While I don't always agree with Joel Salatin - I keep an open mind and usually like listen to the lectures he presents just so I can have a wide mindset - After all I come from a family where my mother works with commerical farmers of all types, but I have a small farm while in school.
"All form fallows function" - I could not agree more with this and Form does fallow function - it is not the other way around
I tried to use the embed feature however it won't let me embed at a certain time. So here is the link and it will take you to the ~16 min mark for whomever is interested
Interesting, it's fun when we ride the wave of being "right". Lord knows I've done it more than once. However, the problem with his sarcasm is that it comes from someone who's not part of this community. So, half knowledge or half experience is only so valuable. Listening to him, he doesn't say anything new or interesting. If he doesn't appreciate the Standard or the idea of standard-zed breeding, it doesn't change its outstanding importance in the development and preservation of breeds.
It also doesn't change the fact that I've never met a single "farmer" with the knowledge base concerning chickens that is found in the general crowd of an APA/ABA show hall. APA folks are about chickens; farmers are about products.
When I was a market farmer, I was constantly selecting for productivity above all else. I ran the bulk of our egg production on our flock of Anconas, and sold a lot of eggs. However, over time I became interested in returning to teaching. This happened to coincide with a growing frustration in me that my chickens were ugly and asymmetrical birds. I was often jealous of the beautiful standard-bred stock I'd see at the poultry shows I frequented. I wanted chickens that were worthy of art. Now, of course I had been using my Standard before, but I was favoring function over form when it came down to it.
Still, things change. I'm not a market farmer any longer. I don't have to ring every little last egg out of my birds to make the mortgage. I don't actually care if they're the single most productive flock in the region or not. To some that might sound blasphemous, but I've put more time into actually
breeding productive chickens than most anyone I've met, and as a farmer in the region I know a lot of people. With only one exception, those who are doing any volume in sales buy in hatchery stock. They're egg focused, not chicken focused. They know jack about their chickens. Sure they can keep them alive and healthy. They collect a good egg, and many of them can slaughter. However, none of them know about their chickens
qua chickens in the way that I do. I give talks in New England at which I teach people how to breed for productivity, but one of the things I also invite people to do is actually start to appreciate their chickens
qua chickens.
Now, I breed to the Standard first and foremost. Hold the phone, you say. That must mean that I ignore production. Absolutely not. However, I consider it as part of the whole and not as the firt and foremost concern. If one breeds properly to the Standard, one will raise birds that are productive. Chances are, though, they're not going to be the highest producers. To get there, function must be selected above all else, and really trap-nesting needs to be adopted. However, my birds are much more beautiful and balanced. Now, of course here, we're talking eggs. My meat qualities do nothing but improve. Moreover, because I assess birds a specific ages, I end up retaining those that mature more quickly and put size on more efficiently then their confreres. It's not an all or nothing choice.
Often beginners ask, "what's the best layer?" Frankly, who cares, most people don't actually need the best layer. Most people end up inundated with eggs for which they're running out of uses. Most homesteading needs are well-met by a properly standard-bred fowl, and if selection is maintained at certain ages, basically good, homestead-appropriate productivity can be maintained in those strains.
Then, however, there is the value of beauty. Our culture doesn't often know how to address that. We're a culture that praises function and often scorns beauty as frivolous. Fortunately, we have our older, ancestral cultures to remind us of the great social, psychological, and spiritual benefit of beauty. There is great personal benefit that comes from beauty and the enjoyment of beauty. Now that I'm not pushing for every last egg, I am free to enjoy that, and I wouldn't give it up for a few extra dozen eggs, because that's the difference we're talking about. We're not talking about 20 eggs versus 300 eggs. Unless one is working with industrial layers, at which point the conversation is over anyways because that's a completely different game, the farmer insistent on function over form with the typical infrastructural capacities of a small-scale operation, who also wants to do it with pure-bred fowl, is going to, perhaps, with skill and attention, glean a few extra dozens per bird per annum. His birds will, however, look like hatchery rats. No thank you.
Some might not be sensitive to that. Some might not see the value. That's cool. I certainly went through a personal evolution and arrived here. Who knows where others will arrive. What isn't useful, though, is prevarication and fanciful non-realities. People who imagine themselves to be great breeders of productive fowl tend also to be rather young in chickens. There are breeder fowl, hatchery fowl, and corporate fowl. Corporate fowl are corporate fowl, they are backed by amazing science to be what they are, and the attainment of those levels of production is closed to the layman. What most people who boast about breeding for production are really doing is the reinvention of hatchery fowl. Cool, if that makes them happy, but that's not what this thread is about.
This thread has, since its inception been about the promotion of standard-bred heritage fowl, finding good stock, learning how to breed it
to the Standard, learning to show, learning the ins and outs of various breeds and their genetics. That Joel Salatin might not find that valuable is not actually all that important or relevant. That someone might not appreciate what this thread is about is certainly alright: "different strokes for different folks". That "form follows function" in poultry be thought of as a rule is a fantasy. Since 1874 the Standard of perfection has been the driving force in breed development and certainly of maintenance. People fantasize about old-fashioned farming. The culture around old-fashioned farming was part of old-fashioned culture, and that culture led to the APA and the Standard of Perfection as well as other breed organizations. It also led to a whole lot of unproductive mongrels and poverty-drenched subsistence living about which we like to create romanticized stories. Farming advancements and specialization led to the development of highly productive strains in a few breeds, and everything else ceased being considered a "serious" farming venture. Of course, farmers ended up being culled just as ruthlessly leading to the development of highly productive "farmers", and everyone else ceased being considered "serious" farmers. Good-bye American small-scale farms.
Barring the few "breeds" that are maintained by the industry. All the breeds we have have been preserved, maintained, and promoted by two forces: hatcheries and APA/ABA culture. "Practical", "form follows function" farmers have done jack for chickens. Poultry-wise they have preserved practically nothing for posterity and will not be the force that carries these breeds into the future.
When I watched
Food, Inc, Salatin was slaughtering Cornish X's...just like Perdue.
