I'm trying to track something down for my dad. He swears that in the 60s and 70s in NE Pa there was a breed of chicken available from hatcheries called the Super Vanguard. He describes it as looking "like a Leghorn on steroids" and being bigger than Jersey Giants, in the ballpark of twenty pounds. He said the eggs "weren't quite white" (cream colored, he described) and according to him they were massive and double and even triple yolks weren't uncommon. Apparently his mom would get some every year, but they did their butchering one year and the following spring the breed was no longer available. It has bothered him for years because if they'd known that the chicks wouldn't be available anymore they would have kept their flock instead of filling the freezer.
He thinks it was a conspiracy by the people breeding Jersey Giants to eliminate the competition, but you know how dads are.
Anyway, would anyone happen to know the breed he's referring to, what happened to them, and if they're still around? Or is it more what I suspect--that his memory has embellished a bit? Was the hatchery sticking a special name on a chicken that was really something else? The Internet hasn't turned up anything useful for me so far but some of you have been at this a while and have tons of information and lore to draw from. I'm hoping someone can send me in the right direction.
He thinks it was a conspiracy by the people breeding Jersey Giants to eliminate the competition, but you know how dads are.
Anyway, would anyone happen to know the breed he's referring to, what happened to them, and if they're still around? Or is it more what I suspect--that his memory has embellished a bit? Was the hatchery sticking a special name on a chicken that was really something else? The Internet hasn't turned up anything useful for me so far but some of you have been at this a while and have tons of information and lore to draw from. I'm hoping someone can send me in the right direction.
