The Plymouth Rock Breeders thread

[normanack]

Will do, Fred. I've been thinking about a photo session before he moves to his next set of hens.

 

[Silver Rock]

My Silver Penciled Plymouth Rock chicks are 5 days old now and starting to get a little size on them as all they do is eat!

 

[Tumbleweed Farm]

My silver penciled are 2.5 weeks--I just cannot believe what chow hounds they are.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Normanack was kind enough to send me some photos. Nice to see these bird mature.






That cockerel (Neptune) is only 10+ months old, so he's got a bunch of growing up and filling out to do.

 

[Beekissed]

You could place a level on that back line!

She's just gorgeous!

 

[Fred's Hens]

She's a beautiful and wonderful bird. Anne is rightly in love with her. We seem to crank these out. However? The Standard does call from some lift, and some of the females have the required lift and some do not. That said, I'll take a flat back through the tail over too much height on the tail angle, ala the hatchery females and absolutely prefer this look to having too much cushion so common on Rock females.

Raising the tails on females like this is not nearly as big a challenge as fighting some of the other issues, in my experience.



Sorry for the blur, as I am a pathetic photographer. This is that pullet's sister and you can see more lift on tail. However, there is also a bit of pinch, so if it isn't one thing, it's another. Again, great bird overall, just not perfect as none of them are ever perfect.



This is a half sister. Same sire but different dam. This is an F1 female. Much fluffier female, which plagued the F1s. But, we love these F1'a for a ton of reasons and I am very excited to see the so-called F2 (B1A) chicks grow out this year.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Let's take a minute to read from The Big Grey Book. LOL

On the top of pg. 17, you'll see an angle chart graph. These are also found on the web. You'll see 30 degrees isn't a huge lift, but enough to see it.

Now, flip over to page 41 and let's read the description.

Tail: "Medium length, moderately spread carried at 30 degrees above horizontal." OK, so far so good. But to me, the following is key. "forming no apparent angle with the back"

 

[Beekissed]

I see a slight lift in her tail...but it's not 30%? I'm not good with angles and percentages, so if you have one, could you post a pic of a bird with a 30% lift so I can eyeball it and use it in my mind's eye? I know the SOP has the pictures that are drawn but I seem to be able to see things better on live birds than I can on one that has been drawn.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Idealized. What is important with these idealized drawings, be they by Schilling or a more modern drawing, the idea is to capture the most important part of the description from the Standard. "having no noticeable break from the back line". To me? That is what makes a Rock a Rock.

Just reminder to us all, that this descriptions from the Standard apply to all Rocks, regardless of variety and to the bantam as well.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Maybe you can see this old drawing from a century ago, a slightly different interpretation, shall we say, on the Rock. I actually have this "look" in my brain, my mind's eye, and this look better reflects my own idealized birds. If you leave me alone on a desert island (well that's pretty much where I live, LOL) this is what I tend to breed to, without anyone's outside influence.