Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[LeslieDJoyce]

Sadly it seems that a lot of dual purpose birds are in fact no purpose birds, neither decent egg layers or good meat producers. It's great that there are some who are breeding with production in mind, and those strains are invaluable,  worth their weight in gold IMO.

Is it that our standards have shifted? Or our breeds have deteriorated? Deteriorated by hatchery productivity practices, or breeding the annoying productivity out of them to enhance their show potential? Or were they just never any good?

I think the only way we can even assess their potential is to work on them. I do think there is some purpose in genetic distinction and diversity.

 

[gjensen]

It would be an interesting study to find out how chickens can recognize "home" when it's moved around in a completely free range situation. I wonder how far you could move it without them getting lost, or if they focus entirely on the coop, and not the geography?

It depends on how long they were accustomed to roosting in the same spot. They will get confused if they are moved a respectable distance from where they are accustomed to roosting immediately. If you move them a little at a time, there is no confusion. Move them 150'-200' and they may act lost the first couple nights.

 

[gjensen]

I think the backyard hatchery business is just a tiny drop in the bucket, compared to the factory farm production commercial chicken business. This seems to be driven by the Germans and other Europeans, finding a way to make the industry more humane. They have bred a dual purpose brown egg layer called the Lohmann, where the males are used for meat. But, there are issues, they don't lay as well, and the roosters don't have the breast meat that the cornish cross do, so farmer/ consumer acceptance hasn't been great. No matter what, if people eat chickens and eggs, there will always be the problem of what to do with the "spent" hens, and unwanted males. Ultimately though It's not so much a question of if they will die but when.
Detection of sex in the egg would probably be an ideal system, from both a humane and economic aspect.

There are a few strains along these lines here and elsewhere. The Rainbow's etc. The problem, their problem, is that they are neither efficient egg producers or meat producers. They are not much to look at, and they are rather useless.

"Spent hens" and "unwanted males" is a management challenge in any operation. In my own, the solution is eating them. That is what you do with poultry that you do not want. You kill them and eat them.

 

[finnfur]

"Spent hens" and "unwanted males" is a management challenge in any operation. In my own, the solution is eating them. That is what you do with poultry that you do not want. You kill them and eat them.

Yep - and thats exactly why I got them - to eat . The rest is all aside even though necessary and a challenge . At least with most homestead environments they only have one human caused bad day. And here ,ours go fairly peacefully when that time comes.

 

[bnjrob]

Is it that our standards have shifted? Or our breeds have deteriorated? Deteriorated by hatchery productivity practices, or breeding the annoying productivity out of them to enhance their show potential? Or were they just never any good?

I think the only way we can even assess their potential is to work on them. I do think there is some purpose in genetic distinction and diversity.

I think it is a combination.

Standards have shifted and more people want that big commercial industry breast size in a chicken. These days they want it super-sized, super-fast.

Some breeds that were not popular have deteriorated because not enough people have been keeping standard bred flocks throughout the 20th century.

Hatcheries are based on volume sales, so they automatically are selecting for egg production in all birds except the modern meat birds that have to be killed at 2 months old before they begin to suffer.

Show people have too often been breeding for pretty birds and forgetting about their production qualities. There used to be a PDF on the APA website that admitted that production in show birds had become poor, especially with laying.

I don't think it was a problem of them not being any good to start with - goes back to the commercialization of chickens and people's expectations shifting. We went from nearly everyone having chickens to few people having chickens as more people moved to urban areas and no longer raised their own food. It went even further when companies went from making a profit to stay in business and pay their bills, to needing to make a HUGE profit in order to satisfy shareholders and make the top officers in the poultry companies filthy rich instead of just comfortable.

 

[Wisher1000]

Quote:

Yep - and thats exactly why I got them - to eat . The rest is all aside even though necessary and a challenge . At least with most homestead environments they only have one human caused bad day. And here ,ours go fairly peacefully when that time comes.

Exactly as it should be for them. Good for you.

 

[gjensen]

Yep - and thats exactly why I got them - to eat . The rest is all aside even though necessary and a challenge . At least with most homestead environments they only have one human caused bad day. And here ,ours go fairly peacefully when that time comes.

Yes. I treat mine well. All the way up until the moment I kill them. I say it crudely, because it puts it back into perspective. I do try to give the birds a good life, however. I enjoy them, and they are a lot more enjoyable to watch roaming wide and scratching in a hedgerow. That is how birds should be raised.

I have been around some "homesteads" where the birds would have been better off packed in a broiler house, or a layer's cage.

 

[Wisher1000]

That's true, too.

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

Is it that our standards have shifted? Or our breeds have deteriorated? Deteriorated by hatchery productivity practices, or breeding the annoying productivity out of them to enhance their show potential? Or were they just never any good?

I think the only way we can even assess their potential is to work on them. I do think there is some purpose in genetic distinction and diversity.

I think it's a combination of all those things, although I do think that at one time they were considered good. When I read the literature from the early 1900's it seems that many farm hens were producing less than 100 eggs per year- perhaps because of nutritional factors, or perhaps the breed- but a hen that laid 150 eggs back then was probably considered an excellent layer. Our modern expectations ( the 300 per year egg layer and 8 week supersize breasted meat bird) are at odds with a true dual purpose fowl too, I think. My expectations are for a 200 egg per year layer from the hen, and a cockerel from that same breed that provides a decent meal in less than 20 weeks. I would be very satisfied with that. I have a dark cornish hen that lays huge eggs for a Cornish (65 gram range), and probably will end up laying at least 150 eggs this cycle- pretty good for a meat bird , but she certainly would not win any shows.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Quote:
I wonder how much of this is related to whether the birds were expected to scrounge for most of their their own food except a little corn scattered occasionally (vs. regular feed always available like most receive today). As you said, maybe nutritional factors?

It is an interesting question. After all, whenever I am tempted to think of my self as relatively self sufficient (grow almost all of my food, including eggs and meat), I just remind myself about the feed bill - I do not produce my feed on my property (yet).

- Ant Farm