Iowa Blues - Breed thread and discussion

[Hurley]

My biggest thing is I want us to look knowledgeable about our breed and that we are serious. If we start the whole thing off mis-naming the varieties, from then on we have an asterisk by our breed mentally, where everyone reads "Birchen - Those IB people, really it's Gray, but they called it Birchen, head shake" stigma.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on it.

The same, quite frankly, has been said about "Silver Penciled" since our birds aren't truly penciled. They have the tendency, but the pattern is fractured, disorganized, and mealy. Is this due to Co gene influence? Combination with Db? Is it because our Silver Pencileds are actually birchen based with pattern genes (has also been suggested to me that our birds are all ER based except the silver Duckwings, given the salmon breasts). Seems at least Pg is there to see that pattern, plus SP types popped out of the breeding of IB to penciled rock. Either way, our hens aren't what you would call classically Silver Penciled, which implies that we'll be breeding to...

which is gorgeous penciling, but doesn't really look like an Iowa Blue to me. The problem I see with 'Silver Penciled' in the show arena is that our breed exemplifies what would typically be thought of as the opposite of a good pattern for the variety. We can write the standard to reflect that we want that blending towards the rear and we're not looking for perfect penciling beak to tail, but that's the implication of the title "silver penciled", an already known variety. I'm not saying this is something we can't just accept, stick with the term Silver Penciled, and accept that the result will be likely that they will get bred to the above look, which will trend towards making them more and more black and white vs. the soft, fading to blue on the body that we have been talking about as the look we're trying to achieve.

The choices, as I see them, for our "Silver Penciled" variety are:
1) Keep Silver Penciled, trend will be towards an evenly penciled, defined patterned bird.
2) Name them something totally new, which may be difficult to get the APA to go for
3) Name them Mealy Gray, which is probably closer to their current appearance and matches the name of Gray for the darker version, and also carries a large variety appearances and as far as I can tell, is not color variety found in the APA SOP for other breeds, but is a known variety in some of the bantams.


If we decide eventually to push the birchen and the silver duckwing (or wish to list them as non-petitioned, but acknowledged color varieties by the IBCC), then I find the grouping of the names as Gray, Mealy Gray, and Silver Gray (for Birchen, Silver Penciled, and Silver Duckwing) more descriptive, more accepted in the chicken world as names for these varieties, and more cohesive as a group of names for our breed.

To be honest, I'm not trying to make a strong case here, just typing out my thoughts on the matter. I'm perfectly happy either way, just playing a little devil's advocate, I guess. I more strongly feel for changing the title on our Birchen birds to "Gray", I admit, especially since we have judges telling us this would be a better name for them and because their description of Gray matches our standard more than Birchen. On the others, just adding some thoughts.

Loving the discussion.

 

[Hurley]

OK, got my entry filled out for Portage, WI - Wisconsin International Poultry Show on Sept. 28-29th.
http://wisconsinpoultry.org/

This is a more local show to me and apparently it's very big. Looking forward to it! Anyone coming, let me know, would be great to chat!

Would be a great place to get a lot of input on our breed if anyone can make it with some birds. 5 judges, 2000 bird entry, etc.

 

[ottbjumper06]

I'm very involved in the horse world and have been part of many clubs, and I have NEVER seen any one group of people act so nicely and welcoming towards each other. I think the reason is that there is no "real" competition among this group, but whatever it is, it is such a nice breath of fresh air to see people discussing something so civilized (keep in mind most horse people are crazy, including me ) and keeping debates from becoming heated. I have never had good experiences with clubs for whatever reason, but this one is completely different and I just want to say thank you guys for welcoming everyone to the club that come its way. The Iowa Blue breed is sure to go far with this wonderful group of people .

 

[Hurley]

I hear you on that. I've been in horse clubs, dog clubs, etc. Horse people are crazy...dog people are crazy....cat people are crazy. Pretty much anyone that feels that passionately about their breed/animal/cause can get fired up about it.

I echo the sentiment that so far we've got a good group of people here and even though we don't always all agree, everyone is generally willing to express their opinions, work to compromise, and accept if they don't fall in line with majority and accept gracefully. I hope it stays that way.

I love to get into a good debate/discussion and I enjoy exploring every side of the coin, but at the end of the day, if my family is healthy and I've got my boys and hubby to love, the rest is a hobby and I don't take too much personally. Also probably helps that I've got a thick enough skin to be quite content that "I" like what I have (Iowa Blues, Australian Shepherds, whatever) to not worry overly much that others may or may not feel the same way.

 

[WVDan44]

The difficult thing with the APA and ABA is that they have a tendency to go off of precidence. Meaning, if a breed introduces a new variety, than any breed coming along later with a variety similar to that already accepted standard will be expected to conform to that standard as much as possible. The arguement is that it makes it easier to judge when breeds have some sense of conformity in variety color, and aids in despelling confusion. So with that in mind, unless our color is completely different from all other varieties, we will be unable to designate a new color name for the variety. If a color fits within a "family" of colors, then we will be required to call our standard by a color name from within that family as is already designated by the APA / ABA. In this case we've Birchen or Grey to choose from. We are given wiggle room in how we exactly define that color within our breed. We see this in the Silver Penciled variety of the Iowa Blue. In this case we called them by the Standard name that they most closely resembled and were clearly of the same "family" and then we altered that Standard to reflect the appearence of our birds. Whiter heads, stippling, shafting, whiter hackles, blue sheen, etc.

Does that help?

I'm not fully up to speed on this topic so forgive me if I am walking plowed ground, but has the term "charcoal" been considered. Although I see what you mean Curt in your statement here, so why not stick with Birchen then. Gray doesn't exactly trip my trigger nor does it describe accurately the IB in question IMHO. Here's a good analogy that may back you up; yesterday we took vegetables to the county fair. We had two varieties of white potatoes, plus a Yukon gold, and a blue fingerling. Turns out, we had only three categories in which we could enter - white, red, and other. The blue and gold went into other and we selected the best five specimens out of the two white varieties to go into white. Thus, regardless of the variety, white is white and that's that.

 

[WVDan44]

Musings from a Hillbilly

Now I've read the last 5 pages of the thread and I have a headache.

Connie seems to be on the scent and in full cry. I believe mealy does best describe our sp birds at present.

Kari also has a point in that the greatest percentage of chicks are being born black and turning out to be what we are calling birchen but which truly aren't according to APA's idea of what constitutes a birchen.

Since my first association with the breed, I have rarely seen an sp cock or cockerel, which I take to imply that sp's have been rather scarce in the everyday output of chicks. I've yet to see photos of good sp cocks from a variety of breeders on this thread.

Curt, your ability to verbalize the various issues, possibilities, conflicts, etc. is a great help. The difficulty is in deciding to put the blinders on and stick with the original two or three patterns we first talked about, or acting like a kid in a candy store and going hog wild for every color and pattern combo that shows up. Heck, I don't like having to make that decision either, but if we ever want to get off the ground, we have to be more focused. Still, I agree with several who already have stated that this sort of conversation will lead us to what is right for the breed at this time, and we all seem to agree that there is room for expansion and improvements in the future.

Change of subject: I have an australorp hen setting on 14 IB pullet eggs. Two of the pullets are the black birchen coloration, and one is the smutty or mealy sp color. The cockerel is birchen with some brown showing on the saddle. My original stock came from eggs I got from Kari. I'm excited to see what I may have. I decided not to candle the eggs, and am just letting it all happen naturally. Hatch date is around 8/28. Wish me luck!

 

[Hurley]

Good luck!

Still chuckling at the mental image of myself singing out "Ba-whoo! Bow-whooooooo!" like an old bloodhound. LOL I'm more of an Aussie person myself.


In regards to SP cockerels, it's funny, but I've got 1 out of the 7 SPs I hatched from Kari's eggs, plus 1 more from a trio I bought from her as juveniles. While I like things about them both and have things I would change, right now they are what I have. Will be making a good number of IBs for next spring, so should have more to choose from then. Got a lot of work to do on these guys yet, but I think next year will be a pivotal year for the variety in expansion and selection.

 

[WVDan44]

I'm very involved in the horse world and have been part of many clubs, and I have NEVER seen any one group of people act so nicely and welcoming towards each other. I think the reason is that there is no "real" competition among this group, but whatever it is, it is such a nice breath of fresh air to see people discussing something so civilized (keep in mind most horse people are crazy, including me

) and keeping debates from becoming heated. I have never had good experiences with clubs for whatever reason, but this one is completely different and I just want to say thank you guys for welcoming everyone to the club that come its way. The Iowa Blue breed is sure to go far with this wonderful group of people

.

x2 AMEN!

 

[WVDan44]

Good luck!

Still chuckling at the mental image of myself singing out "Ba-whoo! Bow-whooooooo!" like an old bloodhound. LOL I'm more of an Aussie person myself.

An ole bluetick coonhound is more of what I had in mind LOL, treein' on a big ole juniper. "Ole Blue" - gotta keep the colors right.

 

[WVDan44]

My biggest thing is I want us to look knowledgeable about our breed and that we are serious. If we start the whole thing off mis-naming the varieties, from then on we have an asterisk by our breed mentally, where everyone reads "Birchen - Those IB people, really it's Gray, but they called it Birchen, head shake" stigma.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on it.

The same, quite frankly, has been said about "Silver Penciled" since our birds aren't truly penciled. They have the tendency, but the pattern is fractured, disorganized, and mealy. Is this due to Co gene influence? Combination with Db? Is it because our Silver Pencileds are actually birchen based with pattern genes (has also been suggested to me that our birds are all ER based except the silver Duckwings, given the salmon breasts). Seems at least Pg is there to see that pattern, plus SP types popped out of the breeding of IB to penciled rock. Either way, our hens aren't what you would call classically Silver Penciled, which implies that we'll be breeding to...

which is gorgeous penciling, but doesn't really look like an Iowa Blue to me. The problem I see with 'Silver Penciled' in the show arena is that our breed exemplifies what would typically be thought of as the opposite of a good pattern for the variety. We can write the standard to reflect that we want that blending towards the rear and we're not looking for perfect penciling beak to tail, but that's the implication of the title "silver penciled", an already known variety. I'm not saying this is something we can't just accept, stick with the term Silver Penciled, and accept that the result will be likely that they will get bred to the above look, which will trend towards making them more and more black and white vs. the soft, fading to blue on the body that we have been talking about as the look we're trying to achieve.

The choices, as I see them, for our "Silver Penciled" variety are:
1) Keep Silver Penciled, trend will be towards an evenly penciled, defined patterned bird.
2) Name them something totally new, which may be difficult to get the APA to go for
3) Name them Mealy Gray, which is probably closer to their current appearance and matches the name of Gray for the darker version, and also carries a large variety appearances and as far as I can tell, is not color variety found in the APA SOP for other breeds, but is a known variety in some of the bantams.


If we decide eventually to push the birchen and the silver duckwing (or wish to list them as non-petitioned, but acknowledged color varieties by the IBCC), then I find the grouping of the names as Gray, Mealy Gray, and Silver Gray (for Birchen, Silver Penciled, and Silver Duckwing) more descriptive, more accepted in the chicken world as names for these varieties, and more cohesive as a group of names for our breed.

To be honest, I'm not trying to make a strong case here, just typing out my thoughts on the matter. I'm perfectly happy either way, just playing a little devil's advocate, I guess. I more strongly feel for changing the title on our Birchen birds to "Gray", I admit, especially since we have judges telling us this would be a better name for them and because their description of Gray matches our standard more than Birchen. On the others, just adding some thoughts.

Loving the discussion.

I have to agree. And if we stick with silver penciled, I think most of us will cave and start breeding to the above - we would have no choice once we got into the show circuit. Even those who outcrossed to the above without the blessing of the club would probably be more highly awarded by judges based strictly on pattern correctness that those who did not. If you call it sp it needs to be sp because those most closely resembling sp will be awarded, recognized and ultimately whether we want to admit it or not, we will go in that direction. It's only human nature folks.

We should give a lot of thought to keeping what we have and changing the name instead of keeping the name and changing what we have.

Makes more sense to me IMHO. All of the research that has been done by Curt and others, all of the work by you pioneers of the renaissance of the IB to this point has not borne out this type of silver penciled bird (personally I wish it had, for I like the beauty of it). We need to breed what we have and try to closely match what was in the past instead of making it into what we like or even what a ruling entity says it needs to be.