My hatchery BRs, including their progeny, died much earlier than my heritage/breeder quality ones, for sure. The barring is completely different as well, like you said. The Marvin Stukel ones are just stunning, even Atlas's daughters with the hens and as you know, Atlas was the son of single barred Rex. The size is also really different. Though Hector's line was very nice, the hens were not as large as the Stukel hens. I still have his hen, Jill, who is rather small compared to Zara and Athena; her own daughter, Maddie, with Hector is nicer looking than her mother, takes after her sire in size. Jill and Maddie look a lot alike, but Maddie is a larger hen than Mama Jill. They're all nicely barred, but the Stukels all had such crisp, test-pattern barring and were big girls. Zara and Athena both have Atlas's tendency to stiff joints now at going on 9 years old, unfortunately, but they're still beautiful.
I was weedwhacking around the graves yesterday, cleaned up Hector's resting place, was remembering him fondly, how he was such a feisty little guy as a youngster and how he mellowed out so much as he aged. Ladyhawk was always right about him, how the soft expression in his eyes told us he was intelligent and would be a good boy. I've been blessed with the most awesome Barred Rock roosters in the world (and others, of course).
