Plymouth Rock thread!

[Fred's Hens]

Another definition I've heard for entropy is this. Clean, top to bottom, a teenager's bedroom. Put the closet in perfect order, the items carefully lined up, and straighten the drawers to a "T". Having everything in it's place. Spotless.

Then, have the teenager return to that room and come on back for a look see in a week. Entropy.

 

[catdaddyfro]

Another definition I've heard for entropy is this. Clean, top to bottom, a teenager's bedroom. Put the closet in perfect order, the items carefully lined up, and straighten the drawers to a "T". Having everything in it's place. Spotless.

Then, have the teenager return to that room and come on back for a look see in a week. Entropy.

In otherwords: "disorganized" would be a good summation of the word, LOL

Jeff

Entropy = in- turning point
The term entropy was coined in 1865 [Cl] by the German physicist Rudolf Clausius from Greek en- = in + trope = a turning (point).

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...FnlW_DsfkntTGAExg&sig2=oJy7m6stvWHpMk0Lf-VSUw

 

[strick]

Thank you all for the opinions & information. Yes, she is hatchery-bred, and was an 'oops'-- they put her in with an order of silkies I'd placed. Interesting information on the hatcheries---I just started on the Backyard Chicken forum, so first I'd hear of the issues with the breeding. I've been buying Brahmas & Americaunas from Ideal Hatchery in Texas, for years, with no problem. This year I decided to try my hand at silkies, and no one sells them close by.

I have now had 2 shipments of silkie chicks from ideal, for a total of 15 chicks, and only 2 have survived. I was thinking it was the air transport & the hardiness of the breed.....but , perhaps after reading your comments...the hatchery stock?

 

[Silver Rock]

The Barred Rock is a composite Breed.  Think a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.  The originators spent a lot of time and effort putting that jig saw puzzle together.  Unless you're reasonably selective in breeding a composite breed, the birds can go backward.  Our chickens are not sparrows or robins or bald eagles, those are species, our birds are merely "breeds" a human invention, an artistic rendering of various pieces and parts of several foundation strains that were crafted purposefully together 130 years ago.

There is a law in this universe called entropy.  In layman's language it simply refers to the tendency of all ordered things to move toward disorder, from design to disarray.  In short?  You cannot just toss a few thousand Barred Rocks into a hatchery breeding barn and breed them and their offspring for a decade of two without much selection and expect the puzzle pieces that are the Barred Rock to remain in place.  The bird will recompose itself genetically and result may be step by step, year by year, farther and farther from the Barred Rock ideal of its original composers. 

Well said

 

[speckledhen]

Thank you all for the opinions & information. Yes, she is hatchery-bred, and was an 'oops'-- they put her in with an order of silkies I'd placed. Interesting information on the hatcheries---I just started on the Backyard Chicken forum, so first I'd hear of the issues with the breeding. I've been buying Brahmas & Americaunas from Ideal Hatchery in Texas, for years, with no problem. This year I decided to try my hand at silkies, and no one sells them close by.

I have now had 2 shipments of silkie chicks from ideal, for a total of 15 chicks, and only 2 have survived. I was thinking it was the air transport & the hardiness of the breed.....but , perhaps after reading your comments...the hatchery stock?

Hi, and welcome to BYC. The statement in bold sums up my point that you really never know what you'll get from a hatchery. The Brahmas I have are from Ideal and were fine, one died about a year ago from cancer (I call it Old Hens' Disease now), and I still have one who is going on 7 years old, though her laying years are long over. Their "Americaunas", as with the other hatcheries, are not Ameraucanas at all, but mixed genetics Easter Egger chickens. Nothing wrong with them, but they are not a true Ameraucana, never have been and probably never will be because the big hatcheries simply do not care about that and will not listen to reason. Of course, they would never care about longevity-why would they? Cuts into their repeat business.

The ones I mentioned that all died from internal laying? ALL from that same hatchery, all the usual feed store breeds.

Hatcheries provide a service. It's how most of the general public is introduced to chicken keeping and how they learn which breeds they prefer, etc. It was my introduction into keeping my own flock, though I grew up around my grandfather's chickens as a child. Now that I know what I want, which breeds, and that I do not want to rotate my flock every year or two, that I prefer they live a long and healthy life here at my Chicken Asylum, laying or not, I avoid hatchery stock. Just my take on it.

 

[cmom]

Barred Rock question: I've been browsing through all of the posts on Plymouth Rocks on this forum, and a couple others on the web. Seem unanimous that they are outgoing, friendly, birds. But this is not my experience. So, I thought I'd ask if anyone else has my experience with them:

I have one barred rock pullet, about 12 weeks old now. She is in a coop with similar sized chicks, a combo of 1 adult silkie, and 2 youngsters (same age as the barred rock).

She behaves very differently than all of my silkies, and my other full-sized hens, which are housed separately. (Brahma, Rhode Island Red, Wyandotte).

She is very skittish, although I've handled her since hatching. She flies, rather than running, when feels threatened (everyone else runs when I come walking). I catch her up in trees quite often...she'd rather roost in the tree at night, rather than going back into a coop, and every night I have to bring her down. She isn't picked on in her coop, nor does she pick on anyone else.

The flying strikes me as the most unusual, as I"ve had chickens for about 8 years now, with new chicks each year, and never had 'fliers'.

So...is this also 'typical' for the breed, or is mine just unusual?
Thanks

If you have a Rhode Island Red or a Barred Rock that is mean tempered, it could just be an individual flake or quirk, but since it happens so often with hatchery stock, there's something more afoot here. It happens so often because these birds have been pushed to places never imagined by the originators of these fine, historic, American Class birds that are such a huge part of our heritage in this country. It's a shame. The Leghorn was snuck into these fine, venerable old breeds in order to cheat and win egg laying contents, way back when. Further, the push of the huge, modern hatchery with huge breeding pens and no individual selection of breeding stock than is even possible creates generation after generation of flock breeding. 100 or 200 rooster in a pen with 1000 hens. This style of mass production breeding pushed these birds into being something they never were meant to be and the most aggressive rooster wins and passes on those genetics to the next and to next generations. Forgetting for a moment that these birds barely even look like the breeds they said to be, but what about performance and temperament?

Both the hatcheries and the consumer benefit from higher and higher egg yields and lower costs, but at what cost to the type, temperament and integrity of the breed?

Well said...

 

[Chickens Naturally]

I just posted this on another thread, but I was actually quite pleased with the ‘Rhode Island Red’ (of course they were actually production Cherry Eggers and not true RIR) I fist purchased many years ago from a feed store and they seemed to do well for many years, but hatcheries and feed stores don’t generally sell quality breeds. Their stock is often mixed breeds and sometimes only resembles the represented breed, a crap shoot at best, unlike a breeder who judiciously improves his or her stock. If you want the real deal quality fowl you have to seek them out. Just depends on what you want.

 

[LaLa Chickie]

Barred Rock question: I've been browsing through all of the posts on Plymouth Rocks on this forum, and a couple others on the web. Seem unanimous that they are outgoing, friendly, birds. But this is not my experience. So, I thought I'd ask if anyone else has my experience with them:

I have one barred rock pullet, about 12 weeks old now. She is in a coop with similar sized chicks, a combo of 1 adult silkie, and 2 youngsters (same age as the barred rock).

She behaves very differently than all of my silkies, and my other full-sized hens, which are housed separately. (Brahma, Rhode Island Red, Wyandotte).

She is very skittish, although I've handled her since hatching. She flies, rather than running, when feels threatened (everyone else runs when I come walking). I catch her up in trees quite often...she'd rather roost in the tree at night, rather than going back into a coop, and every night I have to bring her down. She isn't picked on in her coop, nor does she pick on anyone else.

The flying strikes me as the most unusual, as I"ve had chickens for about 8 years now, with new chicks each year, and never had 'fliers'.

So...is this also 'typical' for the breed, or is mine just unusual?
Thanks

Oh, you should see my "light brahmas" they fly to get ahead and then look like Dumbo when they land more forward then on their feet...Hahahahah,...my other Hen, loved sleeping in the Magnolia tree...she was mean however to the other young ones, so I let her have her way. My Madonna, always perches ourside, and I nightly scoop her up and put her away. Some of them are just so independent, they don't think the same rules apply to them. I have Barred Rocks, Light Brahmas and EE's....doesn't matter. They just want to be first flying, til they get so
heavy they can't lift their bodies..it's hysterical. Enjoy!

 

[Robert Blosl]

Great responses to the hatchery issue I get personnel messages all the time about this and I do tell people to order R I Reds from Ideal as they are perfect for say a family who wants to try to sell brown eggs to make a few dollars but it is hard to make much profit. You have to also worry about lose of birds due to blow outs as barred rocks and production reds are really a dual purpose type fowl and not designed to lay eggs like a leghorn. You can end up with a higher loss rate per year and that takes away from your profit margin.
Standard Breed Barred Rocks are a bird that is making a big come back and there are about five good stains out there that lay well, have good meat on their bodies with eaten and are so pretty to look at on the yard as they were designed to look like by our for fathers years ago. They are very rare as there are not of us breeding them because one issue slow to mature which is due to the bared gene that makes them slow to mature. That is why a lot of folks have gone to white rocks as they mature so much faster. The other colors are still out there and trying to promote them as they need families to raise them. We are seeing improvement in the numbers each year and a lot of that is from this tread and this web site.
My first chickens were production barred rocks most likely coming from Murry McMurry stock around 1960 . My uncle left a dozen eggs on the porch for me and I paid him 25 cents for them I rode my bike back home and placed six under two Cochin bantam hens. I hatched 9 chicks one was black with green legs. I had them for two years then moved up to what I thought was standard breed light Brahmas but latter found out they were not but hatchery Brahmas. Then I finally got into four H and wanted a pure breed fowl and got into the Real Rhode Island Reds. Kind of been hooked on them every since. http://prfca.poultrysites.com/

You will learn a lot from the folks on this tread. Many have converted from Production to standard breed Rocks. I am very great full for this as the Past National Secretary of the Plymouth Rock Fanciers Club of America. Here is a article I wrote about the breed that may explain the club and our goals. Also, if you can get it a great year book with many of the articles I got members to write on the different colors of the Rocks we breed.

http://www.backyardpoultrymag.com/3-5/plymouth_rocks_the_heirloom_breed/

www.showbirdbid.com/joomla/rockclub/PDF/2012.pdf

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/400344/heritage-large-fowl-thread/30
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SandyFlatFarm/?yguid=134681846
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/399477/barred-rocks-good-shepard-poulty-ranch/970
http://bloslspoutlryfarm.tripod.com/id45.html

Hit the lottery on the last web site. I forgot I wrote this on my web site so you will find Jamie’s address and email address on that article. I will post some pictures of his males that I found and you can see they have nice tails which is the big problem with barred males.

This should give you some good reading bob

http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/main/6541850/379004083

go look at this male came from Jamie about three years ago.

 

[Chickens Naturally]

Bob, that's some good links, thanks. Some of them don't work though. I think BYC changes some of the after www to backyard chickens.com. You may have to just type out to the side what its supposed to be and we may have to just type that part into our browsers search field. Not the easiest thing, but it would work.