Missouri Dominique Project

[centrarchid]

Soon these guys will get about 2 hours of free-range foraging time at end of most days. Currently they are in imprinting stage with elevated coops. This evening I hope to release them for first time and expect many if not most to fail getting in coop on their own at roosting time. A couple days of me putting them up will likely be involved before they do it all themselves. Still trying to streamline process of training them to roost back in coops quicker to save on labor. Stragglers are owl bait if I am not standing alert very close by.

 

[centrarchid]

Two down color variants to be carried forward. Both have lots of brown and latter may not involve extended black (B-allele). As adults both difficult to distinguish from extended black. End product needs to be distinguishable from American Dominique at a glance.

 

[centrarchid]

First of three selected for breeders in 2019. He is not based on extended black. And awesome to hold. He is right at 7 lbs. Three selected are from a group of over 30 males. He has best comb of three although a little course.

 

[ANightPerson]

Beautiful birds! Incredible project! Any updates on 2019?

The first litter of my upcoming project breed hatched a few weeks ago. Dom roo x 7 different mixed mommas. I got some really cool chicks out of it, I can't wait to see what they look like as adults.

I never really thought about the history of livestock until recently. The more I read, the more I get sucked into these heritage breeds. I'm trying to develop my own personal breed of broody free-range chickens. It's way less interesting than it sounds, though. I got rid of my Finns and am getting some Soay sheep, I'm looking into Icelandic goats (but I'll also be hybridizing my goats), and I'm also trying to create an extremely coldhardy line of rabbits by crossing rabbits with long hair, thick hair, and larger sizes. I think that your project is awesome, I love to take inspiration from less industrial breeds. I think that the idea of having these unique, local breeds is just so amazing.

Sorry for rambling. I'll definitely stay tuned.

 

[Daeka]

Would love to hear any updates you may have. Thank you for sharing your project!

 

[Frog Bog]

This is an excellent project. I'd be very interested in an update as well.

I talked to my Wife's Grandmother a lot about chickens. She was born early 1900's on a dairy farm in Rural Maryland. They had lots of poultry on the farm as well, mostly leghorns.

I talked to her about the Dominique, which she called dominickers and the old timers in the area still call them that today. She explained what they looked like and what they were like when she was young. She explained that they were a hawk colored large leghorn. The chicks were gray in color upon hatch and they laid white eggs. I showed her pictures of today's dominiques and barred rocks, and she said they were not dominikers. They were still popular on the farms in the area, but they'd pretty much disappeared by the time she was in high school. Which would have been right before the great depression.

What she described as a Dominique did not have yellow legs, seemed to be more leghorn in shape, with a squirrel tail. Some of the cocks could weigh 8-9 lbs and had single combs.

I just assumed she was talking about some different type of fowl or maybe miss remembering. Then a couple years ago I got into reading old literature on poultry. My interest is Leghorns and I wanted to find out all I could about their history. I forget which book it was in (years ago and they all mixed together at this point), but I read about the dominique. The author explained that they were a white legged/skin fowl that laid white eggs. and the picture of the dominique looked as grandma (I called her grandma to) said that they did. I was amazed and read what I could on them. There wasn't near as much about them as there were about the other fowl of the time. Seems they were looked down upon as just a basic barnyard fowl with good economic qualities, but the asiatics and italian/spanish chickens were held to a higher regard.

I never got to share the info I had found in the old poultry books as she had passed a few years earlier. I had thought about starting a breeding project to see if I could maybe recreate them, but never got around to it. So I wish you the best of luck with this project. Today it seems that all the breeding projects I see are about adding new colors. This project by far stands above and is exciting to see. A true effort and gift to the poultry world.

 

[centrarchid]

The project is progressing slowly. I figure another 20 years needed. I have two lines now, one still with yellow legs and has a topknot. The second is almost fixed for the white legs / skin and carries the pea comb allele. The pea-comb allele combined with rose-comb essentially eliminates frostbite issues. More uniform too. Power out, got to stop.

 

[centrarchid]

I thought this was neat- I hatched a grey Dominique chick the other day. I have been trying to find info on it. Hard to tell from the photo, but he is more silvery than the picture shows.View attachment 2225922View attachment 2225923

That is how most of my male American Dominiques look.

 

[Alaskan]

That is how most of my male American Dominiques look.

Yes.

I find it a desirable trait since then sexing at hatch is so easy.

 

[centrarchid]

This is “her” today, will be four weeks Tuesday.

Ok, you are making my life difficult. I already have issues where chick coloration is not good for sexing nor a predictor of adult coloration. You just added another chick coloration to mix. Still yours not Missouri Dominiques.