Quote:
The ancestor of Ameraucana and the Quechua originated in the South Pacific cultivated- created by cultures, mostly extinct now. These people never came into contact with that KFC gene stock until they were introduced in the 19th century. Consequently, the ancient stocks are largely extinct now. There may only be a few hundred left in the entire world. The Ameraucana and the Easter Egger -as well as most Quechua have already been thoroughly contaminated with Mediterranean chicken breed genes. We can't afford to further compromise these stocks- especial as conservationists work furiously trying to repair the stocks. Its akin to having someone track mud into the kitchen after you've mopped it- or worse- while you're in the middle of it. Selectionists are in the process of recreating ancient stock using molecular data.
I don't think of anything bred at someone's farm or in their back yard as a mutt necessarily. Each and every one of us is a steward of the stock that we purchase and think of as our own. The hatcheries are stewards of stock that have been in someone's family- the family that owns that hatchery for instance for many generations- many decades -someone has been holding onto that stock for hundreds of years or at least half a century in the case of the Ameraucana/Easter Egger.
I'm not just stating that the North American Araucana is rare. I'm asserting the fact that whomever sold it to you carried that stock next to their bosoms for a very long while and they select bred that stock. Whomever they received that stock from did the same. It's not a terrible sin to dip into those genes and use to create NEW heirloom strains that may one day become New Heritage breeds. What is unforgivable in my book is to create through selective breeding Anything that could be mistaken for a North American Araucana and sold as such.
Again, what if someone decided to take a dozen eggs they've purchased from you and hatched them for a local elementary school?
The chicks get too big and too stinky too quickly. It then becomes the responsibility of the school secretary or one of the better moms of the school to find homes for those birds. Sooner or later some of it ends up at a local farmer's market - the person that picks that stock up tires of it and unloads it at a tailgate swap meet. Some of those birds look all the world like North American Araucana. Most people don't know the difference between a duck and goose so please don't pretend that a dusky olive egg is going to change anyone's mind about what the buyer WANTS them to be.
The underlying issue here is genetic contamination. We mustn't let the tufted rumpless olive egg producer ever breed with the North American Araucana or the Argentinian/Chilean Collonca de Aretes that is is descended from. Why? Because it's nearly extinct!
The risk is too great. Every person that buys a bird feels that it belongs to them. The villagers of Bolivia and Chile didn't feel that way. That stock had been with their people for countless generations. It belonged to their people, their family, their communities. Once the Spaniards came and took that cultural identity from them and introduced European chicken breeds- bigger and better- all that was was for all intensive purposes was lost.
The same is true for the peasants of Marans France, the villagers of Welsumer and so on.
The stocks were all composites- they were created through crossing of available strains and breeds and even races- or hybrids with wild junglefowl.
But the people could ill afford to have people haphazardly crossing stock that could end up being bred back to parental stock.
That's all I'm trying to get at here.
Someone wrote rather obtusely, "isn't this the olive egger thread?" Hello? Anyone invested in this endeavor to produce olive eggers owes something to the stewards of the straight bred stocks of both the dark egg layers and blue egg producers. What they owe is respect and honour.
We don't own our livestock. It belongs to our grandchildrens' grandchildren.
All we need is one global pandemic that wipes out three quarters of the world's chickens as the rainforests of south east Asia are felled and the junglefowl hunted to extinction- by both guns and domestic chicken diseases I might add.
In the eventuality that this happens local strains of fowl from every village in Asia and South America are destroyed to ostensibly contain the disease (created inadvertently by the industrial poultry industry)- we will all have to start again. We need to conserve each thread of lineage each stock-
I've stated earlier and will reiterate again- the KFC fowl are genetically over-represented. There are millions upon millions- actually BILLIONS of industrial chickens and their commercial chicken progenitors in existence right now. There are very few maybe a few hundred of the rare stock being raised in all the world. Do you want to be held accountable for helping to eliminate these ancient strains?
Have hobbyists even taken the time to learn anything useful about the intrinsic value- the genetic and cultural history of the stock they intend to amalgamate?
Its an issue of ethics.
Please do produce an olive egg and make educated decisions about it. I'm personally excited about the generation of New Heritage breeds like these heirlooms that you are creating. I'm only reacting to the issue of selecting (by back crossing naturally, which generates countless culls) for traits of rare and endangered races of breeds that we could never hope to bring back. It's disrespectful to the poultiers right here in the USA and even more of an injury to the indigenous cultures of the world- it illustrates how little we honour or appreciate their contributions to the world.
Naturally these are over-caffeinated opinions- please don't over react to them.
The ancestor of Ameraucana and the Quechua originated in the South Pacific cultivated- created by cultures, mostly extinct now. These people never came into contact with that KFC gene stock until they were introduced in the 19th century. Consequently, the ancient stocks are largely extinct now. There may only be a few hundred left in the entire world. The Ameraucana and the Easter Egger -as well as most Quechua have already been thoroughly contaminated with Mediterranean chicken breed genes. We can't afford to further compromise these stocks- especial as conservationists work furiously trying to repair the stocks. Its akin to having someone track mud into the kitchen after you've mopped it- or worse- while you're in the middle of it. Selectionists are in the process of recreating ancient stock using molecular data.
I don't think of anything bred at someone's farm or in their back yard as a mutt necessarily. Each and every one of us is a steward of the stock that we purchase and think of as our own. The hatcheries are stewards of stock that have been in someone's family- the family that owns that hatchery for instance for many generations- many decades -someone has been holding onto that stock for hundreds of years or at least half a century in the case of the Ameraucana/Easter Egger.
I'm not just stating that the North American Araucana is rare. I'm asserting the fact that whomever sold it to you carried that stock next to their bosoms for a very long while and they select bred that stock. Whomever they received that stock from did the same. It's not a terrible sin to dip into those genes and use to create NEW heirloom strains that may one day become New Heritage breeds. What is unforgivable in my book is to create through selective breeding Anything that could be mistaken for a North American Araucana and sold as such.
Again, what if someone decided to take a dozen eggs they've purchased from you and hatched them for a local elementary school?
The chicks get too big and too stinky too quickly. It then becomes the responsibility of the school secretary or one of the better moms of the school to find homes for those birds. Sooner or later some of it ends up at a local farmer's market - the person that picks that stock up tires of it and unloads it at a tailgate swap meet. Some of those birds look all the world like North American Araucana. Most people don't know the difference between a duck and goose so please don't pretend that a dusky olive egg is going to change anyone's mind about what the buyer WANTS them to be.
The underlying issue here is genetic contamination. We mustn't let the tufted rumpless olive egg producer ever breed with the North American Araucana or the Argentinian/Chilean Collonca de Aretes that is is descended from. Why? Because it's nearly extinct!
The risk is too great. Every person that buys a bird feels that it belongs to them. The villagers of Bolivia and Chile didn't feel that way. That stock had been with their people for countless generations. It belonged to their people, their family, their communities. Once the Spaniards came and took that cultural identity from them and introduced European chicken breeds- bigger and better- all that was was for all intensive purposes was lost.
The same is true for the peasants of Marans France, the villagers of Welsumer and so on.
The stocks were all composites- they were created through crossing of available strains and breeds and even races- or hybrids with wild junglefowl.
But the people could ill afford to have people haphazardly crossing stock that could end up being bred back to parental stock.
That's all I'm trying to get at here.
Someone wrote rather obtusely, "isn't this the olive egger thread?" Hello? Anyone invested in this endeavor to produce olive eggers owes something to the stewards of the straight bred stocks of both the dark egg layers and blue egg producers. What they owe is respect and honour.
We don't own our livestock. It belongs to our grandchildrens' grandchildren.
All we need is one global pandemic that wipes out three quarters of the world's chickens as the rainforests of south east Asia are felled and the junglefowl hunted to extinction- by both guns and domestic chicken diseases I might add.
In the eventuality that this happens local strains of fowl from every village in Asia and South America are destroyed to ostensibly contain the disease (created inadvertently by the industrial poultry industry)- we will all have to start again. We need to conserve each thread of lineage each stock-
I've stated earlier and will reiterate again- the KFC fowl are genetically over-represented. There are millions upon millions- actually BILLIONS of industrial chickens and their commercial chicken progenitors in existence right now. There are very few maybe a few hundred of the rare stock being raised in all the world. Do you want to be held accountable for helping to eliminate these ancient strains?
Have hobbyists even taken the time to learn anything useful about the intrinsic value- the genetic and cultural history of the stock they intend to amalgamate?
Its an issue of ethics.
Please do produce an olive egg and make educated decisions about it. I'm personally excited about the generation of New Heritage breeds like these heirlooms that you are creating. I'm only reacting to the issue of selecting (by back crossing naturally, which generates countless culls) for traits of rare and endangered races of breeds that we could never hope to bring back. It's disrespectful to the poultiers right here in the USA and even more of an injury to the indigenous cultures of the world- it illustrates how little we honour or appreciate their contributions to the world.
Naturally these are over-caffeinated opinions- please don't over react to them.
Last edited:
