Sumatra Thread!

[cubakid]

i 100% agree with Champion Sumatra Farm my sumatras are from Tom Kernen too and they have never been DQ i have also clerked with many judges who have loved my birds along with Toms and have picked his for BIS and i have won  a lot of junior awards including champion and reserve champion LF/bantam and BIS/RIS for juniors and Tom won the 2 largest shows on the east coast this year and reserve champion LF at the Southern Ohio national  

Last I checked it is bad for a show to have their clerks, clerk the classes they show in. I do not doubt that Tom Kernan does extremely well. He has recognizable birds. Judges don't just pick the big ones. Sometimes the only option is the bigger specimen. Of course not being 20% over. When there is a large class of birds, and most are these huge ones and often there are some of the standard weight, the smaller ones are thought to be under weight but are actually correct on weight.

 

[championsumatra]

The thing is I am very serious and wanting to breed Sumatra's to the standard for the rest of my life i would do anythig for my sumatras if i could do so. I am not a trend follower I am not conviced that small is better. I am not saying that the standard dose not say 5lbs I am saying that 5lbs is probably a lot bigger than what you are saying only because I am not sure if you are right or not.like zack n hound was saying non of us have been DQ yet and if I do than I will make adjustments. But really a judge is not going to get his license if he was not judging correctly espeshaly if it where a DQ. They have to pass a test to be able to get his or her license. not all judges are good but if you lessen to what they have to say about each bird and most of it is correct than that is a good judge.

 

[cubakid]

The thing is I am very serious and wanting to breed Sumatra's to the standard for the rest of my life i would do anythig for my sumatras if i could do so. I am not a trend follower I am not conviced that small is better. I am not saying that the standard dose not say 5lbs I am saying that 5lbs is probably a lot bigger than what you are saying only because I am not sure if you are right or not.like zack n hound was saying non of us have been DQ yet and if I do than I will make adjustments. But really a judge is not going to get his license if he was not judging correctly espeshaly if it where a DQ. They have to pass a test to be able to get his or her license. not all judges are good but if you lessen to what they have to say about each bird and most of it is correct than that is a good judge.

This is exactly trend/fad breeding. You know that the standard says five pounds, but ignore it because you don't think it's right.

 

[BGMatt]

Cubakid made my point in one sentence. Yes judge have to pass a test, yes the vast majority of them do a great job. But weight is hard to tell. I am not assuming anything about birds weights, but if you guys put your birds on a scale, and they weigh, not look, but actually weigh 7 lbs then you're very lucky that they haven't been dq for size and should breed away from that. If they actually weigh that and you don't care because "they haven't been dq and I win" then you are breeding for a trend, NOT the standard. Neither is right or wrong, but when someone says one thing over and over and then does something different, then people get upset. (Not me, I've been at this too long and got out of sumatras years ago, just trying to discuss things calmly).

Sadly we do not have height, length etc in standard as I think that'd be more useful than weight sometimes. A 5lb bird that is tall and narrow without much width and with delicate bone structure is going to look just as big as a bird that is too big til you pick it up. Or to remove the breed and thus emotion entirely, when I bred both Jersey Giants and Langshans, my Langshans dwarfed my Giants, even though the Giants weighed 4 lbs more!

To go back to Sumatras, I think owing to their heritage, they should be tall and long, but also light of bone and structure, what I think has happened is people bred away from crow heads to get the round head called for (and deeper bodies, which also results in less leg) which has resulted in a heavier boned Sumatra. Thus the extra weight. So really neither camp is 100% correct, other than discussing the measurable weight. Just conjecture and theory.

Edit: Then again, I re-read standard and the word broad is mentioned a LOT in the body description. Nothing here gives the impression of a small fowl really other than weight, and since bone ways more than muscle and fat, lends more credence to the theory I postured above about somehow breeding too much bone, which I don't have the knowledge to know how to address.

 

[jeremy]

I remember reading that someone was working on Dun bantams, who was it? How's your project going?

 

[Infnityhrt]

I remember reading that someone was working on Dun bantams, who was it? How's your project going?

That's flyingmonkeypoop and I, coming along good, have some that just hatched, got a late start this year, but hopefully these chicks will do well and show good type and we can get a little further next year, we will post picks this fall when they get much bigger, they are only a couple of days, to a couple of weeks old right now

 

[terwelppoultry]

New to the site, I've been raising birds for several years now. I'm looking for a pair or trio of splash or blue sumatra bantams. I already have a flock of blacks I'm working with but I want to work with the other two colors (blues and splash). Does anyone have some?

 

[cubakid]

Boggy Bottom Bantams here on BYC has the blue bantams I believe.

 

[raph]

I got the British poultry standards 5th edition today, and the birds in it are beautiful.

I'm going to breed my RIR with a trio of light Sussex hens we have, as they are what makes money here in Ireland. I'm also going to invest in some RIR hens because they make a bit of money here as well.The RIR cockerel cross Light sussex hens makes what we call warrens, i think you guys call them gold sexlinks or some thing like that.

Personally I think Sid The Sumatra I posted pics of was looking great on the day I sold him, you can say his feathers weren't all long enough. But he was 1 year old so by the time he's 2 he will probably look great, but I'm not keeping any related stock so that why i sold him.
I also now have a clutch of 7 eggs in the sumatra's nest so when i have about 12 my bantam should go broody, so that's exciting.

 

[ramirezframing]

well good luck with your birds Raph, glad you got the British standard. Would you mind telling us what it says for the sumatra?