Most Popular Small-Flock Chickens -- Resource For Selecting Your Chickens

[The Yakima Kid]

Dominiques. Not the best layer, not the best meat, but very active, quiet foragers with enormous entertainment value.

The pullets sort out their order in fights that resemble the cockfights in old Currier & Ives prints - yet no biddy seems to get injured after the flying feet of fate launch out at each other and they drag each other around by the comb. After it is all sorted out, they seem to get on rather well, and are very active and entertaining.

They lay maybe 230 eggs a year, and are very tough in both cold and hot conditions; they are also a walking embodiment of Amercan Heritage.

www.dominiquechicken.com
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/poultry/chickens/dominiques/index.htm

 

[Bullitt]

And everyone may find that their mileage will vary. A friend has Australorps; some have been fantastic layers, others seem to wish to spend their lives broody. Some people have had my great luck with BRs - but others have found some to be noisy.

I think I need to add to what I wrote before. I wrote that the Australorp is better at laying eggs than the Plymouth Rock. That is generally true when talking about all varieties of Plymouth Rock. But the Barred variety of Plymouth Rock will often be as good or better at laying eggs than an Australorp.

And, yes, there are always individual variations.

 

[NYREDS]

Laying well is a subjective term. If you mean laying 200 to 300 eggs per year under electric lights and shoveling in layer pellets, then no, gamefowl don't lay well. But if you consider laying well to mean plenty of eggs most of the year on a diet of bugs and cow poop goodies, then they do OK.

The big thing is the productive age. Many gamefowl live long productive lives, many times there have been 11 or 12 year old hens still laying eggs. Most production birds are developing some sort of health problem by age five, and few are able to lay eggs at 10 years old. Some game roosters have made it to 15.

The whole "penning them up before they kill each other" thing is over-rated too. Most of them are 5 months old before you have to worry too much about it. Many are eight or some even twelve months. In a homesteading application, they should have been in the freezer by then. I've heard that the meat is in-edible too. But if you consider gamefowl in-edible you probably wouldn't like grouse or pheasant much.

I wonder how much of the governments eagerness to condemn "bad breeds" has to do with the agribusiness lobby, rather than any real desire to promote animal welfare. A bird that lives 10 years and is resistant to disease could harbor all sorts of pathogens that would be harmful to a little, fat, white fluffball living out it's un-naturally short life in un-natural conditions. That cant possibly set well with the white suit, gas chamber crowd. I guess that is why I find them so interesting. But they aren't for everyone.

I have a Brown Red Old English hen that will be 14 next May 12th if she makes it through the winter. She laid about 80 eggs this year. She was also the Best Brown Red & 3rd best Old English at the 2004 APA National. Top that with your Red Star.

 

[Bullitt]

Actually, they were bred to be dual purpose. The idea was to breed decent layers and still have the surplus cockerels marketable as roasters, fryers, broilers, or capons.

Yes, I know. You are not correcting what I wrote.

I wrote that common breeds like Rhode Island Red and Plymouth Rock were bred to be eaten. Of course they were also bred to lay eggs, which is well known. That is why breeds like Rhode Island Red and Barred Plymouth Rock are some of the best breeds for eggs.

I mentioned eating them because most farmers did not keep them around more than a few years because their production of eggs decreased.

 

[Bullitt]

I have a Brown Red Old English hen that will be 14 next May 12th if she makes it through the winter. She laid about 80 eggs this year. She was also the Best Brown Red & 3rd best Old English at the 2004 APA National. Top that with your Red Star.

Wow, that is great. That is an old hen.

Red Star, or Red Sex-Link, is a hybrid so it is not recognized by the APA.

But you are probably right that if we measured egg-laying over the life of chickens that some of the old breeds would probably win against hybrids. But it is just cheaper to replace hens with pullets once in a while. So no one measures how many eggs a hen can produce in a lifetime.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

I think I need to add to what I wrote before. I wrote that the Australorp is better at laying eggs than the Plymouth Rock. That is generally true when talking about all varieties of Plymouth Rock. But the Barred variety of Plymouth Rock will often be as good or better at laying eggs than an Australorp.

And, yes, there are always individual variations.

Decorah Hatchery has a strain of egg laying Barred Rocks that are apparently unbelievable. I gather they are a preserved old utility commercial strain. They run small, but they are extremely goo layers. I have often wondered what the original source was, if it might be descended from one of the agricultural colleges strains developed for distribution to farmers.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

I think I need to add to what I wrote before. I wrote that the Australorp is better at laying eggs than the Plymouth Rock. That is generally true when talking about all varieties of Plymouth Rock. But the Barred variety of Plymouth Rock will often be as good or better at laying eggs than an Australorp.

And, yes, there are always individual variations.

Some of the White Rocks aren't shabby layers, either. You have to be careful that you get a dual purpose or laying strain instead of a broiler/roaster strain. I've seen other colors of Rocks, but they were never very popular on farms, so the agricultural colleges and the Bureau of Animal Industry - later USDA research - didn't tend to work with them. As early as 1916, poultry scientists openly wrote that they didn't understand why breeders had spent their time developing new colors of Rock (often by crossing completely unrelated breeds and selecting for the conformation of a Rock) instead of seeking greater utility in the original Barred and its sport, the White.

My focus has always been on utility; the Dominiques are out there because my needs in Nevada are different than my needs in California. In Nevada, there is a reasonable expectation that thriftiness and foraging for five months of the year as well as broodiness may be cheaper than higher production and having to buy replacement pullets - natural broodiness is a good trait to have in a place where the electricity tends to disappear depending on the weather or wildfires. Layer feed and oyster shell are always available - but smaller birds eat less, and forages tend to rustle up more of their own feed. Dominiques are smaller than Rocks - but the cockerels make a reasonably sized carcass for a family meal. I also need birds that withstand both heat and cold - and Dominiques definitely do that, doing well in heat despite their very heavy down.

I think one of the greatest losses we've had hasn't been in exotic and rare breeds; it is the loss of the "improved strains" of early 20th Century dual purpose breeds. In 1926, Dryden's pen of Barred Rocks outlaid the top laying pen, of White Leghorns, in January in the Santa Cruz laying trials. The top Leghorn pen laid 769 eggs during the four months, the next highest pen were the Dryden Rocks at 726.

 

[Bullitt]

Some of the White Rocks aren't shabby layers, either. You have to be careful that you get a dual purpose or laying strain instead of a broiler/roaster strain. I've seen other colors of Rocks, but they were never very popular on farms, so the agricultural colleges and the Bureau of Animal Industry - later USDA research - didn't tend to work with them. As early as 1916, poultry scientists openly wrote that they didn't understand why breeders had spent their time developing new colors of Rock (often by crossing completely unrelated breeds and selecting for the conformation of a Rock) instead of seeking greater utility in the original Barred and its sport, the White.

My focus has always been on utility; the Dominiques are out there because my needs in Nevada are different than my needs in California. In Nevada, there is a reasonable expectation that thriftiness and foraging for five months of the year as well as broodiness may be cheaper than higher production and having to buy replacement pullets - natural broodiness is a good trait to have in a place where the electricity tends to disappear depending on the weather or wildfires. Layer feed and oyster shell are always available - but smaller birds eat less, and forages tend to rustle up more of their own feed. Dominiques are smaller than Rocks - but the cockerels make a reasonably sized carcass for a family meal. I also need birds that withstand both heat and cold - and Dominiques definitely do that, doing well in heat despite their very heavy down.

I think one of the greatest losses we've had hasn't been in exotic and rare breeds; it is the loss of the "improved strains" of early 20th Century dual purpose breeds. In 1926, Dryden's pen of Barred Rocks outlaid the top laying pen, of White Leghorns, in January in the Santa Cruz laying trials. The top Leghorn pen laid 769 eggs during the four months, the next highest pen were the Dryden Rocks at 726.

Breeders can't resist trying to create a new color of a breed. We see this all the time today. The only purpose is that it is new and attracts attention. There is no practical purpose, such as eggs, meat, foraging, broodiness, etc.

The Dominique is one of the best all-around chicken breeds. From a self-sufficiency standpoint it is great because it forages, is thrifty, and raises its own chicks.

Did you make a mistake at the end? You said the pen of Barred Rocks laid more eggs than the pen of White Leghorns, but your number of eggs for White Leghorns is higher.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

Breeders can't resist trying to create a new color of a breed. We see this all the time today. The only purpose is that it is new and attracts attention. There is no practical purpose, such as eggs, meat, foraging, broodiness, etc.

The Dominique is one of the best all-around chicken breeds. From a self-sufficiency standpoint it is great because it forages, is thrifty, and raises its own chicks.

Did you make a mistake at the end? You said the pen of Barred Rocks laid more eggs than the pen of White Leghorns, but your number of eggs for White Leghorns is higher.

No. The Leghorns lead overall for the four months, but the heavier Rock outlaid them in January. I suspect the Rocks would have also outlaid them in December had they been further north, with shorter days.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

Wow, that is great. That is an old hen.

Red Star, or Red Sex-Link, is a hybrid so it is not recognized by the APA.

But you are probably right that if we measured egg-laying over the life of chickens that some of the old breeds would probably win against hybrids. But it is just cheaper to replace hens with pullets once in a while. So no one measures how many eggs a hen can produce in a lifetime.

Interesting that you mentioned that. In the early 20th Century some of the poultry scientists did go for long term layers that would lay adequately enough to earn their keep and turn a profit for several years. I know of one hen that laid over 1,000 eggs by early in her sixth year of lay. I don't know what she did after that. That's nearly 200 eggs per year of lay for her first five laying years.