To provide some explanation about why chickens aren't breed-classified by their pedigree
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If there arent organizations defining and tracking breeds, there can be no real understanding on what makes up certain breeds. Hobby breeders, commercial hatcheries, many county fairs, etc. can have ideas of what chickens of particular breeds should be like. However, they dont have a unanimously agreed-on written description of them. So whos idea of a breed is the real one? What if one hatchery says Easter Eggers have muffs and beards, while another says they just lay colored eggs?
In the U.S., the American Poultry Association and American Bantam Association are the two large organizations (There are also many smaller breed clubs) that coordinate reaching agreements on breed characteristics. The description of currently recognized breeds and varieties and their agreed-upon traits is published in the current APA American Standard of Perfection and ABA Bantam Standard books.
Not all breeds and varieties within each breed have yet been listed in the books--many are still developing. When a number of people have coordinated and concentrated their breeding efforts enough to establish strong genetics for a distinctive new breed or variety, they can apply as a group to have their new breed or variety added to the official lists.
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For definition by the APA and ABA (Remember--without a coordinating organization, people would just have various opinions which would not reliably match with others):
A chicken is classified as a certain breed SOLELY BASED ON CHARACTERISTICS (along with the likelihood of its genetics being able to pretty reliably continue to pass on those same characteristics). If you have a chicken that has all of that breed's required characteristics, then it is officially considered to be that breed of chicken.
Unlike dogs or horses, breed classification of a chicken is NOT BASED ON PARENTAGE (though parentage of course has a lot of effect on offspring's characteristics).
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Perhaps some reasons for this:
--A lotta chickens pass through this world.
* Many are hard to identify and track as individuals.
* Many chickens are housed together. Trying to be sure who came from which breeding can be hardespecially since hens can lay eggs from an earlier breeding even weeks afterward, plus a variety of hens will lay eggs in the same nest.
* People own too many chickens at a time to be able to maintain pedigrees on them.
* Even the offspring of official show-quality chickens are sold mostly to people who do not care about their chickens being officially of a certain breed. There would be little financial reward for pedigree-tracking.
* MANY chickens end up butchered. That would also waste a lot of record-keeping.
*** Chickens have shorter lifespans and FAR more potential offspring than animals like horses or dogs.
-----It is more practical to maintain a pedigree on animals like horses. Over the course of let's say 20 years, you get 2 or 3 horse generations and 1 or 2 offspring, versus 20 generations of chickens with a gillion offspring.
-----Imagine how many pedigrees and registrations the APA and ABA would have to manage! And if official records weren't kept, could you just trust every breeder's honesty--and memory?
--Also, a serious breeder needs to be permitted to sometimes cross in a chicken with specific good genetics into a different breed, without all the main breed's offspring being automatically disqualified because their ancestry is "impure."
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This means:
--A chicken can be categorized as a certain breed if it has all of the required breed characteristics, even if one or both of its parents did not have all of the characteristics (and therefore were not classified as that breed).
--Two chickens that both have all characteristics for a breed may not pass on some of the traits to some chicks, resulting in those chicks not being classified as that breed.
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Does that clear some common confusion up a little?
(If anyone has any more related info to add, please do.)
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If there arent organizations defining and tracking breeds, there can be no real understanding on what makes up certain breeds. Hobby breeders, commercial hatcheries, many county fairs, etc. can have ideas of what chickens of particular breeds should be like. However, they dont have a unanimously agreed-on written description of them. So whos idea of a breed is the real one? What if one hatchery says Easter Eggers have muffs and beards, while another says they just lay colored eggs?
In the U.S., the American Poultry Association and American Bantam Association are the two large organizations (There are also many smaller breed clubs) that coordinate reaching agreements on breed characteristics. The description of currently recognized breeds and varieties and their agreed-upon traits is published in the current APA American Standard of Perfection and ABA Bantam Standard books.
Not all breeds and varieties within each breed have yet been listed in the books--many are still developing. When a number of people have coordinated and concentrated their breeding efforts enough to establish strong genetics for a distinctive new breed or variety, they can apply as a group to have their new breed or variety added to the official lists.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For definition by the APA and ABA (Remember--without a coordinating organization, people would just have various opinions which would not reliably match with others):
A chicken is classified as a certain breed SOLELY BASED ON CHARACTERISTICS (along with the likelihood of its genetics being able to pretty reliably continue to pass on those same characteristics). If you have a chicken that has all of that breed's required characteristics, then it is officially considered to be that breed of chicken.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps some reasons for this:
--A lotta chickens pass through this world.
* Many are hard to identify and track as individuals.
* Many chickens are housed together. Trying to be sure who came from which breeding can be hardespecially since hens can lay eggs from an earlier breeding even weeks afterward, plus a variety of hens will lay eggs in the same nest.
* People own too many chickens at a time to be able to maintain pedigrees on them.
* Even the offspring of official show-quality chickens are sold mostly to people who do not care about their chickens being officially of a certain breed. There would be little financial reward for pedigree-tracking.
* MANY chickens end up butchered. That would also waste a lot of record-keeping.
*** Chickens have shorter lifespans and FAR more potential offspring than animals like horses or dogs.
-----It is more practical to maintain a pedigree on animals like horses. Over the course of let's say 20 years, you get 2 or 3 horse generations and 1 or 2 offspring, versus 20 generations of chickens with a gillion offspring.
-----Imagine how many pedigrees and registrations the APA and ABA would have to manage! And if official records weren't kept, could you just trust every breeder's honesty--and memory?
--Also, a serious breeder needs to be permitted to sometimes cross in a chicken with specific good genetics into a different breed, without all the main breed's offspring being automatically disqualified because their ancestry is "impure."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This means:
--A chicken can be categorized as a certain breed if it has all of the required breed characteristics, even if one or both of its parents did not have all of the characteristics (and therefore were not classified as that breed).
--Two chickens that both have all characteristics for a breed may not pass on some of the traits to some chicks, resulting in those chicks not being classified as that breed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Does that clear some common confusion up a little?
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