Iowa Blues Chicken Club (IBCC) - Breed Standard Discussion / Club Discussion

[mrheinz77]

That's a question for Walt Leonard (fowlman01).

 

[Hurley]

I wrote Walt with a number of the questions we had regarding getting IBs into the standard. Here is the reply with some good points.

We will need to decide if we will be able to emass the number of birds needed for both varieties right away or if we wish to focus on one first.

For my own flock I have all birchens in the adult pen. The juveniles are mostly birchen, but I think a few of the youngest ones may be silver penciled, too early to tell. I personally actually do like the silver penciled ones a little better, but that's not what I have the majority of right now. I'm open to any of the options. If we try to do them both at once, we're really going to have to work this year to up the numbers to get birds of standard to show that won't get DQ'd (and therefore not count).


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Question about requirements to add a breed to the SOP

from: fowlman01 on November 25, 10:51 am
Yes, I am the Chairman of the APA Standard Committee, so I am the correct person to work with on this. Good to hear that you have a current APA Standard and have laid out the your breed description and colors in the APA format. Contact the APA Secretary (Pat Horstman) to get the fee's. They have changed recently and I don't know the new price.




This breed currently comes in two color varieties, birchen and silver penciled. Given the layout of the SOP, am I to presume that we will have to obtain all of the requirements (including numbers of shown specimens) for each of the color varieties and that these must be submitted separately? Is it recommended then, that we get one variety accepted first, then petition for the second or can we petition them simultaneously?
Yes......for each. If you can do both at once it is good, but usually it is too difficult to get the numbers of two varieties at one meet. Keep in mind that you will want more than the required 5o0 in the event one or more are DQ'd for some reason. There have to be 50 birds that meet the Standard....not just 50 birds.

Send the final breed and color description to me. Then I would recommend that you give a copy of the Standard to the judge at these pre qualifying shows so that they know what to look for. This will take five years and you want to keep records of how many, what sex etc of the birds being shown in the non standard class. What class do you want these in?...I would guess the American Class.

Let me know if you need additional info.

Walt

The venue of the qualifying meet and the judges are determined by my committee. I do like to ask the club their choice however as location has a lot to do with getting the right amount of birds.​

 

[mrheinz77]

I'd suggest that we work on the Birchens first since that is what the majority of the Iowa Blues are. (though I prefer the Silver Penciled) To me, it seems like the Silver Penciled is recessive so not as easy to get but when you get enough, then you can breed them pure. I'm just afraid if we go after both varieties, we may become overwhelmed. Getting over 50 of each variety could be a challenge.

Opinions?

 

[Hurley]

I think that's a sound opinion, is that what others are finding?

I plan to get a small group of SPs if possible and isolate those to start working towards a nice strain that breeds true, but my largest numbers at this time are certainly going to be Birchens.


In regards to listing in the standard, Walt recommended we refer back to Silver Penciled plumage for that variety, but list out the Birchen within the standard for that variety. In the SOP I found 2 breeds with Birchen listed out (Modern Game and Cochin Bantams) and one that referred back to the Modern Game (Bantam Games). I know the Cochin breeders really shine with developing that color and that it's a very difficult color to breed to standard in regards to hitting the middle ground of enough lacing, but not too much. At a quick glance it appears that both breeds have identical descriptions for Birchen.

I will adjust the current working standard to reflect these recommendations. Hopefully it can act as a skeleton for the committee to work with.

 

[Hurley]

Here is an updated version of the standard implementing Walt's recommendations.

It should be in the format they want, hopefully gives the committee a skeleton to work from.

 

[karimw]

So is that an obligation? Do we have to conform to the specific color "Birchen" or can we modify it for our breed? I know we can make them look like we want them too, but I'd prefer to keep more closely to the description of the original bird. I'm OK with using the basic description for Birchen but I would push for the standard to call for heavier lacing on the breast if we can. It's what I like best about them and it is what they appear to have at their foundation. It is in the original description in Storey's Guide, given by Glenn Drowns of Sand Hill. What thoughts do you all have on this?

 

[aghiowa]

Jim, I was at the EIPA show last weekend (my daughter showed in the junior show). We were happy to see your Iowa Blue there. He's a nice-looking bird.

Angela

 

[FlashPointFarm]

I was at Kari's yesterday and got to look at her Iowa Blue's. She's making headway with them. I don't have Iowa Blue's anymore, wish funding wasn't an issue or I'd keep working on them.
I borrowed this picture from the Iowa Blue site. I think she is what the standard calls for for type. I see some mossyness for color, and her tail could use a bit more spread. I read through half of the posts, and I know there were some tail concerns. This hen's tail is being held at about 70 degrees. However, I'm guessing I'm not the only one that rarely sees this. I imagine you will see a 90 degree tail set when in a show pen. The length of back on this hen is ideal, the 15 degree slope to her tail give the back a nice sweeping look. Her breast is nice and round, not too robust. Comb could be a little straighter, but that's the least of our worries right now. I noticed there is nothing listed for tail angle for hens in the proposed SOP, or did I miss it?

Does anyone else have any opinions on her? I'm just putting this up here to help people get the knack of "picking birds apart." I didn't do much of this when I had them, as I had to focus on way too many breeds.

As far as breeders that would be willing to show in a qualifying meet, can we get a "show of hands" of folks that are willing and able to work on them? We need at least 5 breeders to show in the qualifying meet. Right now, I know of Kari, Jim, Connie, and possibly Curt? This isn't enough to get these birds where they need to be. Keep in mind, you should be hatching and raising up a lot of chicks to get something to choose from. I've only been able to see Kari's recently. She has a good start, and if she hatches a couple of hundred in 2013, she should be making quite a bit of headway with birds that meet the proposed standard for Birchens at least.

I've seen that some of you want to change the birchen pattern for this bird to allow more lacing on the breast. It could be done, but I don't know if I would recommend that. Reason being, there are lots of judges out there, each judge specializing in certain varieties of poultry. They are human, and mistakes could be made. I would hate to see a good Iowa Blue get docked for having too much white on the breast because that judge is using the standard birchen pattern for judging their color. We should keep the breed specifics for conformation of the bird and stick with the standardized color pattern already used in the SOP.

Breeding color patterned birds is a little trickier than say a solid white or black. So you all have your work cut out for you, but lots of fun. Kudos to you all for taking on this huge project. Keep good records. If you are flock breeding, it will be harder to reach your goals. You will be surprised on how far you will get in quality with compensative breeding.

 

[Hurley]

I do not believe that we are obligated to use the birchen standard pattern, but I do agree with Trish that it will likely complicate showing if judges are judging to their known birchen stardard and we bring in heavily laced birds to them. I could see them marking them as poor quality and making it difficulty to get the breed approved.

In looking at cochins, in my opinion the breed that has done the most with really fine tuning Birchen, I find their show quality Birchin patterns to be quite attractive and I find my current level of birds to be quite underlaced in comparison. I will be selecting towards heavier lacing and brighter birds, but plan on breeding to the SOP standard for Birchen, which does leave room for leeway, imo.

Thoughts?

Attached - some Birchen birds of other breeds for viewing. I would say the Birchen birds I have are similar, though could use a little more white.












Also interesting is that the breed artwork that I've found on the internet always shows the Birchen as the coloration, not that this means anything, but interesting.

 

[Hurley]

I was at Kari's yesterday and got to look at her Iowa Blue's. She's making headway with them. I don't have Iowa Blue's anymore, wish funding wasn't an issue or I'd keep working on them.
I borrowed this picture from the Iowa Blue site. I think she is what the standard calls for for type. I see some mossyness for color, and her tail could use a bit more spread. I read through half of the posts, and I know there were some tail concerns. This hen's tail is being held at about 70 degrees. However, I'm guessing I'm not the only one that rarely sees this. I imagine you will see a 90 degree tail set when in a show pen. The length of back on this hen is ideal, the 15 degree slope to her tail give the back a nice sweeping look. Her breast is nice and round, not too robust. Comb could be a little straighter, but that's the least of our worries right now. I noticed there is nothing listed for tail angle for hens in the proposed SOP, or did I miss it?

Does anyone else have any opinions on her? I'm just putting this up here to help people get the knack of "picking birds apart." I didn't do much of this when I had them, as I had to focus on way too many breeds.

As far as breeders that would be willing to show in a qualifying meet, can we get a "show of hands" of folks that are willing and able to work on them? We need at least 5 breeders to show in the qualifying meet. Right now, I know of Kari, Jim, Connie, and possibly Curt? This isn't enough to get these birds where they need to be. Keep in mind, you should be hatching and raising up a lot of chicks to get something to choose from. I've only been able to see Kari's recently. She has a good start, and if she hatches a couple of hundred in 2013, she should be making quite a bit of headway with birds that meet the proposed standard for Birchens at least.

I've seen that some of you want to change the birchen pattern for this bird to allow more lacing on the breast. It could be done, but I don't know if I would recommend that. Reason being, there are lots of judges out there, each judge specializing in certain varieties of poultry. They are human, and mistakes could be made. I would hate to see a good Iowa Blue get docked for having too much white on the breast because that judge is using the standard birchen pattern for judging their color. We should keep the breed specifics for conformation of the bird and stick with the standardized color pattern already used in the SOP.

Breeding color patterned birds is a little trickier than say a solid white or black. So you all have your work cut out for you, but lots of fun. Kudos to you all for taking on this huge project. Keep good records. If you are flock breeding, it will be harder to reach your goals. You will be surprised on how far you will get in quality with compensative breeding.

I love that hen, though she could use more coloration, her body type is so pretty. Agreed, wish the comb was straight, but she's got such nice body and feathering, the comb is the least of her problems. This is the look in body type I wish to select towards. The other thing I wish to breed out of my stock is the gold gene and slow feathering. A subset of the chicks exhibit much slower feathering than the others, a trait I'd love to eliminate in future generations.