Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[Beekissed]

Quote:
I'm thinking this is an accurate statement as was ever made. If you get a grin on your face that dips right down into your heart every time you see your birds, it won't matter to you how long it takes to improve your flock because you aren't looking for anything else at that point. This is your breed....it's sort of like a marriage at that point and has with it a certain commitment. The first time I ever got WR hens in my flock I was hooked...line and sinker. They were so far above any other breed I'd raised over the years in regards to what I like in a bird that they had no equal. I guess it helped that the breed is a lot like me in so many ways that I identify with them strongly and admire them for the more desirable traits we both have.

I think when you find that breed you don't feel like you need to get in a hurry as this will be a breed you'll have in your flocks from now on, for as long as you intend to keep chickens.

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:

Black Javas are lovely, but I've found a lot of the Javas out there are no where near Standard. You might have dodged a bullet by not finding any breeders that would ship to Canada.

Serious Java breeders are few and far between. Javas in general need a lot of work. Some folks are making progress. Others (me included) are having a lot of learning experiences along the way. Two steps forward, one step back. Some years it's one step forward and two steps back.

I'm in my fourth year with Black Javas and keep re-evaluating how much effort I want to put into the process of improving the birds. So far the answer has been yeah, keep going. I love the breed. I love growing the chicks out. I love the eggs and meat, and being able to feed friends and family. I love watching the birds run around the yard. I don't like killing chickens but I do it because it's necessary. And I've gotten a lot faster at killing and butchering so it's not as traumatic as it was at first. I have sold a few birds along the way to people who wanted them for eggs and meat, not for showing. I would rather eat the birds than sell them.

This year I cut back on the number of chicks I hatched because I don't have the space to grow out any more. That will slow down my progress toward improving the birds, but I get to have more fun with the flock. And that is the whole point of raising chickens.

 

[gjensen]

You guys can get the Black Javas right.

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

I'm thinking this is an accurate statement as was ever made. If you get a grin on your face that dips right down into your heart every time you see your birds, it won't matter to you how long it takes to improve your flock because you aren't looking for anything else at that point. This is your breed....it's sort of like a marriage at that point and has with it a certain commitment. The first time I ever got WR hens in my flock I was hooked...line and sinker. They were so far above any other breed I'd raised over the years in regards to what I like in a bird that they had no equal. I guess it helped that the breed is a lot like me in so many ways that I identify with them strongly and admire them for the more desirable traits we both have.

I think when you find that breed you don't feel like you need to get in a hurry as this will be a breed you'll have in your flocks from now on, for as long as you intend to keep chickens.

That's great! Because I do love my Buckeyes- warts and all. I'm just a little nervous that I'll screw them up!

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

Black Javas are lovely, but I've found a lot of the Javas out there are no where near Standard. You might have dodged a bullet by not finding any breeders that would ship to Canada.

Serious Java breeders are few and far between. Javas in general need a lot of work. Some folks are making progress. Others (me included) are having a lot of learning experiences along the way. Two steps forward, one step back. Some years it's one step forward and two steps back.

I'm in my fourth year with Black Javas and keep re-evaluating how much effort I want to put into the process of improving the birds. So far the answer has been yeah, keep going. I love the breed. I love growing the chicks out. I love the eggs and meat, and being able to feed friends and family. I love watching the birds run around the yard. I don't like killing chickens but I do it because it's necessary. And I've gotten a lot faster at killing and butchering so it's not as traumatic as it was at first. I have sold a few birds along the way to people who wanted them for eggs and meat, not for showing. I would rather eat the birds than sell them.

This year I cut back on the number of chicks I hatched because I don't have the space to grow out any more. That will slow down my progress toward improving the birds, but I get to have more fun with the flock. And that is the whole point of raising chickens.

You know....... those points never came up in my research- it never crossed my mind that they wouldn't be perfect the day I got them. I just assumed they would be just like the picture in the Standard. Ahh the newbie days!

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Ok, but the point is if it meets the physical description of a Java, and produces like a Java should...it is a Java. If it's a "Java" from a "bloodline" that's allegedly pure for "X" years, but doesn't represent the physical or production aspects of the breed, it isn't a Java worth propagating, regardless of it's lineage.


While an even newer breed, the Delaware had something where a lady recreated them from the original methods, and everyone called them "Recreated Delawares" and insinuated they weren't actual Delawares which couldn't be further from the truth. Phenotype and Production are what defines a breed, or group of birds in poultry, that's the way it is. Which is also why the "So and So's Line" is useless. If I sell you Langshans, and you have no idea how to breed them and in three years have things that look more like a feather legged Australorp, even though those birds are "pure Langshans" they're not really, and certainly not my line.  Make sense yet?

My breeding group is working these Delawares. They're about as close to the standard description of any Delawares are. We do have questions about the production qualities of these Delawares, but also we have questions about the production qualities of all Delawares. It's hard to tweeze the fact from the popular fiction (marketing stuff) about the breed. So we aren't even very sure where to put the goal posts.

I think it's interesting with chickens that if it looks like X breed, it is X breed. I say it also needs to breed true with some reliability.

So, for show purposes I can see the appeal of throwing something like a Light Sussex into a Delaware breeding pen to possibly clean up body feather color, and hoping a few hatch with yellow legs, etc., to be more competitive. But for myself or for selling birds to people breeding future generations, I'd want to warn people what I'd mixed in.

For now, with the limited number of this line of "Recreated Delawares" or "Project Delawares," I still want people to know how many generations they are from the hybrid and what things we've been carefully breeding out of the line ... and for the most part I think it would be better for the breed if we all kept this line "pure" for a while longer.

Other people are trying the mix-a-bunch-of-lines-with-mysterious-pasts-together method of improving Delawares. Some say that should be a faster way to make improvements to the breed, but I don't know if anyone has ever been able to create a wide-bodied bird that way, so ...

 

[finnfur]

BG - I think your playing with words here.
If the original Delaware was created by Ellis by Breeding Barred Plymouth rock over NewHampshire to create the Delaware . When some one
does the same thing they are recreating it or creating it again. I have never heard anyone that has them or otherwise insinuate they were not Delaware's.
I think the terminology was canned some time ago to indicate they are not hatchery.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

BG - I think your playing with words here.
If the original Delaware was created by Ellis by Breeding Barred Plymouth rock over NewHampshire to create the Delaware . When some one
does the same thing they are recreating it or creating it again. I have never heard anyone that has them or otherwise insinuate they were not Delaware's.
I think the terminology was canned some time ago to indicate they are not hatchery.

Oh, I've read comments about recreated Delawares perhaps not being true Delawares. Interesting considering the "if it looks like X breed, it is X breed" tradition of poultry.

I do wonder if we knew a bit more about Ellis' recipe and breeding practices how that might help the breed reach its full potential today. But I also think the genetics available today are different from what they were then. So there is some interest in finding "Preserved Delawares."

Any way we want to try breeding Delawares there are going to be a lot of unanswered questions. I assume this is true for a lot of the "heritage" breeds.

 

[BGMatt]

BG - I think your playing with words here.
If the original Delaware was created by Ellis by Breeding Barred Plymouth rock over NewHampshire to create the Delaware . When some one
does the same thing they are recreating it or creating it again. I have never heard anyone that has them or otherwise insinuate they were not Delaware's.
I think the terminology was canned some time ago to indicate they are not hatchery.

Oh, I've read comments about recreated Delawares perhaps not being true Delawares. Interesting considering the "if it looks like X breed, it is X breed" tradition of poultry.

I do wonder if we knew a bit more about Ellis' recipe and breeding practices how that might help the breed reach its full potential today. But I also think the genetics available today are different from what they were then. So there is some interest in finding "Preserved Delawares."

Any way we want to try breeding Delawares there are going to be a lot of unanswered questions. I assume this is true for a lot of the "heritage" breeds.

I've heard it a lot too, although it's mostly novices saying it. Which makes sense because they're mostly the ones that get wrapped up in the "purebred line" gibberish, while most the experience folks care more that it fits the description (all descriptions, including production, I'm looking at you show only folks with poor laying Leghorns!) I follow the Delaware closely because there are people I consider friends working with the breed. Modern genetics and methods should allow us to far exceed the originals, although with the Delawares being such a recent creation maybe not as much as some of the older breeds. Remember on a historical timeline, none of the popular American Class Breeds (or even the non-popular ones) are all that old, however with far more advanced genetic knowledge, and far far more advanced nutrition knowledge we should still be able to make birds that look the part and far outproduce the originals. It's fascinating that people chase "heritage" production, when heritage production wasn't all that great if you look at what was provable fact, and not fairytales.

Edit: We've talked about your Delawares a lot Leslie, and I think y'all are doing an amazing job with them! I really enjoy following the progress being made!

 

[finnfur]

I stand corrected- I guess since I don't frequent the show sites , or other breed etc and are concentrated on Delaware I just haven't heard it.