SOP vs productive Heritage birds?

[Kaceyx73]

Organick:

Welcome to the wonderful, confusing world of backyard poultry!!!

Last year, I went through much the same process trying to determine what breed would be the best for me. I was looking for, as it sounds, much the same as you. I wanted a good dual purpose bird, decent layer with good table manners. I also, considering I would be with these birds for quite a while, wanted an attractive and fun to be around breed. My research led me to the Rhode Island Red. Of course, there is the Heritage RIR, and then there is the production red, or hatchery based RIR. As many will attest, they ARE NOT the same breed. I wish I knew that before hand. Production Reds are great birds, plenty of personality, good foragers, good size, and exceptional layers of brown eggs. Of course I only had 1 out of 10 that actually laid the typical XL egg, and it was a beautiful speckled brown one, consistent in size and shape. Out of 10, I was averaging 65 eggs/week all spring, and dropped off to about 48 in the heat of summer here in SC. The major problem with Production Reds is that virtually all broodiness has been bred out of them. Hatching chicks requires an incubator, or a second breed to do the job for you. Boy o boy, I wish I knew that to start.

Unfortunately I lost my original flock to dogs a couple of months ago, only surviving members being the Production Red roo and a incubator full of eggs, mostly crossed with a very imperfect Marans roo, albeit strikingly beautiful.

Having that Marans roo led me to a lot of research on Marans, and like you, I ran across a lot of peeps who swore that to breed to anything other than the SOP was tantamount to poultry treason. Since then, and after calculating much of the chicken math involved in a new flock, I settled on raising Marans. Just as many good, reasonable breeders exist who are not gung ho about genetic purity as those that aren't, and many that are understand that showing chickens isn't for everyone.

Do the math:
1. If you raise 3 clutches/year@ 10 live chicks/hatch, gives you 30 chicks a year.
2. You may only get 1-3 really good specimens out of each clutch, leaving an average of 6 per year for breeding stock.
3. Half of your chicks are likely hens, and can be kept a little longer to see how they lay.
4. 15 cockerels minus 3 good breeders leaves you with 12 good meat birds by 6 months, depending on the breed. Another 12 hens after factoring out the best layers, is 24 meat birds, and plenty for eggs.

Obviously, you have to go up or down on the math based on how much room you have, etc. Point is, good breeders get plenty of eggs and meat, with plenty of spares to sell as breeding stock and layers for others. You, as a breeder of Breed X chickens, get to select what traits are most important. Most Heritage breeds, dual purpose especially, will go broody and raise chicks on occasion. Maybe you select hens for egg size and conformity, roosters for large breasts for table fare. Many of the older breeds have these traits. A dual purpose, heritage breed will typically only lay 2-4 eggs a week, but will lay longer throughout their life. Birds that lay to soon in their life will sacrifice body size, generally, so on and so on.

And who knows, maybe you do end up with that prized rooster that you can't help bragging about, and decide to show. Either way, a good breeder will be able to tell you what they breed for, and where there birds excel and where they need work. If they aren't willing to discuss such things, maybe you should look elsewhere.

As for breeds, that will depend on exactly what you want, what you want more of and less of, so on and so forth. Heritage RIR, Welsumers, Orpingtons, and even Marans will likely suit your needs. Delawares make great meat birds and are very pretty, but you will want to find the threads for each variety you're contemplating and ask lots of questions, then also talk to breeders about their experiences. Remember that dual purpose means they aren't the best at laying, nor do they grow exceptionally fast for meat. They are supposed to exhibit good characteristics in all areas, and hence they are the true Backyard chickens. As for the utmost in efficiency, you may have to look at a mixed flock. Leghorns, Rocks, Production Reds, and Sex-Links are among the best layers, while Cornish, Delawares, and the CornishX are the most efficient at meat production. Adding a third breed of Silkies or Cochins for brooding and mothering would be the best bet for a mixed flock.

As an aside.... Don't neglect the Marans... Not only did the French love of delicious food lead to a chicken that laid a big, beautiful, delicious egg, it also led to a chicken renowned for its incredible table qualities. And if you decide to raise a few chicks for sale or choose to sell bred hatching eggs, people do want them. Just be honest enough to explain how you bred them. I got my new sire, a Copper Blue rooster, and new flock momma, a Copper Black hen, from West Knoll Farms. She breeds a balance of meat and SOP in her roos and more egg qualities in her hens. Discuss your needs and wants with any breeder you are looking into.

Ken

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Well said, Kacey!

A thought, though, is that shows were originally meant to a great extent for serious breeders, for whom productivity was key, to show off their wares and drum up business. If more and more start to breed heritage fowl in a meaningful way, it will renew and strengthen that purpose. However, and this cannot be stressed enough. The Standard of Perfection is the friend of all who wish to breed heritage poultry for production. Much more than a guide to color schemes, it safeguards the alignment, a.k.a. type, of each fowl which is the very basis of its particular style of production. It would be foolish to take RI Reds away from RI Red type, for eventually you would only be producing NH's. Each breed has a type, and that type leads to a specific productivity mode and schedule. A Wyandotte is a Wyandotte for a reason, a Dorking a Dorking for a reason, an Ancona an Ancona for a reason. Breed is defined by type NOT color. Thus, when a breeder or judge looks at the particular alignment of a fowl, he or she recognizes the breed in its form. Recently at a show, I was asked my opinion of a a "RI Red" cockerel. I responded that it seemed to want to be a RI Red (and was labeled so) via its color, but in form it was a NH. Both are great breeds, but know which one you want and then breed for it. Color concerns come after shape. However, the more one hatches, the more one has a chance of also selecting around color lines, as well, which is really fun.

In short, there is a strange mode of understanding between this idea of production and Standard, which is unfounded. There are industrial and then traditional, or heritage, fowl. They are not the same world. If one's bent is toward the former, then one is better off buying the products at the supermarket, for one will never compete with their bottom dollor. However, if one is drawn to the slower, more beautiful things of like, the heritage fowl are an excellent addition. If you really want to get to know poultry, including highly productive poultry, hang out at poultry shows. To think that breeders only talk color is to misunderstand entirely poultry shows. Of course there are those that do, sure, but there are industrial chickens that live their entire life in slings being milked for semen--life is full of imperfections. However, shows are also filled with people who take poultry breeding for productivity quite seriously. I can think of one-amazingly interesting and knowedgeable judge, with whom I cannot wait to have another opportunity for conversation, whose grandfather had a poultryfarm comprised entirely of light Brahmas for production. One of the top breeders of Brown Leghorns in the country is probably the cheerleader for productive heritage poultry bar none. The list goes on and on. In short, if you really love poultry enough to be on a blog about them, dive into the show world. Attend, Ask questions. Learn more. It's a swell space.

Lastly, when you start your flock, it is not the end of the line, but rather the beginning. As another on here pointed out, whatever the selection criteria have been for your in-coming flock, it's going to be YOUR criteria then say where they go. Choose one good breed for the long haul, and then you're off.

 

[jamband]

thanks all


yellowhouse.....thanks for the info and I didnt mean to come off as thinking breeders are all about color or any one thing for that matter. I have just been around conversations involving slight feather variation and other seemingly small things. Small to me who really know very little.....

I guess it really makes sense for breeders to have productive birds as well. I mean farmers want productive chickens right and an old time breed was likely developed to meet a food need right?

Thanks for sharing. I didnt want to go into it without a concept of how to handle it. Dont't want to offend anyone but had irrational fears about beautiful, very poor producing chickens..........perhaps jaded by the horrible quality birds I got this year.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Oh, I was by no means offended, it's a point, though, that bears emphasis.

Another thought: a lot of tmes folk are talking color because the colors can be really hard to perfect. They're already assuming body type to be a given. You'll find that show folk will often belabor a small point of color because the color is hard to achieve, but sych a conversation is usually being held around a quality bird that they are hoping to help towards "perfection". You'll note that, regardless of color, most breeders will simply walk by a bird whose type is so off as to not be standard. Off type isn't even given the time of day.

 

[halo]

I have found there is a very gray line between Heritage breeders that are breeding for showing, and those breeding for good birds. Ive pretty much stayed away from looking at show strains, since many of them have sacrificed production for perfection to show. Ive looked at a couple of different breeds that were top show lines, of which I wasnt able to get any hatching eggs because they just didnt lay well enough for me to get any. That pretty much turned me off of show strains. I value production, and wont cull (meaning to not breed, not kill) because of a slight imperfection, if I know that hen is a great layer. Ive met some show breeders who are very picky about the hens they use to produce their future show stock. It doesnt matter if they only get an egg or two a week from them, those are the ones they are propagating to get more show stock. To me its a self fulfilling prophecy. The more you hatch low producing stock, the more low producing stock you will get. Whereas just the opposite, if you have a flock and hatch all the eggs, the hens with better production will have more eggs being hatched, and you will produce more hens with better production.

Im not sure if that made sense to anyone, but it did to me.

 

[flowerchild59]

There are several threads on here on heritage breeds with LOTS of discussion and contemplation. Good luck to you.

 

[speckledhen]

I'm not sure they are always mutually exclusive. My Delawares are from heritage stock, big chunky birds and still excellent layers. I don't have all of them any longer but was told by a breeder (no, not the one I got them from, a unbiased party) that they would have done well at shows so I do believe you can have both.

 

[EweSheep]

You CAN have both production and SOP heritage birds. There are breeders out there that are doing it likewise. It is just a matter of finding them needle in a haystack kind of thing.

 

[speckledhen]

I personally wouldn't want a perfect looking bird who wouldn't lay a few eggs per week, as long as that was supposed to be the breed norm.

 

[rarely bored]

Great thread!! Thank you for the detailed analysis!

and now with a dozen orp eggs in the bator, I'm curious about marans...