I'm thrilled to find this forum. I believe I may have belonged to this or a similar forum some time ago when I was still raising my own birds, but haven't visited in eons and I just registered an account here.
I'm not terribly interested in raising any birds now only because it's physically impossible for me to do so because my wife and I are recent snowbirds and now have a place down south in addition to our Pennsylvania farm, but there was a time not that long ago that I would have dived into the genetic hackle chicken breeding with both feet.
My interest now is mostly because I'm a reasonably serious fly tyer (I don't sell, but tie for myself, brothers and friends), but also because these ARE beautiful birds. The gentleman whose capes and saddles I prefer is Charlie Collins up in Pine City, NY and his birds come directly from Harry Darbee, Doc Fried, Dick Bitner and some others and he shared his birds with Andy Minor and others, back in the day. I know that Dr. Tom Whiting gets all of the press and the attention (deservedly so), but Charlie Collins' birds and hackles are superior in some ways to Tom Whiting's birds (obviously not in all ways). The other noteworthy thing about Mr. Collins' birds is that he's developed the very best colors in the industry. He has all of the regular colors like black, cream, brown, ginger, etc., but he also has a LOT of different dun colors and many of his birds have a beautiful barring that makes their feathers not only beautiful, but it makes them come alive in/on the water.
Aside from the fact that Mr. Collins' birds/hackles have all the traits that a serious tyer wants (soft, supple stems that won't roll or twist, short, stiff, straight barbules, excellent colors, good length and consistency, etc.), the other thing I liked about him was that he never got too big, continued to run a one-man operation and as such, his capes and saddles were always extremely affordable. To this day, the tyers who still tie Catskill style dry flies prefer Charlie's hackle to anyone else's. Sadly, he's had some family health issues and he was forced to give his breeding stock to another gentleman who intends to keep the line alive (he gave it to this person and didn't ask a penny, which I find extremely noteworthy).
I have no idea if Mr. Collins' birds are/were fairly closely genetically related to some of these birds (that I understand came from the Alsford Hackle Farm), but it would surprise me if they didn't have a lot of common ancestry.
I've actually inquired with a friend about whether he'd have interest in raising a small flock of these GH birds and he's planning to get back to me tonight when we'll discuss, but I'm curious if any of you who are breeding these birds would be interested in sending a few hackles my way because I'm curious about their attributes. I'd be happy to pay shipping or even a small additional fee depending on what you had to send, but I'm not interested in paying full-price for the feathers because honestly, I can get feathers at full-price any number of places and they'd come from birds that I KNOW to be of high quality for dry flies (Metz, Keough, Collins, Whiting, etc. etc.), not to mention that I truly do have a lifetime supply of dry fly hackles already. The truth is that I've got an obsession and I really love everything about these hackles, the birds and the history of how they were bred.
