There are heritage threads here on BYC for the New Hampshire (German) and the Heritage Rhode Island Red. There is also a thread on Large Fowl generally and a GREAT thread about Good Shepherd Poultry which shows what Barred Rocks are supposed to look like. They look nothing like hatchery stock. Don't mature the same and don't act the same either.
If you got your chicks from a hatchery, feed store or TSC, you've got production type birds, whatever they called them Shoot, most hatcheries even misapply the "name" New Hampshire 'Red' when there is no breed called the New Hampshire Red. Just New Hampshire. They sell EE as Araucana too, when they aren't, of course. But what would one expect for $2.49 for chick from a bin at a chain store? Really.
Hatcheries serve a very valuable purpose, selling, for the most part, cheap, healthy chicks that will normally lay well for people. What they don't sell is much of anything that is true. Just don't. Once you've seen a real, true RIR? Once you've seen true BR or NH? The image is burned into your brain and your world view is forever changed.
If you got your chicks from a hatchery, feed store or TSC, you've got production type birds, whatever they called them Shoot, most hatcheries even misapply the "name" New Hampshire 'Red' when there is no breed called the New Hampshire Red. Just New Hampshire. They sell EE as Araucana too, when they aren't, of course. But what would one expect for $2.49 for chick from a bin at a chain store? Really.
Hatcheries serve a very valuable purpose, selling, for the most part, cheap, healthy chicks that will normally lay well for people. What they don't sell is much of anything that is true. Just don't. Once you've seen a real, true RIR? Once you've seen true BR or NH? The image is burned into your brain and your world view is forever changed.
Last edited:
