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This is very true. I won't order California Whites from Ideal since they "reserve the right" to substitute Ideal 236. The problem with this is that the birds were not bred for the same purposes. The California White was bred for a longer laying life and to be of use on both small and large farms, and tends to be calmer than Leghorns. The Ideal 236 was bred for intense production.
The problem with selecting birds based on show standards was described by Professor Dryden when he was head of poultry science at Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University); he noted that there was little correlation between show ring conformation requirements and actual egg production. In 1935, at the time of his death in a car accident not far from his breeding farm in the California Central Valley, he was generally regarded as the foremost poultry breeder in the world. He bred Lady McDuff, 7/8 Leghorn, 1/8 Plymouth Rock, and the first hen to be documented as laying more than 300 eggs in a year; he also bred Oregona, a Leghorn who was the first hen to produce more than 1,000 eggs in a laying career that spanned more than five years. His goals were a bird with high production and a laying life of four years; the Ideal 236 was bred for the cage production of the 1960s.
I'm not interested in conformation unless it is coupled with production. Chickens are not the only animal whose utility value has been damaged or destroyed by emphasis on conformation; the American Quarter Horse now has a subset descended from one halter show ring TB stallion, Mirage, that is prone to falling down and being unable to get up when working - this is a considerable threat to the rider, and makes a significant portion of Quarter Horses useless for even such light practical work as recreational riding - let alone the hard work in a cow camp.
This is very true. I won't order California Whites from Ideal since they "reserve the right" to substitute Ideal 236. The problem with this is that the birds were not bred for the same purposes. The California White was bred for a longer laying life and to be of use on both small and large farms, and tends to be calmer than Leghorns. The Ideal 236 was bred for intense production.
The problem with selecting birds based on show standards was described by Professor Dryden when he was head of poultry science at Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University); he noted that there was little correlation between show ring conformation requirements and actual egg production. In 1935, at the time of his death in a car accident not far from his breeding farm in the California Central Valley, he was generally regarded as the foremost poultry breeder in the world. He bred Lady McDuff, 7/8 Leghorn, 1/8 Plymouth Rock, and the first hen to be documented as laying more than 300 eggs in a year; he also bred Oregona, a Leghorn who was the first hen to produce more than 1,000 eggs in a laying career that spanned more than five years. His goals were a bird with high production and a laying life of four years; the Ideal 236 was bred for the cage production of the 1960s.
I'm not interested in conformation unless it is coupled with production. Chickens are not the only animal whose utility value has been damaged or destroyed by emphasis on conformation; the American Quarter Horse now has a subset descended from one halter show ring TB stallion, Mirage, that is prone to falling down and being unable to get up when working - this is a considerable threat to the rider, and makes a significant portion of Quarter Horses useless for even such light practical work as recreational riding - let alone the hard work in a cow camp.
