Heritage Breeders vs Show Breeders

[sandspoultry]

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Because the APA standards don't always reflect the original breed. Case and point the White Holland turkey. The original bird has blue eyes the APA standard calls for brown eyes. Why??? you tell me APA judge... it's because that was what was decided in 1874 in the case of the Holland.
There is another thread going right now under the same lines, the Dark Cornish chicken. to breed to APA standards they have short legs and a squat heavy body which results in low fertility, why would a farmer, homesteader want to breed a bird that needs A/I to reproduce??? The heritage breeds of poultry were bred for being thrifty, able to self reproduce and be profitable. Seems being SQ now means something different. It's nice to have a standard to go by but, at to what cost to the breed.... extinction

Steve in NC

 

[seriousbill]

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I hear you on that. 100% agree.

 

[NYREDS]

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Because the APA standards don't always reflect the original breed. Case and point the White Holland turkey. The original bird has blue eyes the APA standard calls for brown eyes. Why??? you tell me APA judge... it's because that was what was decided in 1874 in the case of the Holland.
There is another thread going right now under the same lines, the Dark Cornish chicken. to breed to APA standards they have short legs and a squat heavy body which results in low fertility, why would a farmer, homesteader want to breed a bird that needs A/I to reproduce??? The heritage breeds of poultry were bred for being thrifty, able to self reproduce and be profitable. Seems being SQ now means something different. It's nice to have a standard to go by but, at to what cost to the breed.... extinction

Steve in NC

Why are you so invested in arguing? It seems in this thread & the other one you cite that you're much more interested in fighting than in sharing information.
BTW-can't answer your Turkey question. I've been involved in poultry keeping for a long time but I wasn't at the 1874 APA meeting.

 

[Black Feather]

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Absolutely, this is an important point too. Show breeders are not blameless either. I think at times we get so focused on the look of a bird that we miss the whole purpose of the breed. If a leghorn looks like a leghorn but is so hopelessly inbred that it hardly lays well anymore, is it still a leghorn? In my mind it is not. Unfortunately this is something that you can't always see in the show room.

Going toward an extreme is not new in any show room. You just have to look at many dogs to see this. The massive heads of bulldogs and the extreme slope of a German Shepherds back in some instances. I personally find this more a product of the judges than the breeder. If the birds weren't placed then the extremes would not continue to be bred and would eventually die out.

NYREDS: We are debating and discussing. Sometimes we have to agree to disagree.

This has actually helped me sort out some thoughts on certain issues I've been thinking about for a long time. There is no right or wrong in many instances, just shades of gray.

One question this raises for me is do heritage breeders select their birds for production ability? I've never heard of such breeders keeping production records such as egg yield and growth rate/weight.

UC

 

[sandspoultry]

Quote:
Absolutely, this is an important point too. Show breeders are not blameless either. I think at times we get so focused on the look of a bird that we miss the whole purpose of the breed. If a leghorn looks like a leghorn but is so hopelessly inbred that it hardly lays well anymore, is it still a leghorn? In my mind it is not. Unfortunately this is something that you can't always see in the show room.

Going toward an extreme is not new in any show room. You just have to look at many dogs to see this. The massive heads of bulldogs and the extreme slope of a German Shepherds back in some instances. I personally find this more a product of the judges than the breeder. If the birds weren't placed then the extremes would not continue to be bred and would eventually die out.

NYREDS: We are debating and discussing. Sometimes we have to agree to disagree.

This has actually helped me sort out some thoughts on certain issues I've been thinking about for a long time. There is no right or wrong in many instances, just shades of gray.

One question this raises for me is do heritage breeders select their birds for production ability? I've never heard of such breeders keeping production records such as egg yield and growth rate/weight.

UC

Yes we do and know others that do also, Our primary poultry are heritage turkeys. We raise Midget White, White Holland, Bourbon Red, Royal Palm, Standard Bronze and Beltsville White. Some are very rare some common. We are breeding them to original bird not what the "standard" calls for.
On the Beltsville I spent months and months doing research, searching thru old USDA records from the research station in Beltsville, Md. and Ames IA. And through luck and the help of others I was able to actually speak to people that were involved in the project at Ames and were able to bring the breed into private hands. My biggest and first question was "what makes a Beltsville turkey a Beltsville" and the info from them was very very useful. With that and the old records from Stanley Marsden and his group (the original breeders) we were able to piece together "what's makes a BSW and BSW" and breed accordingly. To us that is much more important than winning a show.

Steve in NC

 

[NYREDS]

Agreed on the issue of productivity. A chicken that doesn't lay eggs isn't of much use. Even if your goal is strictly breed conformity if that "perfect" bird can't reproduce itself what good is it?

Some of the breed extremes are easy to demonstrate. The OEGB & Sebright Bantam being 2 examples. Those bred for the show room have been bred so small that their egg laying ability is almost nonexistant. I know OEGB breeders who have hens that only lay 12-15 eggs per year but their birds do very well in shows.

That said it's equally true that the 325 egg per years production bird that bears little resemblance to the breed standard is of little use to the show
breeder.

There was a time when show breeders selected for production as well as breed type but largely that time has gone. Poultry breeding has gone in 2 different directions & it seem unlikely that they will come back together as the goals are so different.

It's still possible for the show breeder to select for production as well as appearance but I really don't know of any who do. However, even if breeding for production were to be reintroduced into breeding for the showroom breed conformation obviously could not be sacrificed.

An example of this is the Dark Cornish referred to by Sandspoultry: the birds referenced may lay well, reproduce well & grow well but they bear little resemblence to the Cornish breed standard. They may be of use to someone who wants to grow meat fot the table, although if that's your goal why not one of the quick maturing Cornish hybrids, but they would be of absolutely no use to the show fancier.

I don't have a problem with hatchery type birds per se. It's where most people get started with poultry. I do have a problem with people representing their birds as something they're not. There's nothing magical about buying birds from a breeder as opposed to a hatchery if that breeder has simply bought & reproduced hatchery birds without any attempt to improve them. This type of co-called breeder will often represent their birds as Show Quality when they simply are not. The buyer then takes these birds to a show & either doesn't place or often is disqualified. This results in them becoming discouraged & leaving the fancy. All because someone misrepresented what they were selling just to make a couple of bucks.

Urban Coyote: I understand perfectly well the concept of debate but it is possible to disagree without being disagreeable.

 

[Vcomb]

This is something that some friends and I have gone around and around on more then once.

First off, if I order birds that are simply for running about and laying eggs, I still expect them to look how they ought, even if they are not the perfect picture of a show bird. Barred rocks looking like barred rocks, and I'm very picky about the shade of "rhode island red" the hatcheries throw me. If they are not the dark red colored birds like my mother and grandmother raised they usually get sold as "sex linked reds" even if the invoice says "rhode island reds". When I raised silkies if I got a 4-toed bird regardless of how good the parents were i sold it local as a silkie cross.

Now with show birds, there are several instances where I truly think a secondary standard has arisen. The Modern Game came out of trying to please the judges years ago when the Oxford Old English were first entering the show ring. Cornish look entirely different now, to the point where I've seen many calling their more rangy homestead-type Cornish "Indian Games" to differentiate them from the bulldog-like cornish in the show ring.

As was stated, some traits are hard to spot in the show arena - "how well does that best of variety Leghorn hen lay?" But some are more visible. Breeds that were once hardy free-rangers have become powderpuff couch potatos, roosters that were once fierce warriors have become squalling sissies. I believe show people, preservation and heritage people, and even the backyard flock owner should all try to work together to bring an overall uniformity back to the breeds of their choice. There's always stubborn ones in each group though; the "righteous crusader" heritage breeder who ignores either partially or entirely the standard looking only to make the breed functional again, the "aristocratic" show breeder who doesn't care how well the bird lays or survives cold temps, so long as the bird wins the shows and thus proves that it is superior to what everyone else has. Not all members of each group are like this, but some are, and unfortunately it causes rifts that make bridging the gap more difficult.

I feel I've wandered....back to the original question. I feel that every breed has what I call workable defets. We all know that not every single specimen is perfect or even close. A breeder, regardless of their aims (show, preservation, just to sell some birds to the guy down the road - and in fact we should try to be a little of all three) should put forth the effort to learn about their chosen breeds enough to recognize these workable defects. These defects are not major and can either be bred out or used to improve your stock. Not all show fowl are broodfowl and not all broodfowl are showfowl. A breeder should also recognize that if a lot of these defects show up or a defect shows up too often that those birds are not properly representing the breed they claim to be. Once a flock of a particular breed fails to meet the temperment, production, vitality and physical standard for that breed more often then not - that is when a person needs to reevaluate what they are doing with their stock and whether the stock they have is worth propogating. In short, if the birds don't measure up at the very least the majority of the time in all aspects they no longer are that breed.

 

[geareduplyn]

If you are constantly consulting the SOP, and I am, even though I pretty much learned to read from it, look at the economic qualities of the breeds. I am a real nut about breeding to the standard, but I feel that the best show birds should live up to their economic specs. An example is my RIRs. When I got them as show birds they were laying about 50 eggs per year. Six generations later they were laying around 200 eggs per year. Not production layer standards, but respectable,and were still winning in the show pen.

I live by two hard and fast rules. Keep good records and Cull, Cull,Cull.

 

[seriousbill]

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Yes, they do. For instance, some preservation breeders I know of select Delawares for free-range broiler potential, believing that that's what the breed's original purpose was, so the goal there is to select for meatier birds, and they do keep growth and weight records. I can respect that, as long as the standard is not forgotten. Others, like Drowns of Sand Hill, select for large egg size and production. I don't really want to open up the whole Sand Hill quality, or lack-thereof, can of worms, but he is a heritage breeder, and some of his birds are better than others, and that's just another example.

 

[iajewel]

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I don't think you are to picky at all. Im a purest and a traditionalist in my breeding programs. (Not limited to chickens) In the dog world we have seen every breed damaged by back yard breeders.. people that may mean well, want to breed and then with out doing thier home work do enough damage in the 3-5yr avrage they are in that breed to take years for good breeders to fix. Same has happened in horses, goats and other species..
I think wanting and as a responsible breeder.. needing these people to understand what they are doing is important. If breeders don't take responsibily for thier breeds then soon we won't have them, and can't get them back in the same fashion they once existed.
PLEASE keep being picky!