vigor and color, and, being a self sufficient type, I was looking forward to eating birds culled from my breeding stock and fattened cockerels... I say was because they were woefully short of the many praises the Faverolles enjoyed from the breeds heyday in France, hardly worth the work of processing. Now understand I am no stranger to home grown meat, meat animals or meat chickens, and I know the difference between a heritage bird and a commercial bird, and I have cared for many, many different varieties and even did OK at some of the shows I attended. It wasn’t care, and it wasn’t that they were a heritage type, these birds were darn near impossible to put a decent amount of flesh on. I refused to try another breed, I was committed to the proverbial long haul.
So I did what anyone would do, I looked for reasons why they would not fatten up properly. In turn I tried many different things; I wormed them, changed feeds, confined them, let them free range, gave them treats, kept them on a strict diet, reduced competition factors, gave them special lighting, investigated traditional methods like bread and milk, bought expensive supplements all for naught. They just did not have it in them anymore to be a good pan fowl. My husband even started to tease me about only wanting to eat them. The table fowl genes, which had made the breed a genuine wonder of the 1800s, seemed to be gone. I was devastated by this revelation, my birds absolutely had to be dual purpose to stay at my farm. I am nothing if not stubborn and refused to give up on my French beauties, but how to get those genetics back?
Now I won’t pretend to know everything there is to know about raising and breeding chickens, but I am a smart enough cookie to use the internet for research, so that is what I did. After much careful consideration, I decided I needed to bring in those good table bird genes from another breed... but which breed to choose? It needed to be similar to the Favs, have excellent table qualities and be an easy to keep breed so as to not bring the Favs down. After considering and rejecting: Cornish (too different), Cornish X Rocks (too many health issues), Rocks and Game Birds (too aggressive), Brahmas (too much to fix later), Cochins (too few eggs and coarse flesh issues), Orpingtons (similar issues to Favs), Delawares (too few around), and a few others I have most likely forgotten about, I hit on the obvious choice- DORKINGS!
Now why go to another breed that is struggling some may ask, and I asked myself that too. But, Dorkings had everything I wanted; good layers and mothers, excellent meat qualities (if they were still being bred properly), white skin and 5 toes, plus they were already part of the make-up of the Favs from when the breed was first formed. I would not be breeding to an outside breed so much as taking the Favs back to the source. But where to find them? Since it has become the trendy thing to eat “slow food” and “arc of taste” here in New England, I figured I could find someone who was breeding Dorks for their farm and meat qualities alone. It wasn’t long before my internet sleuthing brought me to Yellow House Farm in Barrington NH , a wonderful slow food farm, and Joseph Marquette, a very knowledgeable breeder and passionate fan of the Dorking breed- specifically the Rose Comb white, the only variety produced at Yellow House. Joseph had worked hard at improving his Dorkings and it really showed. His birds had been ruthlessly culled for meatiness and vigor, and had been hatched only from eggs that graded large, resulting in large handsome very meaty birds, who consistently lay large eggs, and that thrived in semi-open buildings in a very cold part of NH.
I honestly don’t know which impressed me more; the live birds I saw or the frozen ones ready for sale- I am still kicking myself for not buying some of the processed birds they had for sale! The carcass quality was excellent, the birds had decent breasts and a dark meat person would have swooned over the big thighs and plump legs. I knew these were the right birds to help me bring back my line of Favs to the good farm stock they once were.
Next newsletter will discuss my Faverolles genetic make-up and bloodlines.

 

[sandiklaws]

OK so now I can't find the next article. It might have been on my old computer which had the hard drive fail. Regardless moving on.

these are a few of my pure hens I am posting for comparison

these are the 2 F!s that will be bred to pure Merlin and Boulanger stock this season. Both of these girls are big for their age and way heavier then they look so I feel I am on the right track.

not a very good picture but they did not want to cooperate with me, I was trying to get them to stand next to one another for body comparison. The bird facing right is pure fav, the bird facing left (with a missing head) is one of the F!s.

 

[sandiklaws]

well... thats it for now. I hope to get a few more pictures this week if the weather allows. I have not been able to track the weights the way I wanted- life just got in the way of that. However I hope to more scientific about what gets to grow up this year and have bought a postal scale to help track the chicks growth better.

 

[sandiklaws]

found a cache of pictures I thought were lost, here are a few of the better looking ones



this cockerel was the only chick hatched with an ideal comb. Sadly he was cut because he never got to a good size, however he developed nicely and could pass as a pure bantam white fav.