Show Off Your Games!

[saladin]

Folks make no mistake about it. This is exactly why we have working dogs with all kinds of problems today. People stopped culling for all sorts of reasons.

Understand this and understand it well: the people who will not cull but are breeding chickens are ruining the breeds they are working with.

Will they take my post as offensive? You bet they will.

I take their choices as offensive to everything I believe about improving chickens. They'll come on sites like this with their distorted values, spew their standards and then in a few years they will not even have chickens. But what they bred will be out their to pollute everyone else's gene pools for years.



NEVER PURCHASE A CHICKEN FROM A BREEDER THAT DOES NOT CULL HIS/HER BIRDS.

 

[saladin]

KEEP THE BEST AND KILL THE REST; THAT IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS WITH CHICKENS.

 

[cubalaya]

i agree with what saladin said and culled a few this week myself. i do not agree with store bought chicken tasting better than mine. i would rather eat the chickens i raise here than some genetic frankenchicken with mush meat. that being said culling is not always killing. if i cull (sell) a few chickens that are good but not kept for breeding here then i am taking them out of my flock(culling). both methods do the same thing. they leave you with the best birds to breed. saladin would not sell you his best bird but will tell you their faults if he sells you one. i do the same. if i have a large white pullet with yellow legs, she may help someone get the size of their whites up. they can always work on leg color later.

 

[Jungleexplorer]

Amen to that
But I'm also like the good flavor of a fresh chickens. Lol

I like the flavor of fresh chicken too, just not fresh AG. I have killed several and cooked them. Me and my family have eaten chickens from our flock for over 30 year in central and south America. Never have I tasted a chicken of poorer quality meat then an AG. I am not saying it is not edible. Hey, I have eaten many things that would gross most people out. It is just not preferable.

 

[upthecreek]

I don't mind the yellow legs... But, the longtail game project I am working on will have the Sumatra type leg and sole color!

 

[McGillGamefowl]

Lol one time i had a yard full of bantam cochins, they were all between 8 months- 2 years old, i tried selling them nobody wanted them because they're weren't true to they're standards......long story short.....i ate all of them, they were a lil aggravating to clean because of the feathered legs, and none of em weighed anymore than 3 pounds but everybody that ate the chicken loved it and had no complaints, plus ive not bought store bought nasty chicken since, there is a big difference between chickens that have been pump full of hormones and chickens that have been free range for sure......

 

[varidgerunner]

I like the flavor of fresh chicken too, just not fresh AG. I have killed several and cooked them. Me and my family have eaten chickens from our flock for over 30 year in central and south America. Never have I tasted a chicken of poorer quality meat then an AG. I am not saying it is not edible. Hey, I have eaten many things that would gross most people out. It is just not preferable.

I guess I will find out about flavor, I've got two different batches coming along. I've heard conflicting reports on the edibility of gamefowl. I've actually cooked and eaten crow, so it can't be that bad. My guess is that cutting out the breast fillets is about the best you can do with them, and then treat them like gamebirds. We feed the raw food diet to our meat eating animals so nothing gets wasted around here.

 

[Jungleexplorer]

i agree with what saladin said and culled a few this week myself. i do not agree with store bought chicken tasting better than mine. i would rather eat the chickens i raise here than some genetic frankenchicken with mush meat. that being said culling is not always killing. if i cull (sell) a few chickens that are good but not kept for breeding here then i am taking them out of my flock(culling). both methods do the same thing. they leave you with the best birds to breed. saladin would not sell you his best bird but will tell you their faults if he sells you one. i do the same. if i have a large white pullet with yellow legs, she may help someone get the size of their whites up. they can always work on leg color later.

I agree with you on this and think you have taken a balanced and reasonable approach. From ideological standpoint, I can see where Saladin is coming from though. I guess it all boils down to what you believe and the standards your consider to be the goal of your breeding program.

If you believe that the ideas in a book based on the opinions of a select group of people are the Standards of Perfection, then you should breed to that standard. If you believe that standard is that one of attitude and historical utility (True Gameness in gamefowl, which means intolerance of other roosters and fighting to the death as Cuda holds as the standard) then you should breed to that standard.

As far as I am concerned, both of the above standards are detrimental to my standards which is genetic fortitude and landrace self sufficiency. The scientific truth is, that when you selectively try to breed out certain qualities, you are trying to eliminate genetic qualities, there by reducing the genetic variables of the animals gene pool. In the long run, this makes for a genetically weak animal and encourages genetic defects. This fact is easily observable in breeds like the Dalmatian and many others.

I am not saying that anyone is wrong and I am right. What I am saying is that we should not judge other people for holding a different standard the our own. It is not a issue of right or wrong. Each of us have our own purposes and for us that purpose is right. So it is an issue of multiple rights.

 

[McGillGamefowl]

Don't think anybody could explain it any better than that, well put!

 

[saladin]

Placing a cock with a hen is not breeding; that's copulation. Many folk today seem to have no idea what breeding chickens (or any other animal) is all about. Health and vigor must be the top priorities no matter what when breeding. Yet, many are breeding birds that aren't even a year old! Ridiculous. Many good strains of birds are ruined in two or three generations by being bred by folk who have no idea what they are doing. I see it all the time.