Standard of Perfection

[Bentley]

Dry incubation only refers to the addition or lack thereof of water to increase humidity or not. In essence, there is no way to "dry incubate' chicken eggs. If you live in a climate that is already humid you don't need to add humidity because it is already there. A chicken egg/embryo must lose 11-12% weight from day one to day 18 of incubation, PERIOD! This is science and basic embryology, if you can accomplish this without adding humidity then great, but it cant be called "dry incubation" because it is impossible to incubate eggs properly in a totally dry environment. I could go on and on about he negative consequences of this but i will leave this discussion here.

 

[checoukan]

On anouther thread, there is a person, that swears by dry incubation. I just don't see how she hatches the chicks that she does, but she does have some humidity in the bator, so I guess, that is how she is incubating, with the humidty that is already present naturally.

 

[3riverschick]

Thank you! I'm going to do some additional digging over the next couple of weeks as time allows. I'm now more than a little curious, especially after closely viewing the currently more than 150 Red Sussex in the pens and seeing that I don't have a single roo or hen, young or old, that has no black in the hackles, out of stock from all over the country, not just one or two breeders.
Curiouser and curiouser.....................

Doc

Looking back at my 1926 Outram "The Sussex Fowl....", he states, "...just an aside here... most all libraries and databases quote this as a 1926 edition. However, I found a mention in a Fall 1925 issue of a major poultry magazine where they commented the book had just been published. So it is a 1925 publishing date (tho a publishing date is not stated in the volume itself).
Ok, quoting Chapter 5 " The Red... It's Value as a Commercial Bird".
"The colour of the cock is very rich level mahogany red, clear of all signs of ticking or "pepperiness." The neck hackle has, as is characteristic with all Sussex, a black stripe. This point, I am sorry to say, is not popular with some Red breeders and in many cases the birds are exhibited at shows with a complete absence of this stripe. The tail is a beetle green black, with the coverts of the same colour, the flights having some black in them, but this should only be seen when the wing is outspread.
The colouring of the hen is exactly the same as that of the cock, the essential points being the slate blue under-colour and the deep red top; without the former it is very rare that the latter will be of any quality."

Question for Walt,
As I remember the hue of the under-color will effect the top color of the bird in either (or both?) sexes. Seeing that the APA Red isn't supposed to have black in the hackle, should APA Red breeders be looking for a different under-color in their Red hens?

Thanks,
Karen
P.S. It may be that the differences in black points between APA and worldwide Standards is a simple as gentrification. When fashion whimsy dictates a change in an animal breed phenotype it's called gentrification. One example is the ear carriage in the collie dog (rough and smooth). Before their sponsorship by Queen Victoria and the upper class British, ear carriage in this breed varied from lop-eared to prick-eared and everything in between. With acceptance by the English gentry, it was decided that the ear with a 1/4 to 1/3 tip was the "acceptable" hallmark for this breed. It remains so to this day, even tho elevation of ear carriage has no bearing on the dog's working ability. (sidenote: much more important than the elevation of the the ear carriage, is the mobility of the ear on the skull {to flex and locate/catch sound})
At the time of the popular rise of the Red Sussex, they were battling out toe to toe with the Rhode Island Red for popularity. It's possible the APA breeders felt the lack of black in the hackle made for a more handsome bird..and/or a better adversary for the RRI's share of poultry popularity. So the lack of black hackle in APA Reds could just be for "Fancy's" sake.

 

[3riverschick]

I find all the red breeds interesting, the New Hampshire with its three different red shades; I agree completely! .... I wonder about the play of under-color with surface color and what it all means. It's a fascinatng study. Handcox's Colour Genetics book and the old lit on Speckled Sussex and Light/Dark Brown Leghorns is enlightening.

I don't have a dog in the hunt of the "Red Sussex" I don't either, but it's still fascinating what one gene, here or there, can do to the color palette.

Quote:

I can't tell about these old pictures the hackles, but I do notice that the cockerel won both in London (1915), then in Chicago (1915) and then also here at Madison Sq. Gardens (1916):

If different descriptions (APA vs. British Standard), why or how would the cockerel win in both countries? Maybe nobody has brought up the black hackle question before? Seems unlikely but you never know. Red Sussex were seriously developed circa 1903 and weren't accepted by the British Poultry Club till 1913. They may have still been giving the variety some color leeway in 15/16?
Best,
Karen

 

[3riverschick]

Hi Doc!
Here's my contribution on the Red Sussex and Rhode Island Red color thang.
Best,
Karen
==============================
Poultry success, Volume 32 ,
Page 61 RS and RIR
http://tinyurl.com/7ylkrwm
===========
Standard poultry for exhibition: a complete manual of the methods of expert ...
By John Henry Robinson , Page 83; 84 ; 85 .
http://tinyurl.com/6pl9az9
=============================
General course in poultry husbandry,
Issues 1-9 By American Poultry School
Page 50
http://tinyurl.com/6q6v8ba
no mention of black in hackle.
================================
The mating and breeding of poultry
By Harry M. Lamon, Rob Roy Slocum
11 hits on "Red Sussex in this book, Pages: xviii,
222, 226, 228, 329, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339.
Color mating Red Sussex in both single and double mating on Page 226
http://tinyurl.com/7pydw4g
================================
1911 William H. Bratt History of the Sussex fowl containing the English and American standard of perfection . Published by : {the defunct} American Sussex poultry club ( Hackensack , N.J ) includes Sussex politics . http://tinyurl.com/yeljg3w ( read online ) additional URL : http://tinyurl.com/ydztds4
( read online and download ) This booklet included photos and comparasion of both "American bred" and "English-bred" Sussex" in various coors, including Red.
===========================================
The American standard of perfection
By American Poultry Association (1915)
Page 212 Red Sussex
http://tinyurl.com/6rmnrn2
-----------------------------------
Breeds of chickens for meat and egg production
By United States. Agricultural Research Service.
Animal Husbandry Research Division
Page 22 Red Sussex ) no mention of Black in hackle)
http://tinyurl.com/6rudmxx
=============================
1918 A.J. Falkenstein American poultry advocate, Volume 26 , Feb. 1918 "reprinted article; "The Proper Color of Speckled Sussex" An article written by Mr. A. J. Falkenstein, the leading English breeder of Speckled Sussex, read at the annual meeting of "The Sussex Club of America" at Cleveland, Ohio, January 10th, 1917. See Message #31Tue Jan 26, 2010 3:50 am , for full text . http://tinyurl.com/yaa5zlx
(a Red Sussex is a Speckled Sussex without the Speckling).
======================================
1920 Sharpe , S. C. The Book of the Sussex Published by : London , F. J. Parsons , 174 pages . Some sources call this book " The Sussex Fowl " . Written by a giant in the breed . Sells online for $240. - $300.USD. Unlike all the other books in this database, this one can also be purchased from Kirtasbooks.com for $1.95 USD & up. Kirtasbooks.com : http://tinyurl.com/yfaz9z9 ; Read online : http://tinyurl.com/ykfhbfb
Red Sussex info on Pages 193 thru 196 .
======================================

 

[BarnGoddess01]

On anouther thread, there is a person, that swears by dry incubation. I just don't see how she hatches the chicks that she does, but she does have some humidity in the bator, so I guess, that is how she is incubating, with the humidty that is already present naturally.

Science certainly doesn't support her claims nor do hundreds of years of universal poultry breeding. I have also heard of several folks trying "dry incubation" and having bad results.

I think one of the reasons it feels so appealing is because humidity is so hard to control in the very popular (affordable) styrofoam incubators. When manufacturer's instructions are followed in an area that already has 50% or higher humidity, the humidity tends to run too high giving us the opposite problem. When humidity levels are controlled the way they are supposed to be, incubation works for all eggs that have the right stuff in them to hatch.

 

[NYREDS]

I would assume "dry incubation" would be a relative term. Could you hatch successfully w/o any humidity present? Of course not. In my situation I rarely add water to my incubator due to ambient conditions. My incubator is in a dirt floored basement [very old farmhouse] which for much of the year is very damp. I monitor humidity in the incubator & add water if needed but generally "dry incubation works for me.

 

[galanie]

I'm pretty sure that most people using that term for what they are doing are really only referring to not adding extra humidity. I've never heard of anyone puposefully making the humidity close to zero. For instance, I have "dry incubated" before but that only meant I added no extra water because the humidity was already ~40% in there until lockdown, when I did add a little extra to bring it up to 50-60%.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Many of them are attempting to incubate with humidity less than 20% and certainly less than 30%. That indeed seems low to me! Too low.

Forced air heating eats up humidity - as I know from heating my Canadian house in the winter. I have to supplement the humidity in my house during the winter to keep the level around 50% (and not shock the cats when I touch them!

) It drops fast when the furnace comes on. With 50% humidity in my house, my hovabator went below 18% humidity when I didn't add water and that was with eggs inside. I assume the "forced air" heat in the hovabator does the same thing in the incubator as the furnace does in my house - eats up humidity.

 

[babymakes6]

I was trying to not add water during incubation unless my humidity fell below 25%. I was having consistently bad hatch rates. I finally started reading again and found a thread where someone measured humidity under a broody and found it to be between 42-48%. My last hatch, I tried to keep it between that range, and raised it to about 55-60% during hatch, and I had one of the best hatches I ever had.