Historic Presence of Jungle Fowl in the American Deep South

[centrarchid]

Remember what I’m talking about are free ranging homestead birds. That’s how games were often kept on Southern farms with little to no interest in fighting them. The purpose they served was to be birds that survived with little to no care. It would be doubtful the average joe would have known what a RJF was, and a RJF cross would likely have just been regarded and kept as some sort of game bantam.

Those a called walks. We did most of our breeding on those with considerable control over parentage. It was not a southern only thing. Owners of land supporting the walks had no interest in fighting them. They could harvest some after grade birds harvested and were often payed for the grade birds. Other times they were just happy to keep pretty birds on their place.

My family has done for many generations what you have researched and write about hypothetically.

 

[Ntsees]

Thanks. Is there such a thing as a chicken DNA test an everyday breeder like me could take?

Someone can correct me, but to my knowledge, I don't think there is a chicken DNA test to determine lineage/breed. My opinion regarding hei hei's lineage is just based on observation. Hei hei's dark orange to orange-red hackles and saddle feathers resembles the birds in the video below. Notice that the video shows 4 different males, and their coloration are almost identical. When I see hei hei, his coloration makes me think of these birds in the video.

 

[EggWalrus]

Do you mean anyone who raised gamefowl? Or just dedicated cock fighters who bred their birds for fighting?

Games are raised for sport. That's why they are called games. That doesn't mean you have to fight them. You can show them and you can sell them. If you have good recorded lineage and their great grandparents were proven killers in the pit, you don't have to let them fight to the death. My neighbor with the Lewis' Games hasn't fought chickens since he went to jail for it back in the 80s, but he is known world wide for his Games. To get thousands of dollars per bird, they have to be willing to scratch and not run at the auctions. They don't let them fight, but they have to be willing to scratch out trying to get to the other rooster or they don't ever get the chance to breed. If a game won't scratch and you don't have to keep it seperated from other roosters it might as well be an ornamental yard bird.

 

[centrarchid]

Games are raised for sport. That's why they are called games. That doesn't mean you have to fight them. You can show them and you can sell them. If you have good recorded lineage and their great grandparents were proven killers in the pit, you don't have to let them fight to the death. My neighbor with the Lewis' Games hasn't fought chickens since he went to jail for it back in the 80s, but he is known world wide for his Games. To get thousands of dollars per bird, they have to be willing to scratch and not run at the auctions. They don't let them fight, but they have to be willing to scratch out trying to get to the other rooster or they don't ever get the chance to breed. If a game won't scratch and you don't have to keep it seperated from other roosters it might as well be an ornamental yard bird.

English Games (Carlisle Old English Game and Oxford Old English Game) both went through that phase. Now are considered ornamental's.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

In the greater scheme, only gamefowl in the hands of cockfighters have persisted as gamefowl. Game chickens spending any length of time outside that realm are at risk of being classified as dung hills and considered high risk investments. Some games drifting outside of gamefowl use have been used to develop many if not most non-gamefowl breeds. Still, even those no longer contribute to gamefowl lines.

Gamefowl are selected for more than fighting. The behaviors and appearance all attest to that.

The non-gamefowl people contributed little if anything to persistence of the gamefowl we know today.

I respectfully reject that definition of gamefowl. A gamefowl is a definable breed, a race, so to speak. When an American gamefowl cock and hen breed, they make American gamefowl babies. If they breed for 10 years on the farm within their own kind and don’t cross with other chickens, they remain American gamefowl. If the “fight at all costs” behavioral trait fades, that doesn’t automatically morph them into a now breedless classification of chicken. That’s not unlike saying a white leghorn that isn’t good at laying ceases to be a white leghorn. Or a friendly bulldog that doesn’t bait bulls or catch small animals ceases to be a bulldog. In the case of the American gamefowl that doesn’t fight at all costs, they’re simply American gamefowl that lost that particular fighting trait. Right now I can point out a home I pass every day that has a flock of American games free ranging in the front yard. The rooster is undubbed. He isn’t someone’s fighter. He’s simply someone’s broodcock that keeps the hens bred and corralled. But I know what he is because his build and plumage indicate he’s an American gamefowl. Its a breed. Not a behavior.

I could understand the argument if put in terms of a gamefowl that isn”t “fight to the death” natured as not meeting a breed standard that should be striven for. But it seems like a biological fiction to strongly assert that a breed ceases to be a breed based on a degree of innate aggression as opposed to morphological traits.

Its simply a fact that many farmers in the South kept American games on their farms as their free range chickens and the birds produced like kind when they reproduced. That makes them a breed, race, whatever you want to call them. Whatever old cockers want to think is fine. I’m finding them fascinating people to talk to and wellsprings of knowledge. Yet I think the whole “if it doesn’t fight you can’t call it a gamefowl and have to pretend its a mutt” is a fiction that’s based on a little bit of arrogance. I wouldn’t go quite as far as saying ignorance. I don’t think they’re ignorant people the ones I’ve dealt with. I really think its a convergence of where culture is meeting the biology and culture wins out. Its a human cultural thing to project unnatural aggression on gamefowl as their defining trait instead of simply sticking to the biological/morphological traits that define a “kind.”

 

[centrarchid]

I respectfully reject that definition of gamefowl. A gamefowl is a definable breed, a race, so to speak. When an American gamefowl cock and hen breed, they make American gamefowl babies. If they breed for 10 years on the farm within their own kind and don’t cross with other chickens, they remain American gamefowl. If the “fight at all costs” behavioral trait fades, that doesn’t automatically morph them into a now breedless classification of chicken. That’s not unlike saying a white leghorn that isn’t good at laying ceases to be a white leghorn. Or a friendly bulldog that doesn’t bait bulls or catch small animals ceases to be a bulldog. In the case of the American gamefowl that doesn’t fight at all costs, they’re simply American gamefowl that lost that particular fighting trait. Right now I can point out a home I pass every day that has a flock of American games free ranging in the front yard. The rooster is undubbed. He isn’t someone’s fighter. He’s simply someone’s broodcock that keeps the hens bred and corralled. But I know what he is because his build and plumage indicate he’s an American gamefowl. Its a breed. Not a behavior.

I could understand the argument if put in terms of a gamefowl that isn”t “fight to the death” natured as not meeting a breed standard that should be striven for. But it seems like a biological fiction to strongly assert that a breed ceases to be a breed based on a degree of innate aggression as opposed to morphological traits.

Its simply a fact that many farmers in the South kept American games on their farms as their free range chickens and the birds produced like kind when they reproduced. That makes them a breed, race, whatever you want to call them. Whatever old cockers want to think is fine. I’m finding them fascinating people to talk to and wellsprings of knowledge. Yet I think the whole “if it doesn’t fight you can’t call it a gamefowl and have to pretend its a mutt” is a fiction that’s based on a little bit of arrogance. I wouldn’t go quite as far as saying ignorance. I don’t think they’re ignorant people the ones I’ve dealt with. I really think its a convergence of where culture is meeting the biology and culture wins out. Its a human cultural thing to project unnatural aggression on gamefowl as their defining trait instead of simply sticking to the biological/morphological traits that define a “kind.”

Look into concept of genetic drift. Look really hard into impacts of small population sizes. Show stocks are almost always developed through a similar process. It can also occur will small isolated feral populations without gene exchange. That is where the true gamefowl people have been a buffer against. They constantly experiment with crosses between lines / strains they acquire from friends and rivals. Sometimes those crosses are used to found new strains. Those sometimes events had proven very important over the ages.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Those a called walks. We did most of our breeding on those with considerable control over parentage. It was not a southern only thing. Owners of land supporting the walks had no interest in fighting them. They could harvest some after grade birds harvested and were often payed for the grade birds. Other times they were just happy to keep pretty birds on their place.

My family has done for many generations what you have researched and write about hypothetically.

I write nothing hypothetically about raising games as farmbirds. I’m an 8th+ generation Florida woodsman, of a long line of frontiersmen who lived off the land, and up thru my dad’s generation games were raised as primary farm birds, just as my uncle was telling me about recently. My generation didn’t have to live off the woods as my father’s did, so my childhood chickens were of various breeds and were for my own enjoyment as a child and teenager.

Some of my family were cock fighters, but I was never around it growing up.

Raising games for cockfighting and raising games for farmbirds are two different and mutually exclusive activities. One can exist without the other.

 

[EggWalrus]

I respectfully reject that definition of gamefowl. A gamefowl is a definable breed, a race, so to speak. When an American gamefowl cock and hen breed, they make American gamefowl babies. If they breed for 10 years on the farm within their own kind and don’t cross with other chickens, they remain American gamefowl. If the “fight at all costs” behavioral trait fades, that doesn’t automatically morph them into a now breedless classification of chicken. That’s not unlike saying a white leghorn that isn’t good at laying ceases to be a white leghorn. Or a friendly bulldog that doesn’t bait bulls or catch small animals ceases to be a bulldog. In the case of the American gamefowl that doesn’t fight at all costs, they’re simply American gamefowl that lost that particular fighting trait. Right now I can point out a home I pass every day that has a flock of American games free ranging in the front yard. The rooster is undubbed. He isn’t someone’s fighter. He’s simply someone’s broodcock that keeps the hens bred and corralled. But I know what he is because his build and plumage indicate he’s an American gamefowl. Its a breed. Not a behavior.

I could understand the argument if put in terms of a gamefowl that isn”t “fight to the death” natured as not meeting a breed standard that should be striven for. But it seems like a biological fiction to strongly assert that a breed ceases to be a breed based on a degree of innate aggression as opposed to morphological traits.

Its simply a fact that many farmers in the South kept American games on their farms as their free range chickens and the birds produced like kind when they reproduced. That makes them a breed, race, whatever you want to call them. Whatever old cockers want to think is fine. I’m finding them fascinating people to talk to and wellsprings of knowledge. Yet I think the whole “if it doesn’t fight you can’t call it a gamefowl and have to pretend its a mutt” is a fiction that’s based on a little bit of arrogance. I wouldn’t go quite as far as saying ignorance. I don’t think they’re ignorant people the ones I’ve dealt with. I really think its a convergence of where culture is meeting the biology and culture wins out. Its a human cultural thing to project unnatural aggression on gamefowl as their defining trait instead of simply sticking to the biological/morphological traits that define a “kind.”

I agree. Some of the most beautiful games I've ever seen wouldn't fight unless provoked by a bully. They were scared of their of shadow. But those were the wilder ones that lived on to breed and pass on their genes. Personally, I'd rather have the more timid ones that usually get along, rather than having ones that constantly try to kill any other male that they see. All my neighbors raise games to sell, but other than a few games for the yard, ill stick to the meat and egg birds.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Look into concept of genetic drift. Look really hard into impacts of small population sizes. Show stocks are almost always developed through a similar process. It can also occur will small isolated feral populations without gene exchange. That is where the true gamefowl people have been a buffer against. They constantly experiment with crosses between lines / strains they acquire from friends and rivals. Sometimes those crosses are used to found new strains. Those sometimes events had proven very important over the ages.

Listen, I’m not down on cockers. I’m very fascinated in their skills as breeders, their knowledge of practical genetics, and what they do overall. I respect them. I’m simply rejecting the notion that games don’t exist as a definable, genetic, breed unless they’re fighters.

I see an American game crossed with a leghorn as producing something that ceases to be an American game. I don’t see an American game bred to an American game as making offspring that cease to be an American game if the offspring don’t behave with gamey aggression. I could foresee a circumstance where some bitties come out gamey and some don’t. It would be a fiction to say the gamey bitties are American games and the non gamey bitties are not, where they are all brothers and sisters of the same parents.

Like I said in a thread elsewhere, a Rhode Island Red is what it is. One with a gamey attitude wouldn’t make it an American gamefowl. Its just a gamey Rhode Island Red. So it is with gamefowl of specific breeds.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

These are supposed to be Bluefaces on an American gamefarm. I would have a hard time believing they don’t have RJF incorporated into them from some point. Their tails have the more full sickle plumage of an American game, and their size ought to be twice as big as my birds (4.5-5.5lbs). It really looks like someone crossed a RJF with an American game in them at some point.