The Plymouth Rock Breeders thread

[Fred's Hens]

Here's that same trio, just a month later. Breaks my heart to see these photos again. Look at the width of his back in this photo. Notice how his barring was crisping up. Gosh dang. What might have been. We'll never know.



Of course, that pullet in front was a cull anyhow. Crow head and do not like her wing.

 

[Fred's Hens]

That's too bad, does go to show you never know what even a nice male or female will throw unless you try.

What they're hiding or carrying recessively. Match up a male with a recessive trait and a femlae with that same recessive trait and BANG!! It surfaces. Then, you get rid of that mess and don't use it anymore, so you learn, you uncover, but yes, it is disappointing.

When you get a male who throws good chicks, you keep him a loooooong time and try hard to keep him safe.

 

[sgribble]

A poultry judge can only judge the birds that show up.  If a bird has no competition within it's variety at all, of course it gets tagged Best Variety but it is a somewhat hollow award.  Many times, a judge has no choice.   How many birds are there in that variety?  Next, how many Plymouth Rocks, all varieites, cooped in?   With 30+ Rocks shown, the judge is gonna pick a pretty good bird for BB, Best of Breed.  

The real award is when a bird wins Champion American Class in a grouping of 150-200 really good birds.  Now THAT'S a win worth crowing about. It means you had the best Rock, Red, Hamp, Wyandotte, Buckeye, etc, at the show.  That's impressive and why only Ch Am can go onto champion row with a chance to compete against all the other champions for Best Large Fowl and/or Best of Show.

If you want to see Rocks with wrong backlines, go to most any show or just look for yourself on the FB pages where folks post birds.  Shrug.  
We need to breed Standard bred Rocks and show them to all the fanciers, fellow breeders and judges.  That's our job, not the judges job.  

Finally, read the Standard.  Go by the written word.  The end.

Great post Fred!!

 

[uphilljill]

One of my young (17wk old) pullets: "Big, Ginormous, Freak Big Head"?

 

[chicken pickin]

One of my young (17wk old) pullets: "Big, Ginormous, Freak Big Head"?

Im glad you posted this! I was planning to ask today if we could get some good examples for males and females of the freak big heads. I have a few that the heads look BIG but I thought some examples would help to get a better picture in my mind.

She looks nice to me!

 

[uphilljill]

This site is Buckeye specific, but it has good photos that illustrate heads:

http://americanbuckeyeclub.blogspot.com/p/understanding-sop.html

 

[uphilljill]

Also, Fred's old CSU thread has some good info (with illustrations) on Rocks starting around post #112.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/732985/csu-chicken-state-university-large-fowl-sop

Worth a read

 

[uphilljill]

 

[Fred's Hens]

Look at the head from above. You should see no eyes. Skull width is key. Skinny headed Rocks and crow headed Rocks are very easy to make, simply by not paying attention. Getting a real Rock head is virtually impossible from mass production breeder. The average backyarder doesn't have but one good headed bird out of 50 that's in her/his pens. Yup, it's just that bad a plague.

David Johnston of Georgia puts a head a bird like few folks I've ever seen. Just sayin'. If you haven't gotten to know David, I would strongly suggest you "fiind him" and "friend" him so you can follow his work, see his work and learn from what he does with all kind of breeds.

 

[chicken pickin]

Also, Fred's old CSU thread has some good info (with illustrations) on Rocks starting around post #112.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/732985/csu-chicken-state-university-large-fowl-sop

Worth a read

Thanks! I will be reading this.