SOP's Can you help, or do you want to learn?

[thistlewick]

Which breed 'standards' are silly or just for 'looks' and not really helpful for the bird, I wonder?

There are so many dog varieties that are hurtful to the actual dog but humans wanted "something specific"... I wonder what we've done to chickens....

Kirkiri perhaps :/ That cannot possibly be great.

 

[Amer]

Which breed 'standards' are silly or just for 'looks' and not really helpful for the bird, I wonder?

There are so many dog varieties that are hurtful to the actual dog but humans wanted "something specific"... I wonder what we've done to chickens....

Kirkiri perhaps :/ That cannot possibly be great.

What's wrong with Kirikiri?
I can name a lot of birds smaller than them. Songbirds, hummingbirds, etc etc
They don't have a standard either, at least not here in the US.
It's not healthy to breed from runty birds of course, which I'm sure lots of Kirikiri breeders do, but it's perfectly fine to selectively breed smaller and smaller birds.
I can name Japanese (lethal creeper gene) and Araucana (lethal ear tuft gene). The Japanese standard could be bred for without the creeper gene I feel like. You could just select for shorter legs, but I do feel like short legs somewhat limit movement. I've also heard the argument against Silkie crests. Polish have large crests because of a larger vaulted skull shape with a knob on it but this isn't harmful to the bird (it has a larger brain though but based on studies, it has no neurological effects, nor any adverse effects at all.) However, when this large skull shape is bred onto other smaller crested breeds like the Silkie you can *alledgedly* get an incomplete skull and exposed brain. This is alledgedly, I haven't actually heard of it resulting in problems.
Vision isn't an issue because crests can be pulled back using a rubber band. Or plucked.

You could argue Silkie and Frizzle feathering but it's not just in the Standard, lots of people breed for it.
Silkie feathering isn't inherently bad for the bird and in my experience Silkies are extremely hardy despite what they say. But they definitely can't fly so I'd argue that would make them less happy. But then, a lot of birds can't fly. Have you ever seen a sad Ostrich?
Frizzle feathering is more of an issue. Homozygous frizzle birds have terrible, brittle feathers that don't provide the protection the birds need. Obviously just don't breed frizzle to frizzle but I personally don't see the point of perpetuating a gene that does that. But they are cute though.

 

[Sic]

Which breed 'standards' are silly or just for 'looks' and not really helpful for the bird, I wonder?

There are so many dog varieties that are hurtful to the actual dog but humans wanted "something specific"... I wonder what we've done to chickens....

Kirkiri perhaps :/ That cannot possibly be great.

Do you mean Kikiriki? Humans seem to love anomalies in other species, but not so much their own...thank God

 

[thistlewick]

To be fair, we bred chickens insanely to get them to be egg factories and no one seems to have a problem with that

Originally chickens laid 11-18 eggs a year, those jungle fowl.

Amazing.

I think ethics questions are fascinating.

 

[Skyeknight]

To be fair, we bred chickens insanely to get them to be egg factories and no one seems to have a problem with that

Originally chickens laid 11-18 eggs a year, those jungle fowl.

Amazing.

I think ethics questions are fascinating.

I feel like chickens definitely got the bad end with breeding for livestock stuff. The egg production layers have a lot of reproductive issues and the "normal" broilers can't even stand normally at a mere 6 weeks. When you compare this to cows, pigs or sheep then they don't seem to have any specific underlying healh issues from breeding towards milk or meat. The worst thing I can think of is with pure beef cattle or texel sheep the calves or lambs can be too big for the birth canal and a caesarean section needs to be applied.

 

[Amer]

I feel like chickens definitely got the bad end with breeding for livestock stuff. The egg production layers have a lot of reproductive issues and the "normal" broilers can't even stand normally at a mere 6 weeks. When you compare this to cows, pigs or sheep then they don't seem to have any specific underlying healh issues from breeding towards milk or meat. The worst thing I can think of is with pure beef cattle or texel sheep the calves or lambs can be too big for the birth canal and a caesarean section needs to be applied.

Exactly. Chickens have it the worst.
It's because their generations are so much shorter, you can breed for a genetic extreme a lot faster.

 

[Sic]

To be fair, we bred chickens insanely to get them to be egg factories and no one seems to have a problem with that

Originally chickens laid 11-18 eggs a year, those jungle fowl.

Amazing.

I think ethics questions are fascinating.

Well to be fair, if the average heritage hen was left to her own devices and didn't have her eggs taken from her nest daily, they too have a natural breeding season and would only lay eggs to provide one or two clutches per year. Jungle fowl taken out of their wild habitat and treated like an egg producing machine, will lay more than just 11-18 eggs per year. Wild birds, though they have an average clutch size, will attempt to lay eggs to that clutch size, should they lose eggs to predators, etc. But to your point, no one really wants to know or talk about factory farming, so it tends to carry-on as a dirty little secret.Ethics tend to be local cultural and not universal. To stay on topic (As far as I remember), there is no SOP requirement for specific egg quantity per year.

 

[Sic]

Not sure if this was answered, but I believe squirrel tail is a major (disqualifying?) fault except in breeds such as Japanese Bantam. There may be physical or health reasons, but I know of none specifically. My chickens do infact use their tails as rudders for balance over rough uneven terrain, up, down, left, right. Likely not seen to a large extent on flat ground that the average chicken is kept on, which is not something we have here. They also wear down their nails to stubs climbing rocks...but that's a different issue. I would think that an extreme tail position may inhibit the natural use for balance in movement.

 

[Amer]

Not sure if this was answered, but I believe squirrel tail is a major (disqualifying?) fault except in breeds such as Japanese Bantam. There may be physical or health reasons, but I know of none specifically. My chickens do infact use their tails as rudders for balance over rough uneven terrain, up, down, left, right. Likely not seen to a large extent on flat ground that the average chicken is kept on, which is not something we have here. They also wear down their nails to stubs climbing rocks...but that's a different issue. I would think that an extreme tail position may inhibit the natural use for balance in movement.

I agree with that, and I think the leaning forward posture has to do with their short legs. American Serama also have a squirrel type tail but because they have longer legs and stand upright they should not have that problem. Japanese can actually lower their tails, it's not the tail being high that's the problem, it's the leaning forward and being unbalanced.