Thank You Tara!
Jest Another Day in Pear-A-Dice - Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm in Alberta
- Thread starter CanuckBock
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #2,082
Heel low:
I guess today, I delve more into my Chant bantam project...a few cuppas of java incites a bit of drivel on the topic of my current focus. Gettin' the colour varieties of the Chants back in order...from chaos comes order. LMBO
Re-fresh yer memories...F1's were the expected rainbows of colours
Coupla more Chant photos from Boxing Day, eh. You know when I ramble on, there's gonna be photos to show what I am blabbing about...righteo?
Higgins Bantam Chanteclers - Partridge, Self-White, Self-Buff
Dec 26 2016
I am happiest with the girl in the middle, she is more petite, she has retained the Chant traits I want to make more of! I be pleased!
So look and know the base colours above...the deep reddish bay ground screams PARTRIDGE / the self white is uh, yeh...WHITE / the lightened phaeomelanin base of the right side hen...that screams BUFF... buff in a self-colour varies from yellow to orange to what oldtimers coined, gold watch colour. LOL
Always knew the self-white would be the easiest variety to get done up. Now still working on the Partridge and Self-Buff...those will take time but sure alot of progress and I can still SEE the varieties in their disguise. LOL
April 6, 2015
Self-white on left can hide phaemelanin or eumelanin UNDER the NO pigment, eh
Keep in mind...that self-white gal...so what is the recessive white and dominant white, blue dilution and silver hiding from view...what is the NO PIGMENT covering up...is that a fine pencilled hen in disguise...or a fine self-buff hen...or?? The easiness of self-white has the wonderful delights of hiding other colours and patterns UNDER those genetics we lined up to make the white feathered bird. Recall my Booted Bantams...two varieties I breed back and forth...Mille de Fleur and White...under each white hides my genetics for MDF...merely covered over by a double does of recessive white...how exciting. Hybrid vigour added feature in the Booteds merely because I do not fear crossing colour varieties...white and MDF. It makes my biosecurity and need for hybrid vigour boosts all self-sufficient. Cross the varieties to keep the genetic diversity healthy and heterosis boosts alive and well.
Nov 30 2014 - me Male Booted Bantams -
Genetically identical past skin colour and none to two doses recessive white...
White boys have two doses
MDF boys have one to none
Purdy kewl...
So a few more comments (not done, not fork time yet) on self-buff, the ever reaching attaining its perfection and such. Judges are not to show preference over the shade of the buff past the words "an even shade of rich golden buff" (APA 2010 SOP, page 6 defines "BUFF - A medium shade of orange-yellow color with a rich golden cast; not so intense as to show a reddish cast, nor so pale as to appear lemon or light yellow") but heck, we are merely human...so many want the rich buff which by that shade, means we whoops whoops to other colours cropping up--the battle of black tail or white (I already KNOW I got one dose of blue dilution in my bantam chants...I have blue buffs...so shoulda been black tailed buffs...righty oh?).
Blue Tailed Buff standard Chant -
Remove the one dose of blue dilution and you got a BLACK tailed buff, eh!
Columbian will help push any black (or blue) to the tail and in some cases, the wings (Buff Columbian variety of the Brahma comes to mind)...the thought process on self-buff perfection is that black feathers are wanted more than white feathers, so what to do with blue...har har har. Yeh, always a work, always the pursuit... hardest self-colour of all will take my lifetime to achieve...perhaps?
Chantelle (recently passed...miss her
) was my first self-buff Chantecler
She has soft like a Buff Orpington feathers
She also had a few marked dark pattern feathers in her tail
See the firmer feather I have put into this self-Buff Standard Chantecler?
Still a LONG way to go to where I wanna see the variety, but firmer feather improvement
Miscolour in tail--is it white/is it blue?...all I know is that it is not a clean self-buff...shafting too.
Dec 26, 2016 - Chants with firmer feather, still battling shafting & miscolours...
not ready to throw baby out with bath water tho...got so many qualities I adore!
Same gal, as a pullet
You want to see your breeders become hens...to choose the best of the best to make more from
Anyone breeding cockerels and pullets...yeh...you get what you guess about, eh
No proof in production, vigour, disease resistance, let alone longevity...
Did you live a year with them and still LOVE them?
How fast they moult, go back into production, how efficient, how the temperaments work out with flock dynamics...etc.
I am pleased that I did not see the bantams end up with this POOF soft feather I oft see in some chickens. I want to see them laying winter eggs like Bro W wanted the breed to do but not willing to trade soft poof feathers to get that. We do have to watch the balance as the girls need insulation but also a decent firm feathered coat of plumage to protect them from the elements. High numbers of good egg production relies on the simple fact that the female is efficient and not converting her food energies to just dealing with the temperatures (hot or cold, insulated against EITHER predicament...Bro W shipped Chants to South Africa, Italy, South America...TRUE Chants withstand hot or cold and thrive in either). An easy keeper...whether for meat or eggs...wide body, room to make eggs within or hang meat off of...blocks of production capabilities with the right outfits to do their jobs easily.
Shafting, super dark ground colour with dark reddish bay ground (Mh) along with incomplete lacing,
incomplete that shouts out: Co/Co, Pg/pg"+", Ml/ml"+" plus eb/eb for the dark down
To be Partridge, she needs to drop the Columbian/Melanotic and pure up the Pg and Mh
Here's where knowing colour genetics really shines for yah...
Partridge is a recognized Chantecler variety...partridge is a super simple pattern when just looking at the mutations from wild type...add in Pg and Mh on the eb e-series base and voila...Partridge. Well OK, when double mated for the colour pattern, the males have wild type pg"+" because when you lookit the boy partridge, he don't have all that wonderful pencilling pattern...issue is like laced varieties, the pencilled (multi-laced) ones require fine tuning for generations...and all this comes crashing down like a house of cards when one breeder chooses to make a bad choice and can destroy a century's old line in one breeding. Yup...one ijit and you got yourself the equivalent of hatching eggers and pullet/cockerel breeder persons...not Fanciers, not true breeders that know that production of quality birds is the c@tz meow! Not hatching egg floggers, cheap and quick...all the crime rewards them and their lines...what time and effort eludes them.
I guess today, I delve more into my Chant bantam project...a few cuppas of java incites a bit of drivel on the topic of my current focus. Gettin' the colour varieties of the Chants back in order...from chaos comes order. LMBO
Re-fresh yer memories...F1's were the expected rainbows of colours
Coupla more Chant photos from Boxing Day, eh. You know when I ramble on, there's gonna be photos to show what I am blabbing about...righteo?
Higgins Bantam Chanteclers - Partridge, Self-White, Self-Buff
Dec 26 2016
So look and know the base colours above...the deep reddish bay ground screams PARTRIDGE / the self white is uh, yeh...WHITE / the lightened phaeomelanin base of the right side hen...that screams BUFF... buff in a self-colour varies from yellow to orange to what oldtimers coined, gold watch colour. LOL
Always knew the self-white would be the easiest variety to get done up. Now still working on the Partridge and Self-Buff...those will take time but sure alot of progress and I can still SEE the varieties in their disguise. LOL
April 6, 2015
Self-white on left can hide phaemelanin or eumelanin UNDER the NO pigment, eh
Keep in mind...that self-white gal...so what is the recessive white and dominant white, blue dilution and silver hiding from view...what is the NO PIGMENT covering up...is that a fine pencilled hen in disguise...or a fine self-buff hen...or?? The easiness of self-white has the wonderful delights of hiding other colours and patterns UNDER those genetics we lined up to make the white feathered bird. Recall my Booted Bantams...two varieties I breed back and forth...Mille de Fleur and White...under each white hides my genetics for MDF...merely covered over by a double does of recessive white...how exciting. Hybrid vigour added feature in the Booteds merely because I do not fear crossing colour varieties...white and MDF. It makes my biosecurity and need for hybrid vigour boosts all self-sufficient. Cross the varieties to keep the genetic diversity healthy and heterosis boosts alive and well.
Nov 30 2014 - me Male Booted Bantams -
Genetically identical past skin colour and none to two doses recessive white...
White boys have two doses
MDF boys have one to none
Purdy kewl...
So a few more comments (not done, not fork time yet) on self-buff, the ever reaching attaining its perfection and such. Judges are not to show preference over the shade of the buff past the words "an even shade of rich golden buff" (APA 2010 SOP, page 6 defines "BUFF - A medium shade of orange-yellow color with a rich golden cast; not so intense as to show a reddish cast, nor so pale as to appear lemon or light yellow") but heck, we are merely human...so many want the rich buff which by that shade, means we whoops whoops to other colours cropping up--the battle of black tail or white (I already KNOW I got one dose of blue dilution in my bantam chants...I have blue buffs...so shoulda been black tailed buffs...righty oh?).
Blue Tailed Buff standard Chant -
Remove the one dose of blue dilution and you got a BLACK tailed buff, eh!
Columbian will help push any black (or blue) to the tail and in some cases, the wings (Buff Columbian variety of the Brahma comes to mind)...the thought process on self-buff perfection is that black feathers are wanted more than white feathers, so what to do with blue...har har har. Yeh, always a work, always the pursuit... hardest self-colour of all will take my lifetime to achieve...perhaps?
Chantelle (recently passed...miss her
She has soft like a Buff Orpington feathers
She also had a few marked dark pattern feathers in her tail
See the firmer feather I have put into this self-Buff Standard Chantecler?
Still a LONG way to go to where I wanna see the variety, but firmer feather improvement
Miscolour in tail--is it white/is it blue?...all I know is that it is not a clean self-buff...shafting too.
Dec 26, 2016 - Chants with firmer feather, still battling shafting & miscolours...
not ready to throw baby out with bath water tho...got so many qualities I adore!
Same gal, as a pullet
You want to see your breeders become hens...to choose the best of the best to make more from
Anyone breeding cockerels and pullets...yeh...you get what you guess about, eh
No proof in production, vigour, disease resistance, let alone longevity...
Did you live a year with them and still LOVE them?
How fast they moult, go back into production, how efficient, how the temperaments work out with flock dynamics...etc.
I am pleased that I did not see the bantams end up with this POOF soft feather I oft see in some chickens. I want to see them laying winter eggs like Bro W wanted the breed to do but not willing to trade soft poof feathers to get that. We do have to watch the balance as the girls need insulation but also a decent firm feathered coat of plumage to protect them from the elements. High numbers of good egg production relies on the simple fact that the female is efficient and not converting her food energies to just dealing with the temperatures (hot or cold, insulated against EITHER predicament...Bro W shipped Chants to South Africa, Italy, South America...TRUE Chants withstand hot or cold and thrive in either). An easy keeper...whether for meat or eggs...wide body, room to make eggs within or hang meat off of...blocks of production capabilities with the right outfits to do their jobs easily.
Shafting, super dark ground colour with dark reddish bay ground (Mh) along with incomplete lacing,
incomplete that shouts out: Co/Co, Pg/pg"+", Ml/ml"+" plus eb/eb for the dark down
To be Partridge, she needs to drop the Columbian/Melanotic and pure up the Pg and Mh
Here's where knowing colour genetics really shines for yah...
Partridge is a recognized Chantecler variety...partridge is a super simple pattern when just looking at the mutations from wild type...add in Pg and Mh on the eb e-series base and voila...Partridge. Well OK, when double mated for the colour pattern, the males have wild type pg"+" because when you lookit the boy partridge, he don't have all that wonderful pencilling pattern...issue is like laced varieties, the pencilled (multi-laced) ones require fine tuning for generations...and all this comes crashing down like a house of cards when one breeder chooses to make a bad choice and can destroy a century's old line in one breeding. Yup...one ijit and you got yourself the equivalent of hatching eggers and pullet/cockerel breeder persons...not Fanciers, not true breeders that know that production of quality birds is the c@tz meow! Not hatching egg floggers, cheap and quick...all the crime rewards them and their lines...what time and effort eludes them.
WIP - F2s...
Partridge, self-Buff and self-White...natch!
I also wanted the self-buff, so I had to watch the RED ones...the phaeomelanin chickens for ground colour expression...you want a lighter red pigment for self-buff and a darker pigment for the partridge.
Here in this bantam Chant hen...got miscolours in blue dilution
Got shafting...duh...like making bantams from the standards would magically remove what was in the originals...
I am not that stunned...
Main objective was to mini the large fowl. Without a frame of reference to size her up...she could be either a bantam or standard...her shape is a brick and she be a Chantecler...more so than ever because when Jeffrey's described the bantam Chanteclers,
Bantams Chickens by Fred P. Jeffrey, on Chanteclers...:Jeffrey's he likened them to a Rhode in shape quoting Matezschk 1966, which he describes as a brick with rounded corners.
Matezschk 1966:
The desired form or shape of the Red bantam is like a small brick with corners and edges rounded off,
Not expecting miracles that the issues I had in the P1 parent flock was going to fix itself. What I did not want to lose was the goods I had in the large fowl and that...I am happy about...has been retained. Ain't it funny how you come to a calendar year end and get to reflect on the past year. Kewl.
Chantecler pair...the SHAPE desired!
So I gotta go techno shopping for the corporation...Microsoft Office (nfi), I see they now offer 1 year subscriptions...what a pain I figure, so I'll likely wanna buy it, own it, I've still got a version of that program kicking round from my CGAccounting study years...good gack. Need Excel (accountant sent me a template for expenses-my Excel is way ancient so no reading his file, I use to do these templates all the time way back in my ACCPAC, Bedford, etc. days--heck I'm a computer science grade eight geek where we used cassette tapes as storage devices...never you mind floppy disks!--stone tablets & chisels, eh) and likely Outlook (e-mail reports and invoice for receivables). I am NO fan of paying via internet. Chuckled as we have a meet with the bank and that fella thinks I'm game to internet banking...GET REAL! I have way too many devils sitting on my shoulder forking me about internet security and what with everyone being held hostage with cyber attacks, database hostage situations, etc...I think I am just fine and dandy wanting to either mail a cheque or walk in and pay up in person. Local dentist offices, using CLOUD to store their client files have got caught with their pants down...I forget who paid up $20 grand to get their docs back... Blighme...imagine that being our first year in business...nice expense...NOT!
Computers, laptop (oh yes, the bane of the flicked off keys on the keypad...twice now I've killed laptops!) so I can sit in the living room and do up Rick's reports and such. So has to be portable. I won't be typing as much as on this desktop one...so the want of a portable device has to take precedence over that "flick the keys" off...sigh.
Printer for accounting reports, road reports, etc...which of course makes me grin...not had a functioning printer for likely ten or so years...always seemed to get by without one. Better specify, a printer/fax combo. Had those in the past but the current one is now ancient (see, I forget I could scan & print a doc thru it but that be a good thing) and the cartridges are tres expensive. So practical (can we say, CHEEP CHEAP?) moi wants a fax/printer combo with inexpensive black ink cartridges. I have always saved a photo to stick if I wanted a particular print...like I have a photo on the bus of my puppers and the Dorpies...my office personal space and reminder that's why I keep a job...for dog foods and sheep feeds...har har. Never put click of bird, guess I got too many to choose one photo...hee hee...but I digress (imagine that?).
Waz yer guys favs out thar? I am thinking a $500 Dell laptop, maybe the 5000 series, I am not a gamer, so don't need the power, just the bottom end thingmajig with the fact I can take it to my chair, tete a tete with Rick in the evening regarding his work day and then the next morn, do the computer work on any receipts, fuel log, road reports, etc. The clerical gobbly gook.
Never been much of a HP fan...always seemed they had the latest and greatest (and untested) dodahs and I just want basic, get by, GET HER DONE stuffers. My desktop is a Certified Data from London Drugs (nfi). Pretty good bang for the buck and no problems with it. A good standard work horse.
Likely we'll pack up and hit the city and some place like Staples, Best Buy, London Drugs or Costco to grab these items (no financial interest in any of those companies I've cited). I am not even keener about getting the laptop since we have coupla computers but not portable. But enough confusing the issues...'puter, printer/fax with economical black ink cartridges, software for Excel and Outlook, surge protector (we get way too many lightening strikes)...if I put it out there, then hoping I don't fudge up and have you guys tell me I shoulda asked before diving.
Gotta fly...
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Last edited:
Sorry that I'm a day late, but do you guys have a Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) for your desktop computers?
They can/will be very useful in keeping your 'puters running properly.
Good luck with all that you have to do yet!
Scott
They can/will be very useful in keeping your 'puters running properly.
Good luck with all that you have to do yet!
Scott
Happy New Year!
- Jan 29, 2007
- 2,760
- 99
- 241
A very happy New Year to all!
- Thread starter
- #2,086
Heel low:
Yes, what a great new year with lots of promise, eh!
Thanks also to those that nominated me for the Friend badge tho I truly think you guys should have spelled it properly...FRIEND
Anyway, still eating rather good...
Decided to make pizza on the 29 and realized by golly, little short on grocery, so looked in the cupboard like Old Mother Hubbard and indeed, pizza WAS possible!
No sure how healthful all the contents being mostly from cans...but hey, like anyone ever heard that pizza is health food?
While the crust rose, I opened cans (say I sliced and diced but more chopped after opening...I did grate Mozzarella!)...
Rick wanted ham for New Years...so pineapple on ham he got.
Breakfast was a repeat of Christmas only this time I added fruit and whipped cream whilst he had syrup...maple!
Been kinda nasty...got about a foot of snow and since Rick had to work, he did double time on the snowblowing and tractor work so he could leave us here to get abouts on Monday.
Today was magnificent, but with -26C...I had the girls out several times before it finally, finally warmed up to -15C.
The girl's snow pile grows...
The tail kills me...
I guess the first one on the top gets to defend it the best...
Emmy being Trailer Trash...
Gotta watch they don't stay out and freeze paws or lungs
Moving around is good...
Poke in the guts
Bite yer friend
Here's a nice example of the Chantecler Breed SOP line
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Yes, what a great new year with lots of promise, eh!
Thanks also to those that nominated me for the Friend badge tho I truly think you guys should have spelled it properly...F
Anyway, still eating rather good...
Decided to make pizza on the 29 and realized by golly, little short on grocery, so looked in the cupboard like Old Mother Hubbard and indeed, pizza WAS possible!
No sure how healthful all the contents being mostly from cans...but hey, like anyone ever heard that pizza is health food?
While the crust rose, I opened cans (say I sliced and diced but more chopped after opening...I did grate Mozzarella!)...
Rick wanted ham for New Years...so pineapple on ham he got.
Breakfast was a repeat of Christmas only this time I added fruit and whipped cream whilst he had syrup...maple!
Been kinda nasty...got about a foot of snow and since Rick had to work, he did double time on the snowblowing and tractor work so he could leave us here to get abouts on Monday.
Today was magnificent, but with -26C...I had the girls out several times before it finally, finally warmed up to -15C.
The girl's snow pile grows...
The tail kills me...
I guess the first one on the top gets to defend it the best...
Emmy being Trailer Trash...
Gotta watch they don't stay out and freeze paws or lungs
Moving around is good...
Poke in the guts
Bite yer friend
Here's a nice example of the Chantecler Breed SOP line
All my Chants have this...why we make them parade around with a tiny stack of books balanced on their heads...
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
I think that the Friend badge should have happened awhile ago, so there.
Thanks for the update on the girls snow pile!
Scott
Thanks for the update on the girls snow pile!
Scott
- Thread starter
- #2,088
Heel low:
So how many days can we beat the drum to "happy new year?" At least for the first week I would say, eh?
New Year's...a time to reflect back, plan forward, eat and be jolly...oh, sorry, too much eat and be jolly (rolly polly?).
I made Chinese last night because I was getting tired of feasting upon traditional fare.
My legs are making me pay today for all that standing but am getting a tad smarter in my old age...I wanted pork and beefy chunks in a veg mix ("Good GACK!" GOOP as Rick quips), so marinated and cooked it separate (different flavours combined) and mixed it all together with the veg and served up as one dish. The chicken wings is a fav and I must say been craving that for a few weeks now. Simple as all heck...marinate chicken wings in soy sauce, drain, toss to coat in corn starch, deep fry in lard and drain and cook the rest of the way in oven. Voila...the salt, the fat, the chickeny taste--yeh am doubly sure it is no good for one but whatever.
Tonight, got a stack of leftovers (and GREAT sign...Rick asked me if I had put the goop away and I relpied, not yet--cooling...and he got seconds!)...plus the rice I will add some sliced ham from New Year's din, green onions sliced, egg scrambled and sliced, green peas, some Chinese seasonings and again...Ham fried rice to keep it interesting. Another dinner to anticipate.
So as said...New Year's is a time for reflection and reflect I have been.
I did an apprenticeship of sorts for round about 35 years...with barnyard mutts and such. Enjoyed it immensely. No breeds, just birds that we bred and kept and enjoyed. I believe in the whole scheme of things...THAT was likely the best way to introduce and learn up poultry. Not alot of pressure or exposure to diseases by showing or having to conform and whilst you hated when something died (livestock - deadstock) you were not under some sort of monetary rule that you just kilt a five hundred dollar BIRD BIRD!
You killed a friend by not knowing better or lack of facilities or sheer plain bad luck or in some cases, the bird had a death wish. NO kidding...we had one MdF Booted cockerel that would roost any old place...find him in the unfinished porch (how he got nicknamed BQ) roosting on the barbecue or on a heated bucket I had stacked in the porch for Rick to wrap in puckboard and fill with insulation...there he got renamed (momentarily) as that "bucket of chicken!"
BQ perched upon the bucket in the Man Porch
Thankfully the Booted Bantams would steer clear far short of even making a decent chicken soup stock...so all this food angle naming never meant his life was in jeopardy of being consumed and harvested for such purpose.
So as said, I spent 35 years apprenticeshipping to begin breeding to Standard poultry stocks. It does make me shake my head as in dogs, we can get our breed standards without much trouble. In fact, many of the breed clubs send that out as a courtesy (at least I did as Secretary of the Canadian ACD Club) to inquiries and for sure to new members of the club signed up. Indeed...how does one call a chicken a Wyandotte without the slightest knowledge of what indeed you are comparing that bird to?
A Standard for a sheep, a dog, a chicken, duck or goose...to be said to be of a certain BREED you would have had to have known its shape and particulars regarding what made it itself compared to the other animals. Even just tagging a name sake on a beast or bird has to be saying that it complies to certain aspects of that particular breed.
I am regularly mystified when told, "this is a Chantecler" when looking at the specimen, it does not have any of the particular traits that I personally hold near and dear to my heart for the breed (breed is shape / variety is colour <--for the most part, eh).
Like me knowing the genetics, not expecting others who casually bounce near and around a breed like the Chantecler...but I already know with the Cushion comb, you are going to have the breast keel feathers a bit broken (like the Cornish breed--the "bare keel line" more pronounced in males as per females) because the pea comb genetics dictate that happening.
Not hugely evident...but the keel is indicated with a tiny break in the plumage down the chest
Now do not get me wrong...the Standards also do not contain all that genetic gobbly gook that someone that dives head long into the breed for years of research would know. Know that the cushion comb genetics (pea + rose = cushion comb) also means that the top 1/3 of the comb can and sometimes DOES have a line thru it. Called the transverse groove.
Red male - red is partridge x buff
Sometimes the transverse groove is expressed with bristly hairs...a great sign you got cushion comb in a day old, look for the beginnings of them bristles! Ureeka!
Partridge female
Sometimes not...
Partridge female
To point out how brilliant the masterminds of SOME of the Standards (not all where we see breeds labelled as varieties and other disappoints I will control myself as not getting into...and as of recently...I've seen some poor versions made up...but not my problem, eh)...
Above is the definition of the Cushion comb as expressed by the Chantecler breed. Seems simple enough.
Cushion Comb - comfy and inviting enough that other chickens want to sit upon it...
Ah but herein lays the magic of what the oldtimers did in Standards...what many judges, yes, sanctioned judges should be doing...re-reading standards and cluing in on the very intricacies of the words.
I've gone to look at Chants at the sanctioned shows and been gravely disappointed (now bare in mind, see that in the dogs' shows too now...gack!)...birds put up with what I see as raging disqualifications...yes...wrong comb type.
I get that we don't often see a cushion comb but my good golly...curse curse curse...you would figure because it is rare that judges would refresh memories...especially when foreign judges come up here and judge...there are going to be Chants there...usually we show our only recognized breed of landfowl chickens, eh.
Not a DQ but a faulted comb...
Here's an EASY DQ...what be wrong with this male's comb...read the standard up thar and revisit...what is wrong??
This is a DQ...
Now here...this very sly piece of the puzzle is very, very important and why I say that I've seen Chants so often being judged and NOT disqualified...what is wrong with this female above?
This comes to the area too where I of't get my knickers in a knot...naughty nickers, eh!
Combs...any moron (or at least one would hope the ignorant and uneducated) can tell most comb types...a small child can see a comb and if taught patiently KNOW what kind of comb it is. So people, please quit culling based on comb type. Good gack! So many tossing birds based on comb type ALONE.
I do realize that if you wanted 100% cushion combed Chants that culling for that trait (at day old you can if that rewards your fancy) is quick and slick method. It takes an educated person to SEE past a disqualification on to what might perhaps be a good thing in your strain.
Here's Bucky - I challenge others to post a better photo of the diamonds in the hackle and saddle of a partridge...
Here's Bucky's son...
Pretty nice diamonds eh...so what's my point?
Bucky has a pea comb...that be that...pea comb. Why I called him "Bucky" is because he reminded me of the similar breed, the Buckeye that is suppose to have a pea comb. Wah wah wah.
Funny thing is that we can cull at day olds for not a cushion comb...if I had culled Bucky for not having a cushion comb...you can see my lines would have lost a dang near perfect set of diamonds...yuppers. You be careful now what you throw out with the bath water, eh.
Now granted some birds grow up and are butt ugly...
UGLY BUGLY!
This male is an absolute mess...lumpy bumpy large comb...the wattles are dangles of ugly...even his ear lobes are ghastly but I let him grow out and judged him to be what he would be. I do not want this in my strains...so he was never used. So ugly he's cute...good gack!
Charles...my dearest first Buff Male Chant...old man...
even nipped some Death Camas on me once and lived...scared the dickens outta me, because he could...BRAT!
Now people tend to think because I can post butt ugly, I may not have good cushion combs and heads...yeh...dream on... I got a good mix of ugly and beauty...always will, always do.
Even won the Cushion Comb contest here on BYC with Medusa who is a red hen I made in 2009 and till enjoying her life here on the Pear-A-Dice plot.
What I would like to convey is that combs are one thing...the whole bird quite another.
Medusa is long lived, disease resistant, productive and fertile, vigorous, a block of a good form, temperament I love and on and on.
Think in terms of production...she's a bloomin' busting out BRICK!
See her keel feathers too, cushion comb means break in feather display along breast ridge
I figure so many V shaped birds are screaming out their lack of production...no room to hang meat off of, no room to make eggs within. If you look at the structure from productive birds...they are like you took a balloon, blew it up and it expanded as far as it could...filled up the space. Expanded to allow the most room for productive fowl possible. Flat back, full underline, bursting at the seams fulla potentials. Our birds with benefits, eh.
APA SOP 2010, page 21 shows two diagrams...Head and Body Characteristics Indicative of ... Vigor and Productiveness AND Showing Lack of Vigor and Productiveness...have a look see and SEE the defining areas where they differ. Show birds of yesteryear were bred to be productive...and lots of them...the Exhibitor went out and plucked a bird off the roost from hundreds is not thousands of potentials. These birds worked for their keep...my dear friend now gone, Gordon Ridler (mentioned by Dr. Sheraw in his East Indie Duck book, pg 28)...Mr. Ridler and his father would show birds by the train car load...yup, his show string was travelling around out East in several train box cars. As a young boy, his father gave him tasks like pulling the white feathers from the beetle green Indies they entered. That was the heyday of exhibition poultry and he use to tell me at night, he'd come in from chores and his arms would already ache but he had letters to write to reply for requests regarding his birds. Use to go to the shows and people (even back then...grrr) would try to steal his birds' eggs. Oh my how he laughed when I was talking to him about this. Told me he fixed them...those egg stealers. He would take his white fowl and put a black rooster in with them. Same with his blacks...reverse the coloured males and ruin their hopes of ever replicating his entries. What a fella...
Kept Medusa because she is a good chicken. LOL It also helps that she has firm feather and has helped to instill that into the poofy poof feathered buffs we have.
Even I cannot fathom the dire difference in feather firm versus softness seen comparing these two females!
Both hens have miscolours and Rome was not built in a day, eh...so keeping going. Plugging along. Fix this, see that let go or not fixed at all...lifetime of amusements for sure!
So to summarize...keep in mind why the words were chosen in the Standards to describe certain aspects in our breeds...this male sums up the cushion comb and how it should be expressed...
This is Sam, son of Charles above!
The crowing glory of any fowl is a comb that suits the bird...took me a while to get use to the lack of combs and wattles in the Chanteclers--snakey heads...where is the proud rack of a comb and dangly wattles...even the female chicken chooses males based on their ability to sport a huge head geared head. Despite the disadvantage, hens are attracted to a survivor despite his disfunction...har har.
Many of us oldtimers use to quip that if the head was good and so was the tail, the bits inbetween usually were good also. Not too scientific but indeed, pretty simplistic. Combs and wattles make up very little in points overall the bird but they are the crowing piece that marks a bird of great stature.
APA General Scale of Points, White and Other than White...:
8. Wattles - 2 points (shape)
9. Earlobes - 4 points (shape 2 / color 2)
That ugly buggly male up thar...the comb, wattles and earlobes (correctly coloured) would dupe him 9 points off his 100 point potential total.
So that be my bitta drivel for the day, eh.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
So how many days can we beat the drum to "happy new year?" At least for the first week I would say, eh?
New Year's...a time to reflect back, plan forward, eat and be jolly...oh, sorry, too much eat and be jolly (rolly polly?).
I made Chinese last night because I was getting tired of feasting upon traditional fare.
My legs are making me pay today for all that standing but am getting a tad smarter in my old age...I wanted pork and beefy chunks in a veg mix ("Good GACK!" GOOP as Rick quips), so marinated and cooked it separate (different flavours combined) and mixed it all together with the veg and served up as one dish. The chicken wings is a fav and I must say been craving that for a few weeks now. Simple as all heck...marinate chicken wings in soy sauce, drain, toss to coat in corn starch, deep fry in lard and drain and cook the rest of the way in oven. Voila...the salt, the fat, the chickeny taste--yeh am doubly sure it is no good for one but whatever.
Tonight, got a stack of leftovers (and GREAT sign...Rick asked me if I had put the goop away and I relpied, not yet--cooling...and he got seconds!)...plus the rice I will add some sliced ham from New Year's din, green onions sliced, egg scrambled and sliced, green peas, some Chinese seasonings and again...Ham fried rice to keep it interesting. Another dinner to anticipate.
So as said...New Year's is a time for reflection and reflect I have been.
I did an apprenticeship of sorts for round about 35 years...with barnyard mutts and such. Enjoyed it immensely. No breeds, just birds that we bred and kept and enjoyed. I believe in the whole scheme of things...THAT was likely the best way to introduce and learn up poultry. Not alot of pressure or exposure to diseases by showing or having to conform and whilst you hated when something died (livestock - deadstock) you were not under some sort of monetary rule that you just kilt a five hundred dollar BIRD BIRD!
You killed a friend by not knowing better or lack of facilities or sheer plain bad luck or in some cases, the bird had a death wish. NO kidding...we had one MdF Booted cockerel that would roost any old place...find him in the unfinished porch (how he got nicknamed BQ) roosting on the barbecue or on a heated bucket I had stacked in the porch for Rick to wrap in puckboard and fill with insulation...there he got renamed (momentarily) as that "bucket of chicken!"
BQ perched upon the bucket in the Man Porch
Thankfully the Booted Bantams would steer clear far short of even making a decent chicken soup stock...so all this food angle naming never meant his life was in jeopardy of being consumed and harvested for such purpose.
So as said, I spent 35 years apprenticeshipping to begin breeding to Standard poultry stocks. It does make me shake my head as in dogs, we can get our breed standards without much trouble. In fact, many of the breed clubs send that out as a courtesy (at least I did as Secretary of the Canadian ACD Club) to inquiries and for sure to new members of the club signed up. Indeed...how does one call a chicken a Wyandotte without the slightest knowledge of what indeed you are comparing that bird to?
A Standard for a sheep, a dog, a chicken, duck or goose...to be said to be of a certain BREED you would have had to have known its shape and particulars regarding what made it itself compared to the other animals. Even just tagging a name sake on a beast or bird has to be saying that it complies to certain aspects of that particular breed.
I am regularly mystified when told, "this is a Chantecler" when looking at the specimen, it does not have any of the particular traits that I personally hold near and dear to my heart for the breed (breed is shape / variety is colour <--for the most part, eh).
Like me knowing the genetics, not expecting others who casually bounce near and around a breed like the Chantecler...but I already know with the Cushion comb, you are going to have the breast keel feathers a bit broken (like the Cornish breed--the "bare keel line" more pronounced in males as per females) because the pea comb genetics dictate that happening.
Not hugely evident...but the keel is indicated with a tiny break in the plumage down the chest
Now do not get me wrong...the Standards also do not contain all that genetic gobbly gook that someone that dives head long into the breed for years of research would know. Know that the cushion comb genetics (pea + rose = cushion comb) also means that the top 1/3 of the comb can and sometimes DOES have a line thru it. Called the transverse groove.
Red male - red is partridge x buff
Sometimes the transverse groove is expressed with bristly hairs...a great sign you got cushion comb in a day old, look for the beginnings of them bristles! Ureeka!
Partridge female
Sometimes not...
Partridge female
The Standard is a very intricate part if you are going to label a bird a breed or variety for that matter. My favourite edition of the American Poultry Association Standard of Perfection is the 1998 edition...why, because Arthur Schilling artwork was still presiding over the pictures used as examples. Never forget that the words are our guide...but heavens...Arthur would take photos of ACTUAL real birds and then "air brush" these specimens into perfection...his concept of perfection mind you. This gave one a more realistic vision that one could attain...no, never a perfect bird, never any perfect anything (why when building your breeding pens, you MUST put all the components of perfection in the pen...one bird has a comb coloured up to die for, the other makes up for the poorer expression in the other of shape of that comb...etc.).
One of the suggestions I make to newcomers that want to focus upon breeding to Standard...for pete's sake, help yerself out some. I take photocopies of the pics of birds I wanted to create, the 1998 SOP APA version is great...sheet protector, a pin and up in the coop these copies go. I can look up, admire, look down and compare the birds in the very flesh.
Now you choose the shape you want, because as said, the words are our guide but many are visual persons and to sear this image into your brain daily is a good thing in my mind at least. Keeping in mind how my own has gone to mush after nine years of driving school bus. I think perhaps the children are brilliant...so keep that matter to ourselves on my continued brain working capacity. Kids make me laugh...easily amused or learned how to cope?
Now back to the Standard...visiting the Cushion comb of the Chantecler...
I shall cheat and quote my Combs and Wattles of the Chantecler article...mine, so I can...:
- American Poultry Association’s (APA) poultry Standard (both standard and bantam stock) says, “COMB: Cushion-shaped; rather small, set firm and low on fore part of head, front, rear and sides nearly straight, surface smooth, rear free of point or points.”
- American Bantam Association’s (ABA) poultry Standard says, “COMB: Cushion – small, set firm and low on forepart of head, front not to extend beyond nostrils, extending backward to middle of eye; front, rear and sides nearly straight, surface smooth.”
FEMALE:
- APA Standard (both standard and bantam stock) says, “COMB: Cushion-shaped, very small, low on head, front, rear and sides nearly straight, surface smooth, rear free of point or points.”
- ABA Standard says, “COMB: Cushion – very small, set firm and low on forepart of head, front not to extend beyond nostrils, extending backward to front of eye; front, rear and sides nearly straight, surface smooth.”
To point out how brilliant the masterminds of SOME of the Standards (not all where we see breeds labelled as varieties and other disappoints I will control myself as not getting into...and as of recently...I've seen some poor versions made up...but not my problem, eh)...
Above is the definition of the Cushion comb as expressed by the Chantecler breed. Seems simple enough.
Cushion Comb - comfy and inviting enough that other chickens want to sit upon it...
Ah but herein lays the magic of what the oldtimers did in Standards...what many judges, yes, sanctioned judges should be doing...re-reading standards and cluing in on the very intricacies of the words.
I've gone to look at Chants at the sanctioned shows and been gravely disappointed (now bare in mind, see that in the dogs' shows too now...gack!)...birds put up with what I see as raging disqualifications...yes...wrong comb type.
I get that we don't often see a cushion comb but my good golly...curse curse curse...you would figure because it is rare that judges would refresh memories...especially when foreign judges come up here and judge...there are going to be Chants there...usually we show our only recognized breed of landfowl chickens, eh.
Not a DQ but a faulted comb...
Here's an EASY DQ...what be wrong with this male's comb...read the standard up thar and revisit...what is wrong??
This is a DQ...
Now here...this very sly piece of the puzzle is very, very important and why I say that I've seen Chants so often being judged and NOT disqualified...what is wrong with this female above?
Do NOT put up birds like the two ones above...now the white cockerel, sure he's not DQ'd but the female under him...what kinda comb is she sporting please? Immediately seeing this comb on the girl...she's done if entered as a Chantecler...This comes to the area too where I of't get my knickers in a knot...naughty nickers, eh!
Combs...any moron (or at least one would hope the ignorant and uneducated) can tell most comb types...a small child can see a comb and if taught patiently KNOW what kind of comb it is. So people, please quit culling based on comb type. Good gack! So many tossing birds based on comb type ALONE.
I do realize that if you wanted 100% cushion combed Chants that culling for that trait (at day old you can if that rewards your fancy) is quick and slick method. It takes an educated person to SEE past a disqualification on to what might perhaps be a good thing in your strain.
Here's Bucky - I challenge others to post a better photo of the diamonds in the hackle and saddle of a partridge...
Here's Bucky's son...
Pretty nice diamonds eh...so what's my point?
Bucky has a pea comb...that be that...pea comb. Why I called him "Bucky" is because he reminded me of the similar breed, the Buckeye that is suppose to have a pea comb. Wah wah wah.
Funny thing is that we can cull at day olds for not a cushion comb...if I had culled Bucky for not having a cushion comb...you can see my lines would have lost a dang near perfect set of diamonds...yuppers. You be careful now what you throw out with the bath water, eh.
Now granted some birds grow up and are butt ugly...
UGLY BUGLY!
This male is an absolute mess...lumpy bumpy large comb...the wattles are dangles of ugly...even his ear lobes are ghastly but I let him grow out and judged him to be what he would be. I do not want this in my strains...so he was never used. So ugly he's cute...good gack!
Charles...my dearest first Buff Male Chant...old man...
even nipped some Death Camas on me once and lived...scared the dickens outta me, because he could...BRAT!
Now people tend to think because I can post butt ugly, I may not have good cushion combs and heads...yeh...dream on... I got a good mix of ugly and beauty...always will, always do.
Even won the Cushion Comb contest here on BYC with Medusa who is a red hen I made in 2009 and till enjoying her life here on the Pear-A-Dice plot.
What I would like to convey is that combs are one thing...the whole bird quite another.
Medusa is long lived, disease resistant, productive and fertile, vigorous, a block of a good form, temperament I love and on and on.
Think in terms of production...she's a bloomin' busting out BRICK!
See her keel feathers too, cushion comb means break in feather display along breast ridge
I figure so many V shaped birds are screaming out their lack of production...no room to hang meat off of, no room to make eggs within. If you look at the structure from productive birds...they are like you took a balloon, blew it up and it expanded as far as it could...filled up the space. Expanded to allow the most room for productive fowl possible. Flat back, full underline, bursting at the seams fulla potentials. Our birds with benefits, eh.
APA SOP 2010, page 21 shows two diagrams...Head and Body Characteristics Indicative of ... Vigor and Productiveness AND Showing Lack of Vigor and Productiveness...have a look see and SEE the defining areas where they differ. Show birds of yesteryear were bred to be productive...and lots of them...the Exhibitor went out and plucked a bird off the roost from hundreds is not thousands of potentials. These birds worked for their keep...my dear friend now gone, Gordon Ridler (mentioned by Dr. Sheraw in his East Indie Duck book, pg 28)...Mr. Ridler and his father would show birds by the train car load...yup, his show string was travelling around out East in several train box cars. As a young boy, his father gave him tasks like pulling the white feathers from the beetle green Indies they entered. That was the heyday of exhibition poultry and he use to tell me at night, he'd come in from chores and his arms would already ache but he had letters to write to reply for requests regarding his birds. Use to go to the shows and people (even back then...grrr) would try to steal his birds' eggs. Oh my how he laughed when I was talking to him about this. Told me he fixed them...those egg stealers. He would take his white fowl and put a black rooster in with them. Same with his blacks...reverse the coloured males and ruin their hopes of ever replicating his entries. What a fella...
Kept Medusa because she is a good chicken. LOL It also helps that she has firm feather and has helped to instill that into the poofy poof feathered buffs we have.
Both hens have miscolours and Rome was not built in a day, eh...so keeping going. Plugging along. Fix this, see that let go or not fixed at all...lifetime of amusements for sure!
So to summarize...keep in mind why the words were chosen in the Standards to describe certain aspects in our breeds...this male sums up the cushion comb and how it should be expressed...
This is Sam, son of Charles above!
Many of us oldtimers use to quip that if the head was good and so was the tail, the bits inbetween usually were good also. Not too scientific but indeed, pretty simplistic. Combs and wattles make up very little in points overall the bird but they are the crowing piece that marks a bird of great stature.
APA General Scale of Points, White and Other than White...:
8. Wattles - 2 points (shape)
9. Earlobes - 4 points (shape 2 / color 2)
That ugly buggly male up thar...the comb, wattles and earlobes (correctly coloured) would dupe him 9 points off his 100 point potential total.
So that be my bitta drivel for the day, eh.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #2,089
Heel low:
So it is always kinda fun to find out how one gets into something like exhibition...no, not exhibiting ourselves in public...doG have mercy...
"Oh my eyes!"
But how we go about the steps we take during this journey we call life (see warned you about how long New Year's was gonna last, eh).
I personally have the belief that you either are kin to animals (beasts and birds, not all but some) or are not. The ingrain attitude where a human walks along and suddenly is vividly aware that we humans are not the center of the Universe, let alone center of the Earth...but merely a part of the cycle of life. What I mean is we have a kinship, an unspoken connection to other living beings besides other humanoids.
Reverend C.S. McGrath, Bantams Are My Hobby at Ninety Years of Age, ABA Yearbook, 1963:
I found my soul mates in dogs, chickens, wild birds and such as far back as I can remember. I would far rather spend time with dogs and birds than people and that may seem odd but not so much for persons here on BYC...for I am sure many of you know we are social, but in a whole different set of ways. People disappoint, people mislead, lie and in my mind, cast doubt in all respects that make me ponder if I even belonged to such a grouping! You can't count on a person, but my dog or a chicken...you had far less expectations but you never came away disappointed at their conduct. I trust dogs and birds...hardly can I say that about the majority of people I have had to interact with. And don't label me anti-social because you can bet your bippy, my happiest moments are spend surrounded by living beings...they just so happen NOT to be made up of my own species.
I like to say, "the birds never lie, people will!" and I have proven that to myself time and again...got a line of Chocolate Call ducks...and I kept noting...that strain would hang around my Black East Indies if and when given a choice. The birds never lie...I asked, many times of the person that I acquired the birds from, by e-mail and letter (always in writing) as to whether or not they had resorted to crossing the two breeds (yes, all of these bantam ducks can be traced back to the Mallard, but in the SOP sense and breeding wise...different breeds these two). Finally, knowing my Choco ducks in this line were not lying, I happened to once again query this person on the telephone and I guess I wore them down..."Why, yes, they had crossed these chocolate Calls with Black East Indies...their hope had been to improve them." I am still on good terms with this person, so much so that when I dropped the chocolates they had created and pursued my two other strains...they wanted some of my stocks. LMBO The problem I saw with adding East Indie to the Chocolate Call was the old age white feathering...in some cases, juvenile white feathering was haphazardly appearing. Again, said...the birds never lie...people do (or at best, avoid fessing up...bearing false witness).
This is Sprinkles, Best of Variety (unrecognized at the time) - large & coarse in type...
Shown at my first poultry show entry...I wanted feedback as to what version of chocolate was wanted
The judge seemed mystified on my entry but I convinced them it was "all about the colour"
Some time later, my version of a Chocolate Call, that rich dark chocolate plus breed type
Why yes, that is a golf ball and a pound of butter to show size comparison
Make a fist...that be the Choco delights size
Showed this Call duck to rave reviews at the last Poultry show we entered
By then, an accepted variety in the Call Duck breed...woot!
So I began my life in company of dogs and chickens...now that said, sheep and larger farmy beasts were not an option in my early years as my parents had the attitude that those being their roots, they were not going to pursue that avenue...mostly at the time, farm livestock being kept for no other reason than you were an operating FARM. In fact, I know why my parents were aghast at my insistence on having chickens...as soon as I could communicate my needs, "I want chickens" was bantered about until they finally broke down and succumbed to my craze. My father's mother, she burst into tears and in her broken English...told me "Tara you don't want a farm!" when I proudly announced that Rick (Golden Hands she called him...LOL) and I were buying an acreage and getting hobby farm going. She was some upset until I could finally make her understand...that I was not quitting my job as an accountant, but coming home to a small plot of land to grow my own food and "playing" at being a farm. She had her reasons as she said the farm life was hard...and true enough, in Northern Europe, it was hard for her and her family. They had a huge estate and ran a farm where they even grew flax, spun that to thread and I have some of the fabric from the old country.
Vintage birds and collectibles ON Flax cloth grown, spun and woven from the Old Country
Yeh, how tough a life where you even made your own fabrics...sustenance farming to the "n"th degree.
So there we were, building facilities, acquiring good starts in poultry. After five years of breeding what I figured were good birds, I wanted some side by each testing done. So we geared up and entered our very first poultry show. WOW...now I have never and likely will never enter landfowl. I am not foolish enough to even venture there with my vet's words ringing in my ears, "Do you want what everyone else has?" Nope, no respiratory illnesses thanks... This being why I figure most exhibition stocks are not productive. What one bird has at the show...after one day cooped up in the same building all together...every entry there has been exposed to whatever every bird has. Many a carrier looks and acts perfectly healthful, and all around, birds are dropping and succumbing to what they survivors of. No matter, no need to do another rant about not showing landfowl to suffice to say, waterfowl was going to be all I would risk and even there, home and 4 weeks of quarantine AFTER washing them in Stone's Surgical Soap to try and decontaminate anything that they might have brought home on their feathers.
Quarantine...Ruddies and Mandarins...Hay and Straw Barn
All new birds get quarantined here for a month
So we bath, let them dry
East Indies
White Calls
Yep...located right in front of the living room wood stove to dry off after bathing...poor Rick...poor me...get them cleaned and outta the house...blocking the TV and the happy chorggurling of ducks...quiet already...nope, so get them ready and outside to wait...have to be careful too...you wash off their oils on feathers and make them less able to cope with temperature extremes...risk biz!
So we make ready the farm and all things to go to the show... (minus thirty C...cold cold cold!) and we go...I show lots of varieties of Calls...Magpie, Blue Fawn, Self-Chocolate...Greys, Whites...the judge is a sanctioned judge for the States and an older person...but they seem to almost FLOAT down the aisles...marvelous...so excited to judge so many Calls. Now they had just judged some Calls at another show and they were beside themselves on the type... I asked them, "how do you mean?" and got told, so many Calls were unbalanced...tippy forward or back, could not stand up straight and level and all ours entered where that...balanced. To my thoughts, incredible anyone would enter a bird unbalanced...for to be happy and healthy, you need to be able to move well, that meaning, level, stand up on two or four feet...no foot, no animal or bird!
No matter...
Here is the sensation of that show...our first entry at a poultry show. This is Rosy...a Blue Fawn Call Hen...the judge, put her up as Reserve in Breed...no real thing until one realizes (and in my case is told), this variety at that time was an unrecognized variety. The colour pattern was "any other variety" classification at the sanctioned show meaning the variety was not allowed to compete for breed...not Best of or Reserve. Now the judge did say "I may get in trouble for this" and we were unsure as to what that meant?? Remember, our first bird show, our first entry, I had a copy of the Bantam Standard so I knew how to place what varieties I had for entry but the simple fact that all the unrecognized varieties I had entered could go no farther than "variety" as in best of or reserve was lost on me. I wanted the birds to be side by each to other Calls so I myself could judge how my breeding after five years was going.
Other firsts for us...
Best Trio in Show
Not perfect but this Magpie male (still alive and well here) was Best Variety at our first show.
Best of Variety - Magpie Call young male
Call Hen Flake
One year's show string - bathed, poofed and ready to go to the show
All the birds are show trained...
Had these cages made up by a rabbit cage maker, $75 each x 2
This is first round on oat straw - our usual bedding
Next training on shavings
By being out front at the Duck Barn, all exposed to comings and goings...
Only out during day time and play a radio for sounds, tie some flappy noisy plastic bags...
Desensitize and make the show environment a piece of cake fur yer birdles!
One show, they had sharp (and I mean OUCH!) shavings...I had practised the waterfowl to be shown on shavings, but soft ones...well well...my white drake was standing tippy toe and took me until after showing to realize...his poor tender webbers were irritated with the sharp shavings...so there is a key clue if you see one of your birds standing tippy toe...the bedding is bothering them. We bring our own water and food to the shows...so the birds are not put off, but now I know to pack some shavings too...jest in case the sharp ones are on offer! LOL
I even decided a few years later to breed up a display in the Calls...a Display in Pastel, another marked variety.
A display is one trio of young birds (two girls and a boy) and a trio of old birds, two pairs (male and female, duh!) in old and young. Old is over a year of age, young being under a year.
Now you do this to show off (OK...prove perhaps), that you can produce consistent poultry. That your stocks are peas in a pod.
When a trio is judged...the two females must match each other and the male is to compliment the females. If there is a tie in a trio, the best trio MALE is like the tie breaker.
Young Mel...Reserve in Breed
Got a entry for Reserve in Breed for a young East Indie we bred up.
One factor in East Indies...judges don't get the benefit to see a true Indie trait...the production of BLACK eggs when the females begin laying...unless the eggs were entered in an egg judging contest...the judge would not get to see this cool characteristic.
Now I have become often disillusion with people...especially in the interpretation of Standards...the words are our law...we are to follow you'd figure...but as always, I find people let me down, never the birds.
In one thing, the East Indies...you read the Standard and books by great judges like Darrel Sheraw...and you are told that the Indie head is midway between a Call duck (round) and a Mallard (snake like). Well my entries at several shows have had judges tell me, the Standard is wrong...what? That the BEI (Black East Indie) is to have a snake head! Well fine and dandy, if that is where the Standard is to go but quite frankly, I have bred our Indies to the Standard...so until and when the Standard is CHANGED...I call unfair. You are to go by the written words in the Standard, the latest edition...and that be that. If the current Standard for a breed is wrong, have it changed but until it is changed...can you see the problem for someone like myself.
I keep to myself, don't mingle with many persons...don't have my fingers on the latest pulse, fad or otherwise. So when I show a bird, I expect my entry fee and work to get the bird there, to be judge as per the latest version of the Standard...the words are law until changed. That is one of the disappointments I discovered showing the East Indies...sigh
So I have not gotten the latest edition of the APA SOP (2016)...maybe the Indies have a new head shape since the 2010?
So that be my entry for today...more to follow--not dead yet...
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
So it is always kinda fun to find out how one gets into something like exhibition...no, not exhibiting ourselves in public...doG have mercy...
But how we go about the steps we take during this journey we call life (see warned you about how long New Year's was gonna last, eh).
I personally have the belief that you either are kin to animals (beasts and birds, not all but some) or are not. The ingrain attitude where a human walks along and suddenly is vividly aware that we humans are not the center of the Universe, let alone center of the Earth...but merely a part of the cycle of life. What I mean is we have a kinship, an unspoken connection to other living beings besides other humanoids.
Reverend C.S. McGrath, Bantams Are My Hobby at Ninety Years of Age, ABA Yearbook, 1963:
I found my soul mates in dogs, chickens, wild birds and such as far back as I can remember. I would far rather spend time with dogs and birds than people and that may seem odd but not so much for persons here on BYC...for I am sure many of you know we are social, but in a whole different set of ways. People disappoint, people mislead, lie and in my mind, cast doubt in all respects that make me ponder if I even belonged to such a grouping! You can't count on a person, but my dog or a chicken...you had far less expectations but you never came away disappointed at their conduct. I trust dogs and birds...hardly can I say that about the majority of people I have had to interact with. And don't label me anti-social because you can bet your bippy, my happiest moments are spend surrounded by living beings...they just so happen NOT to be made up of my own species.
I like to say, "the birds never lie, people will!" and I have proven that to myself time and again...got a line of Chocolate Call ducks...and I kept noting...that strain would hang around my Black East Indies if and when given a choice. The birds never lie...I asked, many times of the person that I acquired the birds from, by e-mail and letter (always in writing) as to whether or not they had resorted to crossing the two breeds (yes, all of these bantam ducks can be traced back to the Mallard, but in the SOP sense and breeding wise...different breeds these two). Finally, knowing my Choco ducks in this line were not lying, I happened to once again query this person on the telephone and I guess I wore them down..."Why, yes, they had crossed these chocolate Calls with Black East Indies...their hope had been to improve them." I am still on good terms with this person, so much so that when I dropped the chocolates they had created and pursued my two other strains...they wanted some of my stocks. LMBO The problem I saw with adding East Indie to the Chocolate Call was the old age white feathering...in some cases, juvenile white feathering was haphazardly appearing. Again, said...the birds never lie...people do (or at best, avoid fessing up...bearing false witness).
This is Sprinkles, Best of Variety (unrecognized at the time) - large & coarse in type...
Shown at my first poultry show entry...I wanted feedback as to what version of chocolate was wanted
The judge seemed mystified on my entry but I convinced them it was "all about the colour"
Some time later, my version of a Chocolate Call, that rich dark chocolate plus breed type
Why yes, that is a golf ball and a pound of butter to show size comparison
Make a fist...that be the Choco delights size
Showed this Call duck to rave reviews at the last Poultry show we entered
By then, an accepted variety in the Call Duck breed...woot!
So I began my life in company of dogs and chickens...now that said, sheep and larger farmy beasts were not an option in my early years as my parents had the attitude that those being their roots, they were not going to pursue that avenue...mostly at the time, farm livestock being kept for no other reason than you were an operating FARM. In fact, I know why my parents were aghast at my insistence on having chickens...as soon as I could communicate my needs, "I want chickens" was bantered about until they finally broke down and succumbed to my craze. My father's mother, she burst into tears and in her broken English...told me "Tara you don't want a farm!" when I proudly announced that Rick (Golden Hands she called him...LOL) and I were buying an acreage and getting hobby farm going. She was some upset until I could finally make her understand...that I was not quitting my job as an accountant, but coming home to a small plot of land to grow my own food and "playing" at being a farm. She had her reasons as she said the farm life was hard...and true enough, in Northern Europe, it was hard for her and her family. They had a huge estate and ran a farm where they even grew flax, spun that to thread and I have some of the fabric from the old country.
Vintage birds and collectibles ON Flax cloth grown, spun and woven from the Old Country
Yeh, how tough a life where you even made your own fabrics...sustenance farming to the "n"th degree.
So there we were, building facilities, acquiring good starts in poultry. After five years of breeding what I figured were good birds, I wanted some side by each testing done. So we geared up and entered our very first poultry show. WOW...now I have never and likely will never enter landfowl. I am not foolish enough to even venture there with my vet's words ringing in my ears, "Do you want what everyone else has?" Nope, no respiratory illnesses thanks... This being why I figure most exhibition stocks are not productive. What one bird has at the show...after one day cooped up in the same building all together...every entry there has been exposed to whatever every bird has. Many a carrier looks and acts perfectly healthful, and all around, birds are dropping and succumbing to what they survivors of. No matter, no need to do another rant about not showing landfowl to suffice to say, waterfowl was going to be all I would risk and even there, home and 4 weeks of quarantine AFTER washing them in Stone's Surgical Soap to try and decontaminate anything that they might have brought home on their feathers.
Quarantine...Ruddies and Mandarins...Hay and Straw Barn
All new birds get quarantined here for a month
So we bath, let them dry
East Indies
White Calls
Yep...located right in front of the living room wood stove to dry off after bathing...poor Rick...poor me...get them cleaned and outta the house...blocking the TV and the happy chorggurling of ducks...quiet already...nope, so get them ready and outside to wait...have to be careful too...you wash off their oils on feathers and make them less able to cope with temperature extremes...risk biz!
So we make ready the farm and all things to go to the show... (minus thirty C...cold cold cold!) and we go...I show lots of varieties of Calls...Magpie, Blue Fawn, Self-Chocolate...Greys, Whites...the judge is a sanctioned judge for the States and an older person...but they seem to almost FLOAT down the aisles...marvelous...so excited to judge so many Calls. Now they had just judged some Calls at another show and they were beside themselves on the type... I asked them, "how do you mean?" and got told, so many Calls were unbalanced...tippy forward or back, could not stand up straight and level and all ours entered where that...balanced. To my thoughts, incredible anyone would enter a bird unbalanced...for to be happy and healthy, you need to be able to move well, that meaning, level, stand up on two or four feet...no foot, no animal or bird!
No matter...
Here is the sensation of that show...our first entry at a poultry show. This is Rosy...a Blue Fawn Call Hen...the judge, put her up as Reserve in Breed...no real thing until one realizes (and in my case is told), this variety at that time was an unrecognized variety. The colour pattern was "any other variety" classification at the sanctioned show meaning the variety was not allowed to compete for breed...not Best of or Reserve. Now the judge did say "I may get in trouble for this" and we were unsure as to what that meant?? Remember, our first bird show, our first entry, I had a copy of the Bantam Standard so I knew how to place what varieties I had for entry but the simple fact that all the unrecognized varieties I had entered could go no farther than "variety" as in best of or reserve was lost on me. I wanted the birds to be side by each to other Calls so I myself could judge how my breeding after five years was going.
Other firsts for us...
Best Trio in Show
Not perfect but this Magpie male (still alive and well here) was Best Variety at our first show.
Best of Variety - Magpie Call young male
Call Hen Flake
One year's show string - bathed, poofed and ready to go to the show
All the birds are show trained...
Had these cages made up by a rabbit cage maker, $75 each x 2
This is first round on oat straw - our usual bedding
Next training on shavings
By being out front at the Duck Barn, all exposed to comings and goings...
Only out during day time and play a radio for sounds, tie some flappy noisy plastic bags...
Desensitize and make the show environment a piece of cake fur yer birdles!
One show, they had sharp (and I mean OUCH!) shavings...I had practised the waterfowl to be shown on shavings, but soft ones...well well...my white drake was standing tippy toe and took me until after showing to realize...his poor tender webbers were irritated with the sharp shavings...so there is a key clue if you see one of your birds standing tippy toe...the bedding is bothering them. We bring our own water and food to the shows...so the birds are not put off, but now I know to pack some shavings too...jest in case the sharp ones are on offer! LOL
I even decided a few years later to breed up a display in the Calls...a Display in Pastel, another marked variety.
A display is one trio of young birds (two girls and a boy) and a trio of old birds, two pairs (male and female, duh!) in old and young. Old is over a year of age, young being under a year.
Now you do this to show off (OK...prove perhaps), that you can produce consistent poultry. That your stocks are peas in a pod.
When a trio is judged...the two females must match each other and the male is to compliment the females. If there is a tie in a trio, the best trio MALE is like the tie breaker.
Young Mel...Reserve in Breed
Got a entry for Reserve in Breed for a young East Indie we bred up.
One factor in East Indies...judges don't get the benefit to see a true Indie trait...the production of BLACK eggs when the females begin laying...unless the eggs were entered in an egg judging contest...the judge would not get to see this cool characteristic.
Now I have become often disillusion with people...especially in the interpretation of Standards...the words are our law...we are to follow you'd figure...but as always, I find people let me down, never the birds.
In one thing, the East Indies...you read the Standard and books by great judges like Darrel Sheraw...and you are told that the Indie head is midway between a Call duck (round) and a Mallard (snake like). Well my entries at several shows have had judges tell me, the Standard is wrong...what? That the BEI (Black East Indie) is to have a snake head! Well fine and dandy, if that is where the Standard is to go but quite frankly, I have bred our Indies to the Standard...so until and when the Standard is CHANGED...I call unfair. You are to go by the written words in the Standard, the latest edition...and that be that. If the current Standard for a breed is wrong, have it changed but until it is changed...can you see the problem for someone like myself.
I keep to myself, don't mingle with many persons...don't have my fingers on the latest pulse, fad or otherwise. So when I show a bird, I expect my entry fee and work to get the bird there, to be judge as per the latest version of the Standard...the words are law until changed. That is one of the disappointments I discovered showing the East Indies...sigh
So I have not gotten the latest edition of the APA SOP (2016)...maybe the Indies have a new head shape since the 2010?
So that be my entry for today...more to follow--not dead yet...
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
- Thread starter
- #2,090
Heel low:
What I find whimsically funny, or at best amusing...I've always lived in the middle of no-where's...in the sense, there was no "oldtimer" you wandered down the lane to pick their brains on. No group of my peers simply because by the time I had invested 35 years in my apprenticeship in poultry, I was the OLD timer...sigh. My peers did not exist and rarely to find anyone as keen and "nutso" as myself about these hobby things. It has been a lonely wander abouts...sometimes finding someone close to the same, but often not so much where I am at. Use to that, the brambly path is not often taken and well, so be it.
Bobi Anthony:
MdF Booted Bantam - Saddle & Hackle in 16 month old male
I have had friends with similar interests but always the beasty ones at a distance. I share, they share, we pick the parts useful to us--like mailing Mr. Ridler a feathered up paper of MdF Booteds, so he could converse with me about where my stocks were currently at...I have yet to find an individual that does what I do and that's a good thing...can't have too many like me running round wild and out and about. The authorities would be overwhelmed knowing there were too many strange ones about. Best stay home and outta harm's way, eh.
What the oldtimers lacked was genetic knowledge. During my conversations with Gordon Ridler...he said when breeding the Booteds in MdF, having a white bird pop out on occasion was a great sign you had all the components in the strain for the best MdF's possible (the right stuff he called it). What he could not say is simple to me now. Recessive white in one dose made the colours pop on the MdF. I read about this in Creative Poultry Breeding by Carefoot (boy it would have been fun to chaw the fat with that man) and when I told Dr. Crawford (Editor of the Chicken Genetics Bible) what Mr. Ridler had told me...Roy blurted out, that he was a "very wise man" and he HAD to be...he was crippled by his lack of scientific genetic knowledge. Wise, smart, observant and stubborn...had to be that and more to understand that one white bird MEANT something...think on it...to know his breedings were with parents he knew, the progeny what he knew and where they came from...heck we got persons here on the Globe that don't know their own fathers...and the tenacity of sticking to this breeding program to know the outcomes and the signs you got it going on...wow.
Persons like myself can talk to people all over the world now and exchange chicken colour recipes...you need C/c"+" in the MdF...C/c"+" is heterozygous for recessive white...and yes, white birds will pop outta the MdF's that are impure for recessive white. This tidbit with science of the study of genetics behind it, improves my chances of doing well so much!
Imagine the speeding up the hobby has seen when I can list the mutations required for the recipe for a variety and we can "get on with" other puzzles. WOW...breeding is an art and a science for we must know the artistic talent we weld crafting birds, compared easily too like growing a flower garden only we are making beauty in form and feathers...LOL
Any persons touting that SOP breeding is only an art and full of luck...is still living in the dark ages and is there by their own choice. Fear, discrediting the unknown to them...what a treasure trove of magnificent details is eluding them...I feel so sorry for them. Choosing to hold themselves and their birds back. Breeding SOP compliance is and will always be...a science and an art...hand in hand helping both sides of the equation to profound greatness. Course don't ever conclude that science and art conjoined twins is a new concept...hardly...1876...read onwards, eh.
H.H. Stoddard, The Art of "Breeding to a Feather," Poultry World, 1876:
The improved varieties of the domestic fowls, in the last 40 or 50 years, that have been bred by such men as Sir John Sebright, in his beautiful Gold and Silver-laced Bantams, the origination of the splendid Duckwing Games, the establishment of the Gold and Silver Hamburgs and Polish fowls, the fine Silver-gray Dorkings, the nicely penciled Light and Dark Brahmas, etc., show how nearly this process approaches a "scientific" result, and how approximately it may be designated as an art.
It is the work of years to bring this thing about to a degree approximating perfection. Yet within half a century the sorts of birds we have above enumerated have all been created by judicious crossing and subsequent selection, with a view to producing a given cast of plumage in these different kinds, now know as "distinct varieties."
It is an intensely interesting process to experiment with this breeding of birds to a feather. We cannot decide why it is that there are such variations in colors inthe originals; why the comingling of certain races produces the different exquisite combinations and markings we thus obtain; why or how this diversification in hue and brilliancy results, for all these secrets in nature are as yet unknown to philosopher and peasant alike.
But we watch the operations of nature's laws, we combine this and that together, we select and mate and breed again and again, and, after patient labor and attentive applications a lucky hit is made, which, in the future, gives to the world a beautifully-plumed fowl of novel feathering, that subsequently produces its like for a hundred generations in succession, almost without variation.
And this is a nice thing to accomplish. It is a science to understand how to bring about such a result. It is a gain to the higher interests of the poultry-loving world. It is an art, indeed, to succeed in this experiment. And every man who goes about this undertaking in the course of his poultry experiences will find among his highest gratification, if he can compass this to his satisfaction, in however limited a degree, after many and repeated trails.
It bears repeating...keeping note that "nature's laws" would be the same as the genetics, the laws of inheritance that so many of us lucky buggers now study!
Mendel published his works on pea plants in 1866...so genetics in the sense of the science we all now enjoy (if we wish to face the fear of gobbly gooked up letters, eh!), my my my how those would make Stoddard's eye balls pop out, eh! Not so much an art of by guess by golly, but often a methodical combination of known mutations and wild type balanced by the irreplaceable talents of the ART in the hobby ... we cannot exclude the magic of knowing what to cross and what to keep and what to do with the stocks once you get breeding them up. Plain foolish luck, knowing what to select for, tossing the dice and double crossing your fingers and toes...but also looking AT the F1's and onwards and knowing by study what you are gazing upon.
As titled in Fred P. Jeffrey's book, Bantam Chickens...Chapter 5 ...
Heed this advice or be left in the dust as others roar past you if you choose to ignore the combination it takes to create a Fancier's folly...breeding for birds that suit the words contained in the Standards of Perfection!
When I crossed this self white male bantam Wyandotte...
with this marked Sliver Laced Bantam Wyandotte hen...
the talent was having the scientific knowledge to know what these F1's had...
F1 females
The SCIENCE in breeding the Higgins White Dove Bantam Chants was knowing from the five years invested in breeding marked or colour patterns to whites to find out what was UNDER the self whites. A white bird or a black bird can be everything and anything under the eumelanin or no pigment...ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Above, F1's from white x silver laced...the hen has to be only Silver (she's a silver laced...duh!) ...so knowing above, the female on the left is SILVER and the female on the right is GOLD...what does that tell you? Oh my it shouts out tons!
Answer...the P1 (P for parent) silver laced hen is only Silver...the P1 self white male, good golly MIss Molly...HE has to have been hiding GOLD in the s-series--he mighten have been both Silver and gold but GOLD...gold in the s-series was going to be in the mix (great news for Partridge and self-Buff variety wants in future generations!)! The mother can only be Silver so by throwing out a silver daughter and a gold daughter...that SCREAMED for me...watch out because under that self-white of the male is GOLD hidden away! That is the science and the art of knowing what you are up against when miniaturizing a large fowl and wanting some of the progeny down the road (a twelve year journey thus far!) to be selfwhites.
Know in your heart, embrace science and art...no fear, you'll get her done...LOL The birds NEVER LIE!
Dr. Carefoot talks about the rarity of "a bird of class" and I have to agree...rare as chicken teeth the ones that you create, oft a once in a lifetime experience...that greatness that takes your breath away.
I have always been away from the thick of the poultry hobby and figure, what can't be conveyed by telephone, letter & mail, e-mails and photos...oh well...I've still done quite well with my limitations.
Not that I have nothing left to learn. You find the more you scoop up, replace and retain, the more you realize how little you know. I simply don't have any "peers" or "mentors in the flesh" to bother. As a young child, the available poultry texts were commercial poultry farming and then the far expanse, on the other side...Flossy and Bossy...a child's version of a chickeny story.
We are ever so lucky now to have hordes of publications and the Internet to do research on, e-mails and photos to exchange all over this wide world.
Here is a list of good chickeny reads off my website, added in the Chicken Extremes: - Genetics of the Chicken Extremes, By Sigrid Van Dort & Friends. Copyright 2012, ISBN 978 94 6190 118 7
- Chicken Diseases, By F.P. Jeffrey, Copyright 2005, Published by the American Bantam Association.
- The Chicken Health Handbook, By Gail Damerow, Copright 1994, ISBN 10 0 88266 611 8 (pbk).
- The American Brahma Club Handbook, Featuring the "Wit and Wisdom" of John Miller Freeman, Copyright 1988.
- Wyandotte Bantams, Editted by F.P. Jeffrey, Copyright 1984, Published by the American Bantam Association.
Some very basic rooles I have. To have any chance to make improvements in Poultry, be a Fancier...you need to have zero predation, good facilities that are stress free as possible, excellent feeding and watering practices so the birds can prosper and thrive past their genetic potentials, and always number one, a good start to begin with. Try out a breed from a hatchery if you must, a great way to see if you even like the breed and variety and won't bring home diseases (usually a safe place but in recent times...not so much, so be careful and do homework!),
Predation, if you can't keep the birds alive, why bother. If you feed the wolves always scratching at your door...why bother? For me, until one has mastered keeping the dang things alive...always gonna have yourself half dressed for work, running down the driveway with the broom putting the run on Nature's expectations...keep birds to feed the wilds is probably THE most dismal prospect you will ever face and face it and win I say. Zero predation since Earth Day 2007 when only once, I left an old retired Dark Brahma bantam hen outside instead of doing the proper head count and a most welcome rodent eating owl ate her. My fault, my fix. Basically to me, you are not a Fancier if you cannot keep your property from being harmed by containment fails.
Diet for the captive wild Mandarin Duck
Feed and water, if you can't offer up a diet the birds can balance for themselves (basic ration with addition of whole grains, greens, oyster shell and insoluable grit), all the genetic potential in the world will never be achieved. The bottleneck stop is if you do not provide what the birds need to be all they can be...food and water, above mentioned facilities.
Greens...a little joy and happiness like grass, romaine, chopped veg like celery, cauliflower...goosey treats...bird joys...happiness!
Aim for Zero Stress...stress happens, from changes in day to night temps to another bird begins to peck for a better place on the roost. Stress weakens, shows up in letting disease (all around us) grab hold, uses up resources that would be better angled on making better feathers, just simply keep the birds happy. Feeding greens in winter, no real nutritional benefit BUT happy birds live longer productive lives...they are happy, you are happy...simple.
Aim for the feel good HAPPY & JOY...keep the birds as you yourself would choose. NO kids messing with the tranquility, disturbing the peace, no pets harassing the birds, no predators making nightly visits (double wire the top of pens...birds like pheasants and ducks will leap in the air to avoid predation...right into the awaiting claws and beaks of predatory birds like owls...double wire the roof about eight to 12 inch space and never find a pen full of headless, dropped stocks!--or better yet! Metal roof yer pens and never worry about it again).
And don't even get me started on persons that begin with hatching eggs and try to say, so and so's lines...good gack. You need 214 hatching eggs to get ONE decent trio...half don't hatch when shipped, down to 107 day olds hatched out...seven will die maturing out...down to 100 and top 3 percent is your breeding prospect retention. Get adult birds, proven to make it to at least the fall if hatched in the spring. A GOOD START...not a dozen eggs where six hatch, one or two die and you say, these are so and so's birds...no they are not...besides, once a bird leaves someone's establishment...they are now YOUR going concern. I get we get good genetics...I am guilty of saying such and such line too...but these will be MY take on that line the moment "I" take possession and make the decisions affecting those birds. Start with three pairs, two males to keep each other company, a quad for breeding and cycle the boys thru the three females and keep your genetic avenues WIDE OPEN with the foundation stocks...do more inbreeding as things go along but your widest diversity starts in your good start...grab as much variation as possible and make selections on the biggest number of progeny manageable.
I passed a question on to Rick the other day...hypothetical since we have over 30 buildings for beasts. He's the maker of the facilities building wise...like the Christmas Carol story version I remember as a comedy where Scrooge empties the bottles and Bob puts boats in the bottles...yeh...Rick makes the buildings (with support from me on the dumb end!) and I fill them up so he has to make more. Actually, did a tally right now and got a dozen empty pens...including the Veg Garden is completely empty right now...better get hatching eh?
How much would it cost to have a building to maintain a flock of chickens? Budge wise. The building, in his mind of a decent set up...$15000. Five for materials (pen roofed in metal, hardware clothed, house for them to reside in at night to keep warm or cool in heat of summer...so insulated) and ten for the labour...savings found when you do the building yourself.
My mindset if you want to have chickens and breed some...four compartments...so my ideal of keeping some chickens...a two car garage like our Veg Garden building. Four compartments, one for the main flock hens and roos...one for brooding, ideally this one other compartment in a separate location for quarantine but hey, a pen for if someone needs to recover from being picked upon and the last fourth one for extra males. We keep as many males as females...diversity never harms you and the best roo, he's the one that up and kicks just before you wanted to set eggs. So four compartments, main flock, quarantine/injury recovery or grow out for meat cockerels or even just juveniles, hens and chicks or just chicks if you artificially incubate and one pen for extra males...reserve males to ensure you never are without the ability to make more.
I showed our waterfowl for a very short period--pretty wimpy but pretty good enough for me and mine. We got what we needed, side by each other person's birds...asked questions, got blank looks regarding genetics and decided, enough is enough. With each and every show attended, it was like you were running a larger and larger RISK that you would bring something home to kill or disease up the rest of what you left behind, in the hopes of keeping safe. Besides...I kept running into judges that were doing the most bizarre of things. How are you suppose to form your entire breeding plans around persons that don't jive with your ideals? I already know I am keener on Chanteclers and Calls than most regular judges...would love to show under Sheraw, he's a master I would love to poke and hear what he had to say...but that is just that...his opinion, which will vary from my own. Do I want to lose my birds because I needed to hear someone else's opinion on what makes Rick and I happy?
The last show we entered birds...waited to ask the ring steward if the sanctioned judge (foreign judge) could comment on the waterfowl and landfowl...so we patiently waited while the judge was explaining "duck foot" to an exhibitor that's chicken had been deemed to have that disqualification. Myself and a friend stood back and listened intently.
The discussion between owner and judge began to seem heated...sigh...the judge asked the exhibitor if it was alright to show the bird in question's duck feet, to have a bird in hand so to speak to better explain the DQ. The judge took the bird outta the cage and then proceeded to "hang the bird upside down." The bird started to gag...the bird started gasping and began retching and still the judge was trying to explain the duck foot by holding the bird upside DOWN. Both myself and my friend were mesmorized by this...stunned more...if Rick had been there, I already know he'd have batted the judge and righted the bird! Good gosh already. Well for what seemed like forever, the now limp and lifeless bird hung upside down in the judge's hands dribbling a stream of fluid from its beak and the heated discussion continued. Forever ended and the judge righted the now blue floppy bird. I swear it was dead but it let out a cough and regained itself...still purple blue in the face, I was just amazed it was alive. I've seen persons remove birds for processing, uneducated cads that are hired to collect factory farmed mush meats or at the end of production swill eggers (we likely seen undercover videos of multiple birds turned upside down--multiples held in one hand), but never seen any of us Fanciers hang birds upside down. Sometimes even just collecting up a bird that has recently drank or eaten, you can get gobbled up on. The anatomy of poultry seems to incite that if you hang them upside down, because they drink and extend their necks to let gravity pull fluids down their neck...switch it and yer likely to reverse or when righted drown the bird's lungs...I avoid this maneuver as figure its pretty risky to do. That incident pretty much summed up why we ended showing. I don't recall too much from the judge after the dangling of the bird...other than the "quicker the bird goes into production the better" and the "larger the same aged specimens were was how they quickly culled out their stocks." I love the competition, seeing bird beside bird, the fun the whatnots...but this was a reality check that simply sealed the "why bother" aspect for me. I am fine with others showing, have at it but I've had enough and that be that.
The last show where I was at, rose combs were put up as "Chanteclers!" Mystified me totally. I was not there with any birds, I was there to judge showmanship competition and teach a Boo Dilution seminar. I found some time after I had packed up my gear to go up and down the aisles of Chants and there stood one with frothing eyes (I quickly moved on and was EVER so glad I was going to my son's to strip my clothes, wash them and wash myself and then entering another vehicle to go home...Rick was coming to get me after work). Even going by myself, I too could have been a vector of grave dangers! Good GACK!
Judging of the waterfowl, the Calls was coming to an end, so I hovered back outta the way and listened to the judge. The judge was trying to decide which of two varieties in the Calls to place as Best of Breed and Reserve. The judge was talking out loud , so I listened. Now do keep in mind, some points go for shape-breed and some points go for variety-colour usually...self whites have a different number of points than the marked or colour patterned birds...self whites and self blacks are often the birds that win breed (and best in shows quite often too!) because there are usually less colour faults than the marked patterns. So the judge said, the white was a bird with the most points but they knew that marked birds (the grey in this case) were harder to get correct. As I watched, the judge placed the Grey Call Duck as Best of Breed and the White Call Duck as Reserve in Breed. By their own comments, this was incorrect. They had tallied up the points and the White bird had more. Now in this case, the same exhibitor owned both birds BUT to me, right is right as rain. A judge is not suppose to know the owners of the bird either. You tally points up to keep it fair...such and such points for this and that, tally the total and for integrity's sake, you do it proper. by the judge's own admission, they put up the lesser bird...that is wrong, and that to me is cheating. The true higher pointed is suppose to win...simple.
As you all know, I am a very black and white, one plus one = two personality with little room for error, maybes or greys...over in Europe a few years back...there was a campaign in place where judges of poultry were be rigorously taught to be identical, methodical in their judging. Trying to remove the personal opinions that we see humans express when judging. I know we are allowed to interpret the SOP words in our own tallies...indeed, I may like one judge's opinion over another's on the exact same details...
Dr. Carefoot (now there's a person if he were still alive and down the lane, oh to have five minutes to pick his brain and watch him examine a bird!) would say in his book that you would choose your birds to exhibit by knowing the judge. I found it overly frustrating, verging on ridiculous here...as they would often not announce what sanctioned judge was at a show until you showed up with your show string. Dr. Carefoot would even tailor his breeding schemes around what judge was judging. That was incredible...to tailor his entry by breeding what he figured would do well under that judge. A master breeder, Carefoot would time the life cycle of his show birds to...wait for it...to have laid a few eggs but still not have dropped in body...in wonderful showable condition, not worn out from laying eggs or moulting or even the mere fact that he KNEW his stocks so well he could time showing a female after a few eggs and not too far into her laying cycle. A MASTER at breeding indeed...and blessed to know who he was showing his birds too. Why, because if the judge was a hard feather breeder (as many judges are Fanciers themselves...duh!), or a soft feather breeder or one that liked shape over colour pattern, etc. He studied the judge, went to shows and saw how the judge presided over the show, what birds seemed to tweak their fancy. Then Carefoot would enter some birds he figured would please the judge, and then a few HE saw as pleasing his ideals...it is marvelous to see that Carefoot comments that sometimes the judge and his opinion were the same and the judge put up the birds he thought should win. LOL
Do watch out for persons that spew out all this advice...and when asked to "show you" the chicken in the flesh they speak about...that the person has no foundation or experience to PROVE what they spew. I am seeing that often nowadays...persons elevating themselves with these smoke and mirrors...I have no issue with study and theory to back you up...but breed too and prove the theory...now that is what we should be doing. Lots of verbal diarrhea out thar. Show me, don't tell me...why I post photos...LOOKIT what I am saying and if you see something else in what I say, by all means, jump in and have at it. A debate is great fun of persons on opposing sides...boring totally if we all agreed, eh.
Now keep in mind...there are words from the wise and just as easily, "no fool like an old fool!" One of my fav stunned yesteryear comments, that the female gives shape and the male gives colour...WRONG!! I can see the basis way back when, when it was less understood that the hen decided gender and had a chromosome that could not contain any useful genetic information on colour (too short--her purse was too tiny to stuff much of anything past she was PINK in gender...LOL!). A hen was pure for say Silver or gold, whereas the rooster was pure for Silver or gold or impure as in Silver and gold! Then that made perfect sense that the male was master of the colour in the lines. Past that, old rhymes of old timers sometimes bite the big one and need to be retired because the science has superseded the art of breeding.
Tara Lee Higgins - November 11, 2007:
I stand by the above statement because if you lack the wanted colour...woe be to anyone that thinks the colour (many are mutations from wild type) you want will POP outta no where. Sure, sure, you begin with a good start, that is GREAT advice in that the breed you choose has the shape desired. I can cross my birds and pull colour genetics I want and mix and match, use that TINT to my advantage in things like crossing varieties within a breed to boost healthy hybrid vigour (see my Booteds as an example...no new blood for decades now...just crossing rec white and the MdF pattern for eggs and vigour, production and fertility...). I am sure my statement above would make oldtimers turn in their graves.
Build the barn and then paint it has been flogged for years...I take a well built barn and go about dissecting it to paint it with the tints I want to see in the end product
Remember...we have dissected the colour aspects in poultry alot and are pretty good at knowing the genetics for colour and pattern...but not so much on the dynamics of say, what makes a chicken BIG or SMALL consistently past a few guesses and hybrid vigour. WE do know alot about colour genetics from studying it, but we know so very little about other aspects...and even then, we keep discovering new items...all what science is suppose to do...keep us striving to learn more and more...
What makes me smile is that true builders carpenters or cabinet makers in Rick's case, past the measure twice and cut once and forget going for drywall stretchers...when the building really really matters...they will build it, dismantle it, paint it and then build it final.
What do I mean...here's the Taj Mahal...the Mandarin Building...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...a-mandarin-ducks-mega-photos/20#post_15914199
Dry assembled in the driveway
Painted...
Painted up, wired - the pieces dismantled and moved
Fitting her back together - we used the tractor to do this...brand new to us back then...WOOT
TADA...The Taj Mahal is completed!!!
Rick built this out in our driveway, painted, dismantled (unbuilt) and put together in its final resting place...build and painted, dismantled and finally build for real. All the seams are covered in that paint, protected and the building (unless a precariously leaning tree takes it out) should last me our lifetimes...that is the hope.
So the analogy of building the barn first and paining it...sucks! Fine if you are not a keener...get that...but when you are into the fashioning of something to last, something of top quality...you go the extra mile and do the extra work. Like getting the tint, holding on to that while you build that barn...Barn is already pretty ship shape but you are willing to tear it apart to grab the desired quality you want (the tint) and rebuild it back up to its former greatness.
I can say if you start with a good enough line, ancient ones like we have here (John Kriner senior not junior, Wallace, Halbach, Frampton, Hughes, Mitchell, Bro Wilfrid's...etc...), the old lines were bred for years and years...the top three percent retained and bred many birds forward on and always selected and breeding prospects proving themselves by being at least one year of age before making more from...those are key to being allowed then to wreck the line...dismantle it because it has the solid foundation, the quality parts you can resurrect back up and still have what you had to begin with, but now in a new version...YOUR OWN version on a masterpiece...so to speak without my chest puffing up so full I fall down go boom ... oh my eye! LOL
Call Duck eggs - never EVER set a bad egg...set only great looking eggs for great birds!
Learn so many things...small eggs, yes, choose those for bantams, but never discount larger eggs from small fertile, vigorous hens...never coddle too much...you want bantam birds, but heavens, they should be of a stature and nature where you would not know they are bantam...if photos are taken without some measurement to show how little they be...they are like large fowl standards but in a mini version...that being the only difference we hope and pray for!
There is never any reason to drop your standards and we all have to have set out the minimum we can stand for anything in life. For what you allow to reside with you, surely you will make more of those...so the bottom rung better be something you can stand...because YOU tolerated it and it can only multiply if you keep breeding from it.
Bad temperaments...something you hate working with...remove it, don't have to cull as in kill but if you are tolerating something that makes you miserable...why? Bad birds taste great...something that leaps out to attack you...you run the risk of being laid up and unable to look after the rest of those you owe a duty of care too. Stop that...this is basically a glorified hobby we pour resources into. If it doe not bring you joy...quit it. No shame in going down a different avenue.
I can say that if you hate cleaning pens...you are going to be miserable alot more often than not. Cleaning pens, filling pans, scrubbing buckets...oodles of alone servitude to those you have chose to contain and call your property. Bettering enjoy it.
I always question those that seem to have oodles of time to laze around...maybe they are smarter than I am and have on pen of birds and that is enough. For those of us with many, we budget our time and energies and there is nothing wrong with making plans to downsize or upsize as the needs arise. Gracefully planning our demises I guess. LOL
As you can read, I am always controversial and likely to say what many others are thinking but afraid that they will be chastised by their "peers" for saying it like it is. One of the many advantages I guess to living out in the Great White North, out in the Boonies by meself. If I make some people angry with my opinions, I guess you should go read stuff some place else. Live and let live and try to enjoy ourselves but also speak up about why we do some of the things we do. More often than not...there are valid reasons (if only in our minds!) for certain things we try ending.
Henry compared to my widdle Chocos...
These two photos show HUGE leaps in colour (variety) and type (breed)
Do I need to take them to a show to see improvements made?
Chocolate, Blue and Black Magpie Call Ducklings
Do you need to go outside yer own backyard to play perfection in varieties?
Chocolate magpie Call duckling
Showing ended...the risks could not validate the rewards that I thought I would receive. I saw my birds beside other birds so I could compare them--we are told that we are not to say "got better birds at home" at the shows without some PROOF...har har! I let certain judges have opinions made on my stocks (put yer butt out thar for potential kicking) and I made my own opinions on the validity of exposing my stocks to communicable diseases (with my vet voicing his distaste for "what everyone else has" and he'd know being a vet that treated these incidents!), never mind the risk of all the stress travelling to and from shows, bathing and training (recall the oils are taken outta the feathers and if you are attending shows where temperature extremes might weaken a bird...think about showing them for risk to their very well beings!), the risk of having your stocks stolen or harmed (no laughing matter and this has always been happening at the shows! Old newspapers talk about expensive imports being taken a places like Madison Square Gardens--little wonder in Medieval times, chickens roosted in your very house in the rafters...safe from two legged thieves), and in the end, do I care what some persons have to say about MY property...not truly. Not when you have decades in studying certain breeds to the degree that I have. The finer points like clean wingbows in the Brahmas...items that nobody seems to notice these current days it seems, like leg scales and if they are twisted or?, how much fluff and web when you bend your feathers over (what's she doing & why??--tensile strength--booted feet don't stay booted in brittles, pattern expressions balanced--ghost barring or ridges in feathers to throw off turkey patterns, etc.)
Anyone else you know keeping tally...like this??
I have shown so many kinds of beasts...from llamas to sheep and still love running silly round the ring a ding with the dogs. I do like competition...but I do have to say, for that one day or that three day weekend...do I want to risk my beasty for that potential glory when like Rick would do...he'd never show or compete...the hobby itself is enough to fill him up...365 days a year, safe, sound, at home where they belong. He'd never do the showing, he thinks it silly...according to who's rules and who made up the written in stone words...like he cares. So long as he is pleased, he could careless to look any further than the back fence post. LOL Each to their own. I suppose if you don't hang your butt outside the perimeter to have it swiftly butt kicked...you never do know how loved or hated you and your property is. Never try and you never fail--in other people's eyes, eh.
First Sheep Show - Melody 1st Grand Champion Jacob Ewe in Canada
1st Gr. Champion ram and 1st placing ram lamb...been there, done it
These Jacobs (one of Melody's twin sons on right) are heads and shoulders better than Melody!
We usually do so well at our first kick at the can, we know we can stop and keep right on with what we were doing without showing.
Emmy
Lacy
You can breed animals and birds that suit the Standards and keep them safe and healthy without showing. I think Rick sums it up well...he points out that for the most part, the beasts don't really care about the whole show thing. We do have to admit though...that red gal Lacy...the love bug...she loves showing! She adores the attention and all it entails...there are indeed beasts born to strut their stuffings. She being one of those!
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
What I find whimsically funny, or at best amusing...I've always lived in the middle of no-where's...in the sense, there was no "oldtimer" you wandered down the lane to pick their brains on. No group of my peers simply because by the time I had invested 35 years in my apprenticeship in poultry, I was the OLD timer...sigh. My peers did not exist and rarely to find anyone as keen and "nutso" as myself about these hobby things. It has been a lonely wander abouts...sometimes finding someone close to the same, but often not so much where I am at. Use to that, the brambly path is not often taken and well, so be it.
Bobi Anthony:
MdF Booted Bantam - Saddle & Hackle in 16 month old male
I have had friends with similar interests but always the beasty ones at a distance. I share, they share, we pick the parts useful to us--like mailing Mr. Ridler a feathered up paper of MdF Booteds, so he could converse with me about where my stocks were currently at...I have yet to find an individual that does what I do and that's a good thing...can't have too many like me running round wild and out and about. The authorities would be overwhelmed knowing there were too many strange ones about. Best stay home and outta harm's way, eh.
What the oldtimers lacked was genetic knowledge. During my conversations with Gordon Ridler...he said when breeding the Booteds in MdF, having a white bird pop out on occasion was a great sign you had all the components in the strain for the best MdF's possible (the right stuff he called it). What he could not say is simple to me now. Recessive white in one dose made the colours pop on the MdF. I read about this in Creative Poultry Breeding by Carefoot (boy it would have been fun to chaw the fat with that man) and when I told Dr. Crawford (Editor of the Chicken Genetics Bible) what Mr. Ridler had told me...Roy blurted out, that he was a "very wise man" and he HAD to be...he was crippled by his lack of scientific genetic knowledge. Wise, smart, observant and stubborn...had to be that and more to understand that one white bird MEANT something...think on it...to know his breedings were with parents he knew, the progeny what he knew and where they came from...heck we got persons here on the Globe that don't know their own fathers...and the tenacity of sticking to this breeding program to know the outcomes and the signs you got it going on...wow.
Persons like myself can talk to people all over the world now and exchange chicken colour recipes...you need C/c"+" in the MdF...C/c"+" is heterozygous for recessive white...and yes, white birds will pop outta the MdF's that are impure for recessive white. This tidbit with science of the study of genetics behind it, improves my chances of doing well so much!
Imagine the speeding up the hobby has seen when I can list the mutations required for the recipe for a variety and we can "get on with" other puzzles. WOW...breeding is an art and a science for we must know the artistic talent we weld crafting birds, compared easily too like growing a flower garden only we are making beauty in form and feathers...LOL
Any persons touting that SOP breeding is only an art and full of luck...is still living in the dark ages and is there by their own choice. Fear, discrediting the unknown to them...what a treasure trove of magnificent details is eluding them...I feel so sorry for them. Choosing to hold themselves and their birds back. Breeding SOP compliance is and will always be...a science and an art...hand in hand helping both sides of the equation to profound greatness. Course don't ever conclude that science and art conjoined twins is a new concept...hardly...1876...read onwards, eh.
H.H. Stoddard, The Art of "Breeding to a Feather," Poultry World, 1876:
The improved varieties of the domestic fowls, in the last 40 or 50 years, that have been bred by such men as Sir John Sebright, in his beautiful Gold and Silver-laced Bantams, the origination of the splendid Duckwing Games, the establishment of the Gold and Silver Hamburgs and Polish fowls, the fine Silver-gray Dorkings, the nicely penciled Light and Dark Brahmas, etc., show how nearly this process approaches a "scientific" result, and how approximately it may be designated as an art.
It is the work of years to bring this thing about to a degree approximating perfection. Yet within half a century the sorts of birds we have above enumerated have all been created by judicious crossing and subsequent selection, with a view to producing a given cast of plumage in these different kinds, now know as "distinct varieties."
It is an intensely interesting process to experiment with this breeding of birds to a feather. We cannot decide why it is that there are such variations in colors inthe originals; why the comingling of certain races produces the different exquisite combinations and markings we thus obtain; why or how this diversification in hue and brilliancy results, for all these secrets in nature are as yet unknown to philosopher and peasant alike.
But we watch the operations of nature's laws, we combine this and that together, we select and mate and breed again and again, and, after patient labor and attentive applications a lucky hit is made, which, in the future, gives to the world a beautifully-plumed fowl of novel feathering, that subsequently produces its like for a hundred generations in succession, almost without variation.
And this is a nice thing to accomplish. It is a science to understand how to bring about such a result. It is a gain to the higher interests of the poultry-loving world. It is an art, indeed, to succeed in this experiment. And every man who goes about this undertaking in the course of his poultry experiences will find among his highest gratification, if he can compass this to his satisfaction, in however limited a degree, after many and repeated trails.
It bears repeating...keeping note that "nature's laws" would be the same as the genetics, the laws of inheritance that so many of us lucky buggers now study!
Mendel published his works on pea plants in 1866...so genetics in the sense of the science we all now enjoy (if we wish to face the fear of gobbly gooked up letters, eh!), my my my how those would make Stoddard's eye balls pop out, eh! Not so much an art of by guess by golly, but often a methodical combination of known mutations and wild type balanced by the irreplaceable talents of the ART in the hobby ... we cannot exclude the magic of knowing what to cross and what to keep and what to do with the stocks once you get breeding them up. Plain foolish luck, knowing what to select for, tossing the dice and double crossing your fingers and toes...but also looking AT the F1's and onwards and knowing by study what you are gazing upon.
As titled in Fred P. Jeffrey's book, Bantam Chickens...Chapter 5 ...
BREEDING -- AN ART AND A SCIENCE
Heed this advice or be left in the dust as others roar past you if you choose to ignore the combination it takes to create a Fancier's folly...breeding for birds that suit the words contained in the Standards of Perfection!
When I crossed this self white male bantam Wyandotte...
with this marked Sliver Laced Bantam Wyandotte hen...
the talent was having the scientific knowledge to know what these F1's had...
F1 females
The SCIENCE in breeding the Higgins White Dove Bantam Chants was knowing from the five years invested in breeding marked or colour patterns to whites to find out what was UNDER the self whites. A white bird or a black bird can be everything and anything under the eumelanin or no pigment...ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Above, F1's from white x silver laced...the hen has to be only Silver (she's a silver laced...duh!) ...so knowing above, the female on the left is SILVER and the female on the right is GOLD...what does that tell you? Oh my it shouts out tons!
Answer...the P1 (P for parent) silver laced hen is only Silver...the P1 self white male, good golly MIss Molly...HE has to have been hiding GOLD in the s-series--he mighten have been both Silver and gold but GOLD...gold in the s-series was going to be in the mix (great news for Partridge and self-Buff variety wants in future generations!)! The mother can only be Silver so by throwing out a silver daughter and a gold daughter...that SCREAMED for me...watch out because under that self-white of the male is GOLD hidden away! That is the science and the art of knowing what you are up against when miniaturizing a large fowl and wanting some of the progeny down the road (a twelve year journey thus far!) to be selfwhites.
Know in your heart, embrace science and art...no fear, you'll get her done...LOL The birds NEVER LIE!
Dr. Carefoot talks about the rarity of "a bird of class" and I have to agree...rare as chicken teeth the ones that you create, oft a once in a lifetime experience...that greatness that takes your breath away.
I have always been away from the thick of the poultry hobby and figure, what can't be conveyed by telephone, letter & mail, e-mails and photos...oh well...I've still done quite well with my limitations.
Not that I have nothing left to learn. You find the more you scoop up, replace and retain, the more you realize how little you know. I simply don't have any "peers" or "mentors in the flesh" to bother. As a young child, the available poultry texts were commercial poultry farming and then the far expanse, on the other side...Flossy and Bossy...a child's version of a chickeny story.
We are ever so lucky now to have hordes of publications and the Internet to do research on, e-mails and photos to exchange all over this wide world.
Here is a list of good chickeny reads off my website, added in the Chicken Extremes: - Genetics of the Chicken Extremes, By Sigrid Van Dort & Friends. Copyright 2012, ISBN 978 94 6190 118 7
- Chicken Diseases, By F.P. Jeffrey, Copyright 2005, Published by the American Bantam Association.
- The Chicken Health Handbook, By Gail Damerow, Copright 1994, ISBN 10 0 88266 611 8 (pbk).
- The American Brahma Club Handbook, Featuring the "Wit and Wisdom" of John Miller Freeman, Copyright 1988.
- Wyandotte Bantams, Editted by F.P. Jeffrey, Copyright 1984, Published by the American Bantam Association.
Some very basic rooles I have. To have any chance to make improvements in Poultry, be a Fancier...you need to have zero predation, good facilities that are stress free as possible, excellent feeding and watering practices so the birds can prosper and thrive past their genetic potentials, and always number one, a good start to begin with. Try out a breed from a hatchery if you must, a great way to see if you even like the breed and variety and won't bring home diseases (usually a safe place but in recent times...not so much, so be careful and do homework!),
Predation, if you can't keep the birds alive, why bother. If you feed the wolves always scratching at your door...why bother? For me, until one has mastered keeping the dang things alive...always gonna have yourself half dressed for work, running down the driveway with the broom putting the run on Nature's expectations...keep birds to feed the wilds is probably THE most dismal prospect you will ever face and face it and win I say. Zero predation since Earth Day 2007 when only once, I left an old retired Dark Brahma bantam hen outside instead of doing the proper head count and a most welcome rodent eating owl ate her. My fault, my fix. Basically to me, you are not a Fancier if you cannot keep your property from being harmed by containment fails.
Diet for the captive wild Mandarin Duck
Feed and water, if you can't offer up a diet the birds can balance for themselves (basic ration with addition of whole grains, greens, oyster shell and insoluable grit), all the genetic potential in the world will never be achieved. The bottleneck stop is if you do not provide what the birds need to be all they can be...food and water, above mentioned facilities.
Greens...a little joy and happiness like grass, romaine, chopped veg like celery, cauliflower...goosey treats...bird joys...happiness!
Aim for Zero Stress...stress happens, from changes in day to night temps to another bird begins to peck for a better place on the roost. Stress weakens, shows up in letting disease (all around us) grab hold, uses up resources that would be better angled on making better feathers, just simply keep the birds happy. Feeding greens in winter, no real nutritional benefit BUT happy birds live longer productive lives...they are happy, you are happy...simple.
Aim for the feel good HAPPY & JOY...keep the birds as you yourself would choose. NO kids messing with the tranquility, disturbing the peace, no pets harassing the birds, no predators making nightly visits (double wire the top of pens...birds like pheasants and ducks will leap in the air to avoid predation...right into the awaiting claws and beaks of predatory birds like owls...double wire the roof about eight to 12 inch space and never find a pen full of headless, dropped stocks!--or better yet! Metal roof yer pens and never worry about it again).
And don't even get me started on persons that begin with hatching eggs and try to say, so and so's lines...good gack. You need 214 hatching eggs to get ONE decent trio...half don't hatch when shipped, down to 107 day olds hatched out...seven will die maturing out...down to 100 and top 3 percent is your breeding prospect retention. Get adult birds, proven to make it to at least the fall if hatched in the spring. A GOOD START...not a dozen eggs where six hatch, one or two die and you say, these are so and so's birds...no they are not...besides, once a bird leaves someone's establishment...they are now YOUR going concern. I get we get good genetics...I am guilty of saying such and such line too...but these will be MY take on that line the moment "I" take possession and make the decisions affecting those birds. Start with three pairs, two males to keep each other company, a quad for breeding and cycle the boys thru the three females and keep your genetic avenues WIDE OPEN with the foundation stocks...do more inbreeding as things go along but your widest diversity starts in your good start...grab as much variation as possible and make selections on the biggest number of progeny manageable.
I passed a question on to Rick the other day...hypothetical since we have over 30 buildings for beasts. He's the maker of the facilities building wise...like the Christmas Carol story version I remember as a comedy where Scrooge empties the bottles and Bob puts boats in the bottles...yeh...Rick makes the buildings (with support from me on the dumb end!) and I fill them up so he has to make more. Actually, did a tally right now and got a dozen empty pens...including the Veg Garden is completely empty right now...better get hatching eh?
How much would it cost to have a building to maintain a flock of chickens? Budge wise. The building, in his mind of a decent set up...$15000. Five for materials (pen roofed in metal, hardware clothed, house for them to reside in at night to keep warm or cool in heat of summer...so insulated) and ten for the labour...savings found when you do the building yourself.
My mindset if you want to have chickens and breed some...four compartments...so my ideal of keeping some chickens...a two car garage like our Veg Garden building. Four compartments, one for the main flock hens and roos...one for brooding, ideally this one other compartment in a separate location for quarantine but hey, a pen for if someone needs to recover from being picked upon and the last fourth one for extra males. We keep as many males as females...diversity never harms you and the best roo, he's the one that up and kicks just before you wanted to set eggs. So four compartments, main flock, quarantine/injury recovery or grow out for meat cockerels or even just juveniles, hens and chicks or just chicks if you artificially incubate and one pen for extra males...reserve males to ensure you never are without the ability to make more.
I showed our waterfowl for a very short period--pretty wimpy but pretty good enough for me and mine. We got what we needed, side by each other person's birds...asked questions, got blank looks regarding genetics and decided, enough is enough. With each and every show attended, it was like you were running a larger and larger RISK that you would bring something home to kill or disease up the rest of what you left behind, in the hopes of keeping safe. Besides...I kept running into judges that were doing the most bizarre of things. How are you suppose to form your entire breeding plans around persons that don't jive with your ideals? I already know I am keener on Chanteclers and Calls than most regular judges...would love to show under Sheraw, he's a master I would love to poke and hear what he had to say...but that is just that...his opinion, which will vary from my own. Do I want to lose my birds because I needed to hear someone else's opinion on what makes Rick and I happy?
The last show we entered birds...waited to ask the ring steward if the sanctioned judge (foreign judge) could comment on the waterfowl and landfowl...so we patiently waited while the judge was explaining "duck foot" to an exhibitor that's chicken had been deemed to have that disqualification. Myself and a friend stood back and listened intently.
The discussion between owner and judge began to seem heated...sigh...the judge asked the exhibitor if it was alright to show the bird in question's duck feet, to have a bird in hand so to speak to better explain the DQ. The judge took the bird outta the cage and then proceeded to "hang the bird upside down." The bird started to gag...the bird started gasping and began retching and still the judge was trying to explain the duck foot by holding the bird upside DOWN. Both myself and my friend were mesmorized by this...stunned more...if Rick had been there, I already know he'd have batted the judge and righted the bird! Good gosh already. Well for what seemed like forever, the now limp and lifeless bird hung upside down in the judge's hands dribbling a stream of fluid from its beak and the heated discussion continued. Forever ended and the judge righted the now blue floppy bird. I swear it was dead but it let out a cough and regained itself...still purple blue in the face, I was just amazed it was alive. I've seen persons remove birds for processing, uneducated cads that are hired to collect factory farmed mush meats or at the end of production swill eggers (we likely seen undercover videos of multiple birds turned upside down--multiples held in one hand), but never seen any of us Fanciers hang birds upside down. Sometimes even just collecting up a bird that has recently drank or eaten, you can get gobbled up on. The anatomy of poultry seems to incite that if you hang them upside down, because they drink and extend their necks to let gravity pull fluids down their neck...switch it and yer likely to reverse or when righted drown the bird's lungs...I avoid this maneuver as figure its pretty risky to do. That incident pretty much summed up why we ended showing. I don't recall too much from the judge after the dangling of the bird...other than the "quicker the bird goes into production the better" and the "larger the same aged specimens were was how they quickly culled out their stocks." I love the competition, seeing bird beside bird, the fun the whatnots...but this was a reality check that simply sealed the "why bother" aspect for me. I am fine with others showing, have at it but I've had enough and that be that.
The last show where I was at, rose combs were put up as "Chanteclers!" Mystified me totally. I was not there with any birds, I was there to judge showmanship competition and teach a Boo Dilution seminar. I found some time after I had packed up my gear to go up and down the aisles of Chants and there stood one with frothing eyes (I quickly moved on and was EVER so glad I was going to my son's to strip my clothes, wash them and wash myself and then entering another vehicle to go home...Rick was coming to get me after work). Even going by myself, I too could have been a vector of grave dangers! Good GACK!
Judging of the waterfowl, the Calls was coming to an end, so I hovered back outta the way and listened to the judge. The judge was trying to decide which of two varieties in the Calls to place as Best of Breed and Reserve. The judge was talking out loud , so I listened. Now do keep in mind, some points go for shape-breed and some points go for variety-colour usually...self whites have a different number of points than the marked or colour patterned birds...self whites and self blacks are often the birds that win breed (and best in shows quite often too!) because there are usually less colour faults than the marked patterns. So the judge said, the white was a bird with the most points but they knew that marked birds (the grey in this case) were harder to get correct. As I watched, the judge placed the Grey Call Duck as Best of Breed and the White Call Duck as Reserve in Breed. By their own comments, this was incorrect. They had tallied up the points and the White bird had more. Now in this case, the same exhibitor owned both birds BUT to me, right is right as rain. A judge is not suppose to know the owners of the bird either. You tally points up to keep it fair...such and such points for this and that, tally the total and for integrity's sake, you do it proper. by the judge's own admission, they put up the lesser bird...that is wrong, and that to me is cheating. The true higher pointed is suppose to win...simple.
As you all know, I am a very black and white, one plus one = two personality with little room for error, maybes or greys...over in Europe a few years back...there was a campaign in place where judges of poultry were be rigorously taught to be identical, methodical in their judging. Trying to remove the personal opinions that we see humans express when judging. I know we are allowed to interpret the SOP words in our own tallies...indeed, I may like one judge's opinion over another's on the exact same details...
Dr. Carefoot (now there's a person if he were still alive and down the lane, oh to have five minutes to pick his brain and watch him examine a bird!) would say in his book that you would choose your birds to exhibit by knowing the judge. I found it overly frustrating, verging on ridiculous here...as they would often not announce what sanctioned judge was at a show until you showed up with your show string. Dr. Carefoot would even tailor his breeding schemes around what judge was judging. That was incredible...to tailor his entry by breeding what he figured would do well under that judge. A master breeder, Carefoot would time the life cycle of his show birds to...wait for it...to have laid a few eggs but still not have dropped in body...in wonderful showable condition, not worn out from laying eggs or moulting or even the mere fact that he KNEW his stocks so well he could time showing a female after a few eggs and not too far into her laying cycle. A MASTER at breeding indeed...and blessed to know who he was showing his birds too. Why, because if the judge was a hard feather breeder (as many judges are Fanciers themselves...duh!), or a soft feather breeder or one that liked shape over colour pattern, etc. He studied the judge, went to shows and saw how the judge presided over the show, what birds seemed to tweak their fancy. Then Carefoot would enter some birds he figured would please the judge, and then a few HE saw as pleasing his ideals...it is marvelous to see that Carefoot comments that sometimes the judge and his opinion were the same and the judge put up the birds he thought should win. LOL
Do watch out for persons that spew out all this advice...and when asked to "show you" the chicken in the flesh they speak about...that the person has no foundation or experience to PROVE what they spew. I am seeing that often nowadays...persons elevating themselves with these smoke and mirrors...I have no issue with study and theory to back you up...but breed too and prove the theory...now that is what we should be doing. Lots of verbal diarrhea out thar. Show me, don't tell me...why I post photos...LOOKIT what I am saying and if you see something else in what I say, by all means, jump in and have at it. A debate is great fun of persons on opposing sides...boring totally if we all agreed, eh.
Now keep in mind...there are words from the wise and just as easily, "no fool like an old fool!" One of my fav stunned yesteryear comments, that the female gives shape and the male gives colour...WRONG!! I can see the basis way back when, when it was less understood that the hen decided gender and had a chromosome that could not contain any useful genetic information on colour (too short--her purse was too tiny to stuff much of anything past she was PINK in gender...LOL!). A hen was pure for say Silver or gold, whereas the rooster was pure for Silver or gold or impure as in Silver and gold! Then that made perfect sense that the male was master of the colour in the lines. Past that, old rhymes of old timers sometimes bite the big one and need to be retired because the science has superseded the art of breeding.
Tara Lee Higgins - November 11, 2007:
I stand by the above statement because if you lack the wanted colour...woe be to anyone that thinks the colour (many are mutations from wild type) you want will POP outta no where. Sure, sure, you begin with a good start, that is GREAT advice in that the breed you choose has the shape desired. I can cross my birds and pull colour genetics I want and mix and match, use that TINT to my advantage in things like crossing varieties within a breed to boost healthy hybrid vigour (see my Booteds as an example...no new blood for decades now...just crossing rec white and the MdF pattern for eggs and vigour, production and fertility...). I am sure my statement above would make oldtimers turn in their graves.
Build the barn and then paint it has been flogged for years...I take a well built barn and go about dissecting it to paint it with the tints I want to see in the end product
Remember...we have dissected the colour aspects in poultry alot and are pretty good at knowing the genetics for colour and pattern...but not so much on the dynamics of say, what makes a chicken BIG or SMALL consistently past a few guesses and hybrid vigour. WE do know alot about colour genetics from studying it, but we know so very little about other aspects...and even then, we keep discovering new items...all what science is suppose to do...keep us striving to learn more and more...
What makes me smile is that true builders carpenters or cabinet makers in Rick's case, past the measure twice and cut once and forget going for drywall stretchers...when the building really really matters...they will build it, dismantle it, paint it and then build it final.
What do I mean...here's the Taj Mahal...the Mandarin Building...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...a-mandarin-ducks-mega-photos/20#post_15914199
Dry assembled in the driveway
Painted...
Painted up, wired - the pieces dismantled and moved
Fitting her back together - we used the tractor to do this...brand new to us back then...WOOT
TADA...The Taj Mahal is completed!!!
Rick built this out in our driveway, painted, dismantled (unbuilt) and put together in its final resting place...build and painted, dismantled and finally build for real. All the seams are covered in that paint, protected and the building (unless a precariously leaning tree takes it out) should last me our lifetimes...that is the hope.
So the analogy of building the barn first and paining it...sucks! Fine if you are not a keener...get that...but when you are into the fashioning of something to last, something of top quality...you go the extra mile and do the extra work. Like getting the tint, holding on to that while you build that barn...Barn is already pretty ship shape but you are willing to tear it apart to grab the desired quality you want (the tint) and rebuild it back up to its former greatness.
I can say if you start with a good enough line, ancient ones like we have here (John Kriner senior not junior, Wallace, Halbach, Frampton, Hughes, Mitchell, Bro Wilfrid's...etc...), the old lines were bred for years and years...the top three percent retained and bred many birds forward on and always selected and breeding prospects proving themselves by being at least one year of age before making more from...those are key to being allowed then to wreck the line...dismantle it because it has the solid foundation, the quality parts you can resurrect back up and still have what you had to begin with, but now in a new version...YOUR OWN version on a masterpiece...so to speak without my chest puffing up so full I fall down go boom ... oh my eye! LOL
Call Duck eggs - never EVER set a bad egg...set only great looking eggs for great birds!
Learn so many things...small eggs, yes, choose those for bantams, but never discount larger eggs from small fertile, vigorous hens...never coddle too much...you want bantam birds, but heavens, they should be of a stature and nature where you would not know they are bantam...if photos are taken without some measurement to show how little they be...they are like large fowl standards but in a mini version...that being the only difference we hope and pray for!
There is never any reason to drop your standards and we all have to have set out the minimum we can stand for anything in life. For what you allow to reside with you, surely you will make more of those...so the bottom rung better be something you can stand...because YOU tolerated it and it can only multiply if you keep breeding from it.
Bad temperaments...something you hate working with...remove it, don't have to cull as in kill but if you are tolerating something that makes you miserable...why? Bad birds taste great...something that leaps out to attack you...you run the risk of being laid up and unable to look after the rest of those you owe a duty of care too. Stop that...this is basically a glorified hobby we pour resources into. If it doe not bring you joy...quit it. No shame in going down a different avenue.
I can say that if you hate cleaning pens...you are going to be miserable alot more often than not. Cleaning pens, filling pans, scrubbing buckets...oodles of alone servitude to those you have chose to contain and call your property. Bettering enjoy it.
I always question those that seem to have oodles of time to laze around...maybe they are smarter than I am and have on pen of birds and that is enough. For those of us with many, we budget our time and energies and there is nothing wrong with making plans to downsize or upsize as the needs arise. Gracefully planning our demises I guess. LOL
As you can read, I am always controversial and likely to say what many others are thinking but afraid that they will be chastised by their "peers" for saying it like it is. One of the many advantages I guess to living out in the Great White North, out in the Boonies by meself. If I make some people angry with my opinions, I guess you should go read stuff some place else. Live and let live and try to enjoy ourselves but also speak up about why we do some of the things we do. More often than not...there are valid reasons (if only in our minds!) for certain things we try ending.
Henry compared to my widdle Chocos...
These two photos show HUGE leaps in colour (variety) and type (breed)
Do I need to take them to a show to see improvements made?
Chocolate, Blue and Black Magpie Call Ducklings
Do you need to go outside yer own backyard to play perfection in varieties?
Chocolate magpie Call duckling
Showing ended...the risks could not validate the rewards that I thought I would receive. I saw my birds beside other birds so I could compare them--we are told that we are not to say "got better birds at home" at the shows without some PROOF...har har! I let certain judges have opinions made on my stocks (put yer butt out thar for potential kicking) and I made my own opinions on the validity of exposing my stocks to communicable diseases (with my vet voicing his distaste for "what everyone else has" and he'd know being a vet that treated these incidents!), never mind the risk of all the stress travelling to and from shows, bathing and training (recall the oils are taken outta the feathers and if you are attending shows where temperature extremes might weaken a bird...think about showing them for risk to their very well beings!), the risk of having your stocks stolen or harmed (no laughing matter and this has always been happening at the shows! Old newspapers talk about expensive imports being taken a places like Madison Square Gardens--little wonder in Medieval times, chickens roosted in your very house in the rafters...safe from two legged thieves), and in the end, do I care what some persons have to say about MY property...not truly. Not when you have decades in studying certain breeds to the degree that I have. The finer points like clean wingbows in the Brahmas...items that nobody seems to notice these current days it seems, like leg scales and if they are twisted or?, how much fluff and web when you bend your feathers over (what's she doing & why??--tensile strength--booted feet don't stay booted in brittles, pattern expressions balanced--ghost barring or ridges in feathers to throw off turkey patterns, etc.)
Anyone else you know keeping tally...like this??
I have shown so many kinds of beasts...from llamas to sheep and still love running silly round the ring a ding with the dogs. I do like competition...but I do have to say, for that one day or that three day weekend...do I want to risk my beasty for that potential glory when like Rick would do...he'd never show or compete...the hobby itself is enough to fill him up...365 days a year, safe, sound, at home where they belong. He'd never do the showing, he thinks it silly...according to who's rules and who made up the written in stone words...like he cares. So long as he is pleased, he could careless to look any further than the back fence post. LOL Each to their own. I suppose if you don't hang your butt outside the perimeter to have it swiftly butt kicked...you never do know how loved or hated you and your property is. Never try and you never fail--in other people's eyes, eh.
First Sheep Show - Melody 1st Grand Champion Jacob Ewe in Canada
1st Gr. Champion ram and 1st placing ram lamb...been there, done it
These Jacobs (one of Melody's twin sons on right) are heads and shoulders better than Melody!
We usually do so well at our first kick at the can, we know we can stop and keep right on with what we were doing without showing.
Emmy
Lacy
You can breed animals and birds that suit the Standards and keep them safe and healthy without showing. I think Rick sums it up well...he points out that for the most part, the beasts don't really care about the whole show thing. We do have to admit though...that red gal Lacy...the love bug...she loves showing! She adores the attention and all it entails...there are indeed beasts born to strut their stuffings. She being one of those!
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Similar threads
New posts New threads Active threads
-
Latest posts
-
-
-
Open Contest Guess When BYC Will Reach 520,000 Members!- Latest: casportpony
-
-
Latest threads
-
-
Mystery Black chicks from RK - Hoover's Hatchery- Started by Dandelion and Clover
- Replies: 1
-
-
-
Ameraucanas in a Nutshell (looking for pictures of Ameraucanas with defects and quality birds)- Started by Sc_chickengirl
- Replies: 0
-
-
Threads with more replies in the last 15 days
-
-
Ended Official BYC Poultry Caption Contest 04-25-25 Pic by Sally PB- Started by TwoCrows
- Replies: 78
-
-
-
Is this chick wheaten? How did this happen?
- Started by Sic
- Replies: 55
-