A few weeks ago one of my flock hatched a solitary chick, and when my hen emerged with her fluffy chick in tow from whatever hidey-hole she’d found to brood her eggs, I had a rather unpleasant surprise. I’ll provide a little background. The hen in question is a Barred Rock. My rooster is a Barred Rock. In fact, all my birds are Barred Rock, with the exception of one lone Black Australorps hen.
The new chick, however, doesn’t look anything like a Barred Rock or Australorps, and I suspect it will turn out to look like a Wilsemer, which does make some sense since I’d kept a couple of Wilsemer hens a few years back. While I thought I’d been careful in my breeding practices, clearly there had been some fraternizing between the breeds.
Thrown by this odd-looking chick, I looked at my birds more closely and I could see there were other deviations from the accepted standards for Barred Rock. I have to say it gave me pause enough to think: is this something I should be concerned about? Will my birds still lay eggs? Yes. Will I still be able to butcher the males for meat? Yes.
So if you’re a backyard farmer do you really care what your birds look like as long as they are productive? And if that’s true then what is the point in selective breeding in the first place, and is there any point to breeding to the Standard of Perfection?
Long-time poultry breeder, Gerald Donnelly, got a chuckle when I told him about my lone Wilsemer chick. Donnelly owns a 100-acre farm near Orangeville, Ontario, keeps hundreds of birds, and has been breeding and working with poultry his entire life. In fact, Donnelly is not only a bird breeder, he’s also a judge for the American Poultry Association (APA), so when it comes to the Standard of Perfection, he knows his stuff.
“Those genetics do have a way of cropping up,” Donnelly told me bluntly, and looking at my homely, lone chick I have to agree.
Donnelly’s feelings on breeding to the standard are clear: why would you do anything else? Donnelly’s been farming his entire life, and at 89 years old he says he can remember when Barred Rocks weighed in at six or eight pounds, and looked completely different than what we call Barred Rock today.
“This year I brought home 20 commercial Barred Rocks, and they’re just barred in the sense, they look no more like real Barred Rocks than the man in the moon,” Donnelly said.
Donnelly’s feeling was that when it comes to the Standard of Perfection, the creators of the book that’s been around for more than 140 years knew what they were talking about. Donnelly explained the standards were created to preserve breed conformity and ensure that birds that were selectively bred to enhance certain characteristics.
The standard specifies how much a bird should weigh, type of comb, colouring for feathers and skin . . . everything is carefully evaluated to ensure the strongest representation of the breed is present in every bird.
“If you don’t breed to standard, breeds will deteriorate and you soon won’t be getting the amount of eggs and the meat quality . . . hens will get smaller and smaller,” Donnelly said, “The old timers established the standards to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
I could see Donnelly’s point; while the introduction of hybridized birds like Cornish Cross or brown egg layers may have made heritage breeds less attractive purely from a production standpoint, I believe they are worth preserving. I will most likely never show my birds, but the survivalist in me has to wonder what would happen if the heritage lines became so diluted that the original breed characteristics were lost, and then hybridized breeds were wiped out by some genetic calamity?
No more guaranteed eight pound broilers, or 300 eggs a year . . . the potato famine in Ireland, devastating because one third of the population was dependent on the potato, comes to mind. So if I believe there’s a point to genetic diversity and maintaining heritage breeds then I have to believe there’s a point to breeding to the standard. What’s the point in raising heritage breeds if they’re not going to accurately represent the breed as it was intended?
In the end, whether or not it’s important to meet breed specifications is entirely dependent on the individual farmer, their breeding habits, customer base, volume of production and personal beliefs. I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to do it, but looking out at my beautiful Barred Rocks and their homely little brown chick, the decision’s been made for me; if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right.
What is the Standard of Perfection?
The American Standard of Perfection is a complete description of all recognized breeds and varieties of domestic poultry, published by the American Poultry Association (APA). Now in its 44th edition, the Standard has been through many revisions since it was first published in 1874. Today, there are 60 breeds recognized in the book, an increase of 16 breeds since the first edition.
John Monaco, President of the American Poultry Association (APA), explained the Standard was written to serve as a counterpart to the English Standards, which Monaco said didn’t do justice to American breeds. In the beginning the APA was more focused on the commercial industry, but this veered off in the 1920s and moved further into the exhibition aspect of poultry.
Breed to the standard the right way
Follow these tips for success for getting started breeding to the Standard of Perfection.
1. Study the breed:
Visit shows and connect with other breeders to see what standards you are striving to attain. Purchase your own copy of the Standard of Perfection and compare the prize-winners from poultry shows with the pictures in the Standard.
2. Buy from a reputable breeder:
Purchase breeding stock from a respected breeder, and let them select your stock for you; they will know what to look for in breeders. To get started, select a rooster and two hens, and be prepared to sit on a waiting list until your ideal breeder has some available stock.
3. Explore double mating:
Double mating involves keeping two sets of breeding stock, one for producing standard hens, and another to produce standard cockerels. This type of breeding involves breeding off-colour birds to an on-colour cock or hen, to produce the desired results for each sex, and is popular among poultry breeders.
4. Separate the wheat from the chaff:
With your trio of breeders, hatch as many offspring as you can right away — you need at least 25 to 50 chicks to accurately compare characteristics. At maturity, remove any birds who don’t represent the right breed characteristics. You may end up with only a couple of high quality birds from each hatching, which you will then selectively match with new breeders. Always aim to exceed the breed characteristics of the parents and you’ll eventually work towards superior stock!
- Amy Hogue