There are threads here about managing cross beaked chicks. Mainly they need crumble, mash, or dampened food in a deep dish, so they can get food past that awful beak. Hand feeding can be done, but it's your decision, either to euthanize before he actually starves to death, or do what it takes to give him a life. If it's a cockerel, he's going to be dinner sometime, and if a pullet, egglaying is a very big job nutritionally, so difficult to support with eating problems. Karen is so right to slam the 'breeder' who sent these eggs!!! So sorry. Mary
No. no. I am severely pi**ed off at the breeder sold aggie these poor quality genetics. But slamming the breeder by name on the Net is not the answer. All it does is present Aggie as a headhunter. These things happen and it is sad and regretful when they do. However, this is also a two edged sword in any animal breeding. Yes, one can take their case to the Net and raise all kinds of stink. But the other side of the sword is that the top breeders have seen this before ( novices in any animal breeding are a dime a dozen and usually last 5 years, then leave) ...and will be leery of helping someone who is new to a breed and spends time skewering folk who provided them with previous stock.
It is very important to understand this. In the animal breeding world it is all about discretion.
As you get further into it you will discover that no strain is perfect. That every breed has it secrets. But the veteran breeders know that as a whole they are moving the breed forward. That they can work together and work to eliminate the problems and raise the breed up as a whole. This is not knowledge they share with newcomers for the very reason that newcomers often learn for by critiquing faults. Not appreciating virtues. if you ask a newcomer to a breed which of a group of birds is the best one, 9 times out of 10 they will begin reciting faults and tell you this one bird has less faults than the other ,so it is best,
Sounds good huh? Actually, that kind of judging by fault finding is a mark of being unschooled in a breed.
It is those judging by fault finding, unschooled in the nuances of the breed, who will race around social media with critical breeding knowledge and skewer those they deem Unworthy for some reason, either human or animal. It causes a lot of problems and is why one must be discrete and work hard to earn the respect which will let them be privy to the "art of breeding" which produces these top birds. Whining won't do it. And when one gains access to this "art of breeding" knowledge, hold it in the same trust as have breeders before. Sharing it with those who have
earned the respect to handle the knowledge and shown they will handle it with the honor it deserves.
What I have just written is quite important. It is not to be gainsaid but ruminated on and considered.
Start with a top breeder. Honor their trust and hold the knowledge they share in your heart alone as a matter of trust. It is
not to be thrown in front of those who have not the wisdom to respect it. Learn from that breeder and be diligent. Seek their counsel for breeding plans and follow thru. Learn how the strain inherits and throw traits. When you think you are ready yo start making your own decision, run them by the breeder and heed his/her counsel. Applaud yourself if you got the proposed breeding right. Learn from it if the breeder counsels you to tweak it one way or another.
And finally, the top breeder will show you how to evaluate by considering virtues. Without this skill it is almost impossible to excel. Because a top animal is always more than a lack of faults. The other side of the coin to lack of faults is the beauty and symmetry which gives that animals the ability to express the nuances of that breed. That special X factor which makes it truly a top Ameraucana, or collie, or horse, etc.
The balance of the body, the symmetry which fills the eye and makes you just want to keep looking at the animal again and again. We have all seen creatures like that. They radiate their "breed type" like a shining star. The symmetry of such an animal is such there are
no extremes of breed type which interrupt your eye as you follow the animal visually from head to tail, tail to head, side to side, top to bottom. The animal "fits" itself. Its breed type does not struggle against itself to express properness. The various parts of the animal flow uniformly into one another melding to create a wholeness which fills the eye. When one understands balance and symmetry in a properly bred animal, then one can begin to judge by virtue instead of fault. We can add all the proper genetics together to make a proper animal. But it is the
art of breeding which engages the nuances of a breed to make
great birds. The time tested motto is , in a breed,
"All the great ones look alike".
"All the great ones look alike"
Best Regards,
Karen
