Show Off Your Games!

[gamelife]

Now that's a good looking pullet! What are you breeding her with this year?

 

[sdm111]

Wheaten pullet centra.

 

[sdm111]

 

[sdm111]

Murphey whitehackle over col. Givens hatch

 

[sdm111]

lloyd miners getting their first taste of la. Heat on the ground

 

[centrarchid]

That is what I am looking for, thanks! About 30 years ago I would have had the wheatons in my own hand but..........

 

[sdm111]

Come on don't leave us hangin', but what?!?!?!

 

[hildar]

Please do tell, what happened??

 

[NYREDS]

Well I do, I'm not jeopardizing my flock cause of an ill bird. So you're saying u KNOW that every bird u aquire is ailment free?

I don't know how I could have made myself any clearer.

 

[centrarchid]

Come on don't leave us hangin', but what?!?!?!

Back in the early 1970’s I used to visit with my great-uncle that was very much into games. He had a typical cockyard that covered about 3 acres on a hillside, a series of about 30 cinderblock flypens, and multiple hen houses where hens not in breeding were kept. He also had a lot of the old modified wooden coops like what were at one time used to ship birds. Those little coops were scattered about a field adjacent to cockyard and around buildings and even his front yard. During spring most of the coops had in each a hen with chicks where chicks could run about a short distance from their mothers. The cocks and stags penned on hill were mostly what people these days would automatically call a Hatch although I am fairly certain that if it was in their background, it represented only a portion of what they were derived from. There is an interesting story as to how those birds came to be but that is not important at this time. The other colors that were said to be from our blood were a dirty version of the “Hatch-colored” which was actually the most common, another we called brown red which better described as brown-breasted brown red. We also had some proper brown reds that started off as dark brown chicks and even some redquill. When anything that did not look like a proper black-breasted red was bred to almost black stags of what we called ‘Doc Kniefords” a much higher proportion of redquills where thrown. None had white except for cotton of tails and every bird had green legs. White or greys for some reason where not held in high esteem.


The farm of my upbringing was at a different location and supported some of my great-uncles walks. We had multiple barnyards because we kept cattle and stored all hay as square bales in those barns and it was not practical to store all in a single location. The main barnyard surrounding house of my grandparents had enough buildings and acreage to enable existence of three discrete walks so long as the number of birds was not too high. Grandparents there were not related to my great-uncle; we are far enough north that at least some forks in the family tree are to be expected. About the time of my great-uncles passing, his “birding partner” named Buss brought out a single cock he said was a grey toppy with yellow legs. He did not try to set up the typical multiple walk system nor did he take the time to make certain hens were staying where they were supped to be or were not pullets not harvested from season before. Pullets normally did not get to breed on walks. That cock sired more than a dozen broods (well over a hundred birds come September when stags where harvested) from a group of hens and their daughters that normally represented three discrete lines. A good portion of those young birds were grays of some sort but about half were not which in hindsight means that cock was golden duckwing. The cock also through some yellow legged offspring. A bunch of other colortypes I had not seen in our birds before also popped up, including wheaton which was directly evident in some the nonwhite birds. I had my eye on a couple stags but Buss harvested those leaving me to pick through the post June hatched birds and one grey pullet that roosted in a location he could not get to because he was too heavy. That pullet was magic to me! She was a gray toppied redquill (approximately silverquill but just a little lighter) with willow legs. I bred her to a range of males in the following years and got color-types that were even more unpredictable than in her generation. These included more wheatons. I was young and had very little experience seeing such variation in games. My grandfather allowed my brother and I to use a couple barnyards as walks over the following decade and we also talked our way into using barnyards of neighbors for the same purpose. During this time we had birds that differed markedly from what our family was known for. In the end I had to go college for too long and was not able to take birds with me so they were lost to a range of outcomes, my first hen went to Buss as he tried to salvage the grey cocks bloodline and others I do not know. My brother had a core group that was not contaminated by Buss’s efforts and it from that I acquired my current lines which does not include the grays, wheatons or the brown reds. Latter my brother had but was lost in genetic bottleneck my current founding stock represented. My experience with wheatons ended back in the early 1980’s resulting in my having to beg for pictures over the internet.