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So we all raise or have an interest in poultry here...forum about birds eh. I guess basically we LOVE POULTRY is a good commonality to say about us all...
Why do we do it...obviously there is something we love about it or we would not be doing it or having an interest in it.
For us here...we do it because we love most all things poultry and we want to conserve and preserve the OLD TIMER lines of poultry. Real birds capable of leading REAL lives; being real chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, etc. I like to see happy birds, keep them living as long and healthy as I am able and I also enjoy the useful things that the birds provide us with; from foods to entertainment and it all sure gives a purpose in my life. Rick always quips, "Well what else would we be doing, eh?" and I have to laugh...he is ever so correct.
In 2007, we started to note that our food, that poultry products were beginning to be worrisome...the mush meats and swill eggs were never an interest of ours but we were getting all sorts of contacts from persons that were having a struggle finding GOOD birds as in production ones...for eggs and meat. The old time lines of Sussex and Rhodes...no waterfowl period was on offer at the hatcheries, there was less and less FOOD kind of poultry and it worried us. Since then, I have seen Bronze turkeys in trouble (especially Dr. Crawford's Ridleys), waterfowl stocks keep dropping (hardly anyone can hatch the bantam Calls of any quality), less and less geese are kept, decent heritage chickens that lay winter eggs and put decent carcasses on our plates...yeh troubles continue eh.
What we did is we chose to bring in Appleyards (triple purpose duck for meat, eggs and entertainment--pretty birds), standard sized Chanteclers and heritage turkeys in breeds not often kept. There, we thought...three production heritage species we will continue with keeping going. Not extinct and make sure us people of the land, us common folks can feed our faces, sustain ourselves with our own re-plenishable poultry resources.
WE do try NOT to be psycho about all this self-sufficiency...no I don't want drugs in my food that I grow, plants or animals, but I also have antibiotics that keep expiring but I keep replenishing some...jest in case my tells me to use the BIG GUNS (do have to wonder how BIG they might be now that so many are failing, but whatever). I am not antidrug but I am anti keep the weak going and make more of the same and worse. I don't want to be off the grid, or have to eat only what I have produced, but more conservative and hopefully doable and sensible about trying to help out.
I love my birds, I also know I have to have tough love and humanely decide that any weak and suffering must be ended. Hate that but it is an adult responsible side we have to do...hopefully not too often.
SO....
This means I owe a duty of care to the beasts and birds to make the best I can make...make more of the same and keep improving on them. I should not be producing 300 weaklings, but praise my good fortune if I make 100 good birds which I can then make selections from for THREE PERCENT as breeding prospects. Sounds pretty severe, eh...but we are merely following in the footsteps of the oldtimer bird breeders we got our own stocks from. The GOOD START...
Some of our Bantam chickens - Dark Brahma, MDF Booted, White Wyandotte, Silver Laced Wyandotte, and Buff Brahma
Some of our retired chickens in de Coop fer Sure - happiness and joy joy!
I am going to recount our tale of the Bantam Brahmas. So Rick decides he really likes the Brahmas...he likes how they remind him of solid interesting chickens...I like that they produce big eggs, live a long time, make awesome setty hens (better than Silkies in MY books because unlike exhibition Silkies, they can SEE their babies to raise them up right), take time to mature, and even the bantam stocks provide one heck of a decent carcass for consumption of meat. This is a GREEN light for me in production because I will see the birds that we have hatch...the males we do not use for breeding, those will make excellent happy meat and the females, even if not of breeding prospect quality, those ones will produce awesome decent eggs for our table. The thing about the Brahma chicken is they are steady to mature (note I did not say slow...steady and the pullets keep on growing into hens...massive hens of substance...long lived and productive! I say QUALITY takes time).
I may slip a bantam hen's egg into a standard sized egg carton and nobody is much the wiser on it being a BANTAM compared to a STANDARD sized egg...given the whole carton is not some of me Jumbo sized Standard Chantecler eggs...big eggs for a bantam hen...three bantam Brahma eggs = two standard chicken eggs and in some cases MORE!
Dec 08, 2012 - Four Year old Buff Brahma Hen egg 54 gr LARGE Size egg from a BANTAM CHICKEN...
So Rickie wanted Brahmas...at first he thought, maybe standard sized Brahmas...the Lights (Silver Columbian) caught his fancy and he thought maybe some of those...but we sat down and figured, why not bantams... We can have more, if one passes, it is not as big a hit because we have a larger base flock in numbers alone...keep more bantams in the same space, they sure are productive (laugh at me, I still figure the feed conversion to eggs and meat in a bantam out do the standard sized ones...one day, have to do experiments to prove that I guess).
So we tried locally. Went to a sanctioned show, observed the bantam Brahmas...decided Darks (Silver Pencilled) and the Buffs (Buff Columbian) in bantams were where we would go. Put in orders and got a Buff roo from one person and Buff hens from another...not too many Darks about, so got our stocks from one Fancier--again, waiting some years for our birds. So got the birds and I rolled up me sleeves and begin playing with them. What a disappointment. I could not get anything decent out of them. The Darks had lightening bolts for pencils, the Buffs had all sorts of issues from bad combs to poor markings. I was beside myself. I kept trying and nope, no silk purses from the sow's ears...sigh. So I finally threw my hands in the air and whined at Rick that I could not do anything with the birds we had started with. Rick's reply, "Get looking, go get us some good ones." So I did.
I contacted a sanctioned judge, out East this time because they have WAY bigger birder population and more shows. Yup, instant success...I was given Gordon Ridler's name...and contacted Mr. Ridler (stringman of old...him and his father travelled the show circuit in train cars...loads of entries to exhibit...thousands of birds is what they hatched...oh goody!). Now Ridler had no Brahma's but he had a contact for me... We contacted Murray (surprisingly, the Darks here in Alberta were from Murray, but THREE times removed birds...not his directly...we had found our original SOURCE!) and put an order in that fall for next fall's birds. Murray had been working with the EXACT same strain for going on 60 years. Murray had Honest John Kriner, Sr. (not the Jr.) stock. Never added any birds to the line, ever. So SIXTY years of work with the Brahma line of Kriner Senior's...and my goodness...the birds were all that and more.
Dark Brahma bantams
Lookit the PENCILS!
Buff Brahma bantams
Rich contrast
The old style form of the Brahmas - the ones I adore! Not no POOF or bump in the cushion...firm feathers with crisp proper markings!
Lookit the thickness...the WIDTH...room to make eggs in, and room to hang meat off of...
Setty mothers of extreme care...this is Hannible...she is feeding the Booted chicks she hatched with egg yolk she is holding in her own beak for the kids to take.
What made us laugh...Murray was no woosey...when others in his local heard that Murray was going to be doing a big push on numbers (he hatched out....drum roll...290 birds to send us just eight birds--two pairs of Buffs and two pairs of Darks), one of the local judges caught wind of the project and happened to pop on by Murray's. Murray told him straight..."No birds for sale until I send the Higginses' theirs." The sanctioned judge kept pestering Murray, but every time he said "NO!, no birds ready yet!" Now we had told Murray, we wanted birds we could call HIS birds because quite frankly, we did not have enough time into working with the Brahmas to know enough of the finer points to know what to want. Murray was good with that. I do laugh because finally the sanctioned judge was beside himself and asked Murray, "Just how many birds are you sending them?" "Eight..." Well with hundreds on the go, the judge was not so pleased but Murray, he wanted them grown out to the fall and he would be picking what he chose to pick to represent his take on the breed in these two varieties. When Murray called us and said, "I have chosen the birds" we knew it was gonna be good. Murray chose one cockerel in the Dark that he was EVER so proud of...clean wing bows like he had never seen. The judge swung by and commented on this cockerel...that his tail was less than perfect and Murray just smiled and said, "lookit the clarity in the wing bows!"...the judge shut his face. NO kidding...there are NEVER perfect birds...but sometimes birds express the coveted PERFECTION in a trait, eh! Murray chose out one Buff pullet, the contrast she exhibited was stellar...ebony black against a light but ever so even buff. I still have that in my Buff lines...very well ingrained...talking with Murray over the years, he said that trait was never again exhibited so strongly as was in that one pullet and sadly he feels his lines at home have lost that particular contrast...not as vivid as ours is. How kewl is that.
Brahma day olds
So the birds came and we have enjoyed working with them...another just about 15 years more invested in the original Kriner Sr. line of bantam Brahmas. I had so much to work with...I had the GOOD START to work on...one factor I personally find a pet peeve...the shortened outer toe that some feather footed breeds seem to have (Brachydactyly). I decided to make that my number one issue to improve (no foot, no animal/bird) and I never breed from a Brahma that lacks a toe nail (yeh, full toe if you got a nail expressed...you can judge that on DAY OLDS...no nail, do not breed from that one). Now I have a line I love...fully footed with all toes present with toenails. Sometimes I get some that do not have as strong a feathered foot as I might prefer but I keep working at adding feathers (but do not want vulture hocks...balancing act here!)...to the feet. There ARE no perfect birds, only working always trying for it, eh.
In 2008, I pondered adding some new blood (diversity perhaps to be safe) and was making a hatchery order, so had five bantam Dark brahmas added to the order since we were already dealing with the hassles of bringing in new birds. Needless to say, I culled these ones and NEVER introduced this Dark Bantam Brahma blood into the original strains. Here's why....
Dark Brahma bantams- LEFT four Hatchery 4 day olds / RIGHT three Higgins 1 day olds
Dark Brahma bantams- LEFT Higgins 1 day old / RIGHT Hatchery 4 day old
Dark Brahma bantams- LEFT Hatchery 4 day old / RIGHT Higgins 1 day old
The hatchery Dark Brahmas were wretched...you can see FOUR day old birds and how small and miscoloured they are from the ONE day olds we have here already. YEH...these visuals are PERFECT way to show how breeder birds with 60+ years invested in them compare to hatchery stocks. The hatchery birds pale in comparison...in breed and variety, shape and colour pattern...from DAY ONE!!!!!!!!
So when I wanted to make Partridge Brahmas...I could.
I used Murray's birds which had and have SOLID colour patterns in them...this is the F1 generation of Parts...
Gold version of SILVER pencilled...
Yes, the shade is gold and not reddish bay...but there are some decent pencils...the thigh area is too soft and you can see the feathers are not expressing a crisp penciling...but things can be improved upon...
Lookit the rich darker ground colour now...getting closer to reddish bay ground colour...
Gold and Silver are gender linked...so Partridge males are taking me longer...I have six this past season to choose from. Mahogany wing bows...a good sign we are going reddish bay over gold, eh.
Dec 2014
Murray's good start continues to allow me to play with bird birds like I never could have without a solid secure foundation...75 years within this strain of the bantam Brahma breed.
What I have always found interesting is how people say that exhibition birds, that the oldtimer exhibition lines are all about the purdy feathers...well I disagree...pretty is as pretty does and there is no room in my coops for birds that are not putting decent firm and tasty HAPPY meat on our plates and decent quality tasty eggs in our diets. Chickens must have benefits...hee hee...more benefits as in production wise.
Fryer Buff Chantecler at 20 weeks old - Nov 22, 2009
Bounty of Chant eggers
The oldtimer lines HAVE to have produced...none of us here will put up with poultry that cannot be BOTH pretty AND productive in meat and eggs. That simply don't cut it. Not in our books anyway.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
So we all raise or have an interest in poultry here...forum about birds eh. I guess basically we LOVE POULTRY is a good commonality to say about us all...
Why do we do it...obviously there is something we love about it or we would not be doing it or having an interest in it.
For us here...we do it because we love most all things poultry and we want to conserve and preserve the OLD TIMER lines of poultry. Real birds capable of leading REAL lives; being real chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, etc. I like to see happy birds, keep them living as long and healthy as I am able and I also enjoy the useful things that the birds provide us with; from foods to entertainment and it all sure gives a purpose in my life. Rick always quips, "Well what else would we be doing, eh?" and I have to laugh...he is ever so correct.
In 2007, we started to note that our food, that poultry products were beginning to be worrisome...the mush meats and swill eggs were never an interest of ours but we were getting all sorts of contacts from persons that were having a struggle finding GOOD birds as in production ones...for eggs and meat. The old time lines of Sussex and Rhodes...no waterfowl period was on offer at the hatcheries, there was less and less FOOD kind of poultry and it worried us. Since then, I have seen Bronze turkeys in trouble (especially Dr. Crawford's Ridleys), waterfowl stocks keep dropping (hardly anyone can hatch the bantam Calls of any quality), less and less geese are kept, decent heritage chickens that lay winter eggs and put decent carcasses on our plates...yeh troubles continue eh.
What we did is we chose to bring in Appleyards (triple purpose duck for meat, eggs and entertainment--pretty birds), standard sized Chanteclers and heritage turkeys in breeds not often kept. There, we thought...three production heritage species we will continue with keeping going. Not extinct and make sure us people of the land, us common folks can feed our faces, sustain ourselves with our own re-plenishable poultry resources.
WE do try NOT to be psycho about all this self-sufficiency...no I don't want drugs in my food that I grow, plants or animals, but I also have antibiotics that keep expiring but I keep replenishing some...jest in case my tells me to use the BIG GUNS (do have to wonder how BIG they might be now that so many are failing, but whatever). I am not antidrug but I am anti keep the weak going and make more of the same and worse. I don't want to be off the grid, or have to eat only what I have produced, but more conservative and hopefully doable and sensible about trying to help out.
I love my birds, I also know I have to have tough love and humanely decide that any weak and suffering must be ended. Hate that but it is an adult responsible side we have to do...hopefully not too often.
SO....
This means I owe a duty of care to the beasts and birds to make the best I can make...make more of the same and keep improving on them. I should not be producing 300 weaklings, but praise my good fortune if I make 100 good birds which I can then make selections from for THREE PERCENT as breeding prospects. Sounds pretty severe, eh...but we are merely following in the footsteps of the oldtimer bird breeders we got our own stocks from. The GOOD START...
Some of our Bantam chickens - Dark Brahma, MDF Booted, White Wyandotte, Silver Laced Wyandotte, and Buff Brahma
Some of our retired chickens in de Coop fer Sure - happiness and joy joy!
I am going to recount our tale of the Bantam Brahmas. So Rick decides he really likes the Brahmas...he likes how they remind him of solid interesting chickens...I like that they produce big eggs, live a long time, make awesome setty hens (better than Silkies in MY books because unlike exhibition Silkies, they can SEE their babies to raise them up right), take time to mature, and even the bantam stocks provide one heck of a decent carcass for consumption of meat. This is a GREEN light for me in production because I will see the birds that we have hatch...the males we do not use for breeding, those will make excellent happy meat and the females, even if not of breeding prospect quality, those ones will produce awesome decent eggs for our table. The thing about the Brahma chicken is they are steady to mature (note I did not say slow...steady and the pullets keep on growing into hens...massive hens of substance...long lived and productive! I say QUALITY takes time).
I may slip a bantam hen's egg into a standard sized egg carton and nobody is much the wiser on it being a BANTAM compared to a STANDARD sized egg...given the whole carton is not some of me Jumbo sized Standard Chantecler eggs...big eggs for a bantam hen...three bantam Brahma eggs = two standard chicken eggs and in some cases MORE!
Dec 08, 2012 - Four Year old Buff Brahma Hen egg 54 gr LARGE Size egg from a BANTAM CHICKEN...
So Rickie wanted Brahmas...at first he thought, maybe standard sized Brahmas...the Lights (Silver Columbian) caught his fancy and he thought maybe some of those...but we sat down and figured, why not bantams... We can have more, if one passes, it is not as big a hit because we have a larger base flock in numbers alone...keep more bantams in the same space, they sure are productive (laugh at me, I still figure the feed conversion to eggs and meat in a bantam out do the standard sized ones...one day, have to do experiments to prove that I guess).
So we tried locally. Went to a sanctioned show, observed the bantam Brahmas...decided Darks (Silver Pencilled) and the Buffs (Buff Columbian) in bantams were where we would go. Put in orders and got a Buff roo from one person and Buff hens from another...not too many Darks about, so got our stocks from one Fancier--again, waiting some years for our birds. So got the birds and I rolled up me sleeves and begin playing with them. What a disappointment. I could not get anything decent out of them. The Darks had lightening bolts for pencils, the Buffs had all sorts of issues from bad combs to poor markings. I was beside myself. I kept trying and nope, no silk purses from the sow's ears...sigh. So I finally threw my hands in the air and whined at Rick that I could not do anything with the birds we had started with. Rick's reply, "Get looking, go get us some good ones." So I did.
I contacted a sanctioned judge, out East this time because they have WAY bigger birder population and more shows. Yup, instant success...I was given Gordon Ridler's name...and contacted Mr. Ridler (stringman of old...him and his father travelled the show circuit in train cars...loads of entries to exhibit...thousands of birds is what they hatched...oh goody!). Now Ridler had no Brahma's but he had a contact for me... We contacted Murray (surprisingly, the Darks here in Alberta were from Murray, but THREE times removed birds...not his directly...we had found our original SOURCE!) and put an order in that fall for next fall's birds. Murray had been working with the EXACT same strain for going on 60 years. Murray had Honest John Kriner, Sr. (not the Jr.) stock. Never added any birds to the line, ever. So SIXTY years of work with the Brahma line of Kriner Senior's...and my goodness...the birds were all that and more.
Dark Brahma bantams
Lookit the PENCILS!
Buff Brahma bantams
Rich contrast
The old style form of the Brahmas - the ones I adore! Not no POOF or bump in the cushion...firm feathers with crisp proper markings!
Lookit the thickness...the WIDTH...room to make eggs in, and room to hang meat off of...
What made us laugh...Murray was no woosey...when others in his local heard that Murray was going to be doing a big push on numbers (he hatched out....drum roll...290 birds to send us just eight birds--two pairs of Buffs and two pairs of Darks), one of the local judges caught wind of the project and happened to pop on by Murray's. Murray told him straight..."No birds for sale until I send the Higginses' theirs." The sanctioned judge kept pestering Murray, but every time he said "NO!, no birds ready yet!" Now we had told Murray, we wanted birds we could call HIS birds because quite frankly, we did not have enough time into working with the Brahmas to know enough of the finer points to know what to want. Murray was good with that. I do laugh because finally the sanctioned judge was beside himself and asked Murray, "Just how many birds are you sending them?" "Eight..." Well with hundreds on the go, the judge was not so pleased but Murray, he wanted them grown out to the fall and he would be picking what he chose to pick to represent his take on the breed in these two varieties. When Murray called us and said, "I have chosen the birds" we knew it was gonna be good. Murray chose one cockerel in the Dark that he was EVER so proud of...clean wing bows like he had never seen. The judge swung by and commented on this cockerel...that his tail was less than perfect and Murray just smiled and said, "lookit the clarity in the wing bows!"...the judge shut his face. NO kidding...there are NEVER perfect birds...but sometimes birds express the coveted PERFECTION in a trait, eh! Murray chose out one Buff pullet, the contrast she exhibited was stellar...ebony black against a light but ever so even buff. I still have that in my Buff lines...very well ingrained...talking with Murray over the years, he said that trait was never again exhibited so strongly as was in that one pullet and sadly he feels his lines at home have lost that particular contrast...not as vivid as ours is. How kewl is that.
Brahma day olds
So the birds came and we have enjoyed working with them...another just about 15 years more invested in the original Kriner Sr. line of bantam Brahmas. I had so much to work with...I had the GOOD START to work on...one factor I personally find a pet peeve...the shortened outer toe that some feather footed breeds seem to have (Brachydactyly). I decided to make that my number one issue to improve (no foot, no animal/bird) and I never breed from a Brahma that lacks a toe nail (yeh, full toe if you got a nail expressed...you can judge that on DAY OLDS...no nail, do not breed from that one). Now I have a line I love...fully footed with all toes present with toenails. Sometimes I get some that do not have as strong a feathered foot as I might prefer but I keep working at adding feathers (but do not want vulture hocks...balancing act here!)...to the feet. There ARE no perfect birds, only working always trying for it, eh.
In 2008, I pondered adding some new blood (diversity perhaps to be safe) and was making a hatchery order, so had five bantam Dark brahmas added to the order since we were already dealing with the hassles of bringing in new birds. Needless to say, I culled these ones and NEVER introduced this Dark Bantam Brahma blood into the original strains. Here's why....
Dark Brahma bantams- LEFT four Hatchery 4 day olds / RIGHT three Higgins 1 day olds
Dark Brahma bantams- LEFT Higgins 1 day old / RIGHT Hatchery 4 day old
Dark Brahma bantams- LEFT Hatchery 4 day old / RIGHT Higgins 1 day old
The hatchery Dark Brahmas were wretched...you can see FOUR day old birds and how small and miscoloured they are from the ONE day olds we have here already. YEH...these visuals are PERFECT way to show how breeder birds with 60+ years invested in them compare to hatchery stocks. The hatchery birds pale in comparison...in breed and variety, shape and colour pattern...from DAY ONE!!!!!!!!
So when I wanted to make Partridge Brahmas...I could.
I used Murray's birds which had and have SOLID colour patterns in them...this is the F1 generation of Parts...
Gold version of SILVER pencilled...
Yes, the shade is gold and not reddish bay...but there are some decent pencils...the thigh area is too soft and you can see the feathers are not expressing a crisp penciling...but things can be improved upon...
Lookit the rich darker ground colour now...getting closer to reddish bay ground colour...
Gold and Silver are gender linked...so Partridge males are taking me longer...I have six this past season to choose from. Mahogany wing bows...a good sign we are going reddish bay over gold, eh.
Dec 2014
Murray's good start continues to allow me to play with bird birds like I never could have without a solid secure foundation...75 years within this strain of the bantam Brahma breed.
What I have always found interesting is how people say that exhibition birds, that the oldtimer exhibition lines are all about the purdy feathers...well I disagree...pretty is as pretty does and there is no room in my coops for birds that are not putting decent firm and tasty HAPPY meat on our plates and decent quality tasty eggs in our diets. Chickens must have benefits...hee hee...more benefits as in production wise.
Fryer Buff Chantecler at 20 weeks old - Nov 22, 2009
Bounty of Chant eggers
The oldtimer lines HAVE to have produced...none of us here will put up with poultry that cannot be BOTH pretty AND productive in meat and eggs. That simply don't cut it. Not in our books anyway.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
