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March 2015, Page 1
InsIde ThIs Issue
From Your Editor
Volume 43, Issue 1 March 2015
Some of us have already finished breeding our birds for the season. Others have barely started, despite our best plans to start early. Unfortunately, those plans involve cooperation from birds who don’t seem to be as interested as we are in having chicks for the fall shows or summer BBQs.
This issue there is information about the DCA Master Breeder program. To date, there have been no recipients for this award. Unless someone knows otherwise, there are no ABA or APA master breeders for either Dominique large fowl or bantams, either. You can be the first!
There are a couple of things you can do towards that goal: support your regional director in srrsnging DCA meets at the shows you attend, be sure the show management files a report with the DCA point secretary after the show, and keep your coop cards.
Have you ever wondered how things happen in DCA? This newsletter will give you some insight. Example: an exhibitor was having problems with how his birds were judged. You can read the Facebook conversation in which DCA members discuss this. One of the suggestions was to educate the judges.
2 DCA Officers
Secretary’s Notes, New Members, Book Review
3 Regional Directors
Treasurer’s Report
4 Regional Director Reports
American Dominiques - 1922 Article
5 The DCA Master Exhibitor Program
7 From Facebook – Too Big?
9 New Booklet Clarifies Standard
10 How a Good Dominique Feels in Hand
11 Snapshots
14 I Am a Chicken Snob
15 From Facebook – Dunghill Fowl
16 Dominique Kids
17 From Facebook – Are Color and Type Sex Linked?
20 From Facebook – Egg Production Chart
21 From Facebook – When Do You Add New Blood?
23 Show Reports
Uncle Mark, keeper of all things Dominique, put together a brochure that does this job, and printed copies. The DCA donated postage money and these brochures were mailed to the judges.
One result of the brochure has been comments, like those from Don Schrider, that can help us all be better judges of our own birds.
Another member, Vince Cooper, has made a brochure that can be passed out at shows, to share information with the public. You can download it from the DCA Facebook page and print your own copies.
This is a club of people who know how to get things done.
You will find a variety of “stuff” in this issue. From an article reprinted from a 1922 publication, to some snapshots of our flocks, and some interesting Facebook conversations. Hopefully there will be something of interest for everyone.
As always, your contributions to the newsletter are appreciated. Next Deadline: June 15.
March 2015, Page 2
DCA Officers
John WomackPresident80 Weeks Dr.Trenton, [email protected] Phone: (706) 631-5564
Stephenie SurbeyVice President18243 S. 132nd E. AveBixby, OK 74008(918) [email protected]
Suzette EllingtonSecretary4430 Takach RdPrince George, VA [email protected] Phone: (804) 731-0798
Julie GuptonTreasurer370 Brewer RoadLouisburg, NC [email protected] Phone: (919) 853-3542
Mary MullerShow Secretary7911 S. Gary Pl.Tulsa, OK [email protected]: (313) 575-8565
Dominique News Editors
Jan James aka Janice [email protected]
Benny [email protected]
Just Because
Mark [email protected]
Secretary’s Notesby Suzette Ellington, DCA Secretary
New MembersReminder to everyone that memberships expire Dec. 31 of each year, unless you joined in Oct. Please renew your membership when you have a chance. We ap-preciate it. The $10 is well worth the price of the information-packed newsletters alone. They are the best!
We would like to welcome the following new and returning members. Thank you for supporting our club. Calvin Johnson (AL), Ronny Tanner (AR), Mike Stichler (OH), Wil Hanley (NC), Connor Leong (CA), Rendy Tompkins (Ontario Canada), Brett Morici (CA), Mark Selby (TN), Heather Gilreath (TN), Kevin Gentry (AL), Eric Rihl (VA), Sam Brush (TX), Parker Padilla (CA), Donnie Arnold (TN), Carole Copeyon (PA), Paula Acker (FL), Joey Seabolt (GA), John Charpia (SC), Saul Carangelo (MA), Erika Marczak (CT), Columbus Sanders (CA), Juley Alabakoff (WA), Kent Johnson (PA), Deborah Kunic (CA), Ash-ley Bear (PA), Johnathan Howard (FL), Michael House (NC), Samantha Elliott (MD), Lawrence Chapman (LA), and Chelsea Russell (IN). A Good Book: https://archive.org/details/plymouthrockstan00amerrich“The Plymouth Rock Standard and Breed Book” published by the American Poultry Association ©1919. Make no mistake, the Plymouth Rock is not the same as the Dominique. However, this old book is full of good information that can be applied to any breed. I have found the illustrations quite helpful. Check it out if you get a chance, I have included a great illustration below.
March 2015, Page 3
Treasurer’s Reportby Julie Gupton, DCA Treasurer
DCA Regional Directors2014 - 2016
Northwest RegionAlaska, Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, Yukon and Northwest TerritoriesHeaven Roberts, [email protected]
Western RegionCalifornia, Hawaii, NevadaChris Tamayo, [email protected]
Mountain RegionArizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and AlbertaWendell Smith, [email protected]
Central RegionNorth and South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Saskatchewan and ManitobaCalvin Walsh, [email protected]
Southern RegionOklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, MississippiJennifer Solano, [email protected]
Eastern RegionNorth and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Florida. Virginia Vince Cooper, [email protected]
North East RegionWest Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Delaware, New Jersey, Michigan, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Maryland, Rhode Island, Quebec, New Brunswick, OntarioJohn Hrycek, PA (until 2015)[email protected]
As of 3/31/2015 there was a balance of $3,222.05 in the DCA checking account.
This includes the bulk of the club’s annual income from renewals and any new memberships up to that date for 2015. Thank you so much to all of you that have continued to support this organization with your renewals and welcome to all of our new members as well. I hope that this club can continue to support its mem-bership through education, information and promotion of this wonderful breed.
One of the benefits of being a member AND showing your birds at DCA sanc-tioned shows are the PAYOUTS for our winners. Of course there are rules in play that dictate who gets what in payouts but it can be well worth your time and effort to promote your favorite breed at local poultry meets/shows that have been sanctioned by the DCA! This is the list of payouts for our very successful showmen and women for the year 2014:
Janice Blawat James $250Mike Stichler $160John Womack $125Emmett Wild $105Suzette Ellington $75Bailey Glashan $60Fred Farthing $50Mark Fields $35John Hrycek $30Stephenie Surbey $15
Total: $905.00
YES! The DCA proudly sent out over $900 in Show Premiums to 10 very successful members in reward for their stellar achievements in the showroom for 2014! Be sure to check with our show secretary to see if your local poultry show is a sanctioned DCA meet BEFORE the show occurs!
If all the criteria for a successful meet have been filled at the sanctioned meet - winning DCA members can be eligible for very nice show payouts. Check with our show secretary for all the DCA show payout rules. Congratulations to all of our winning DCA members and GOOD LUCK to all who will be showing their birds again this show season!
I also want to remind our membership that this is an election year for the DCA. It is time to think about who you want to nominate and see fill the officer posi-tions in the DCA. PLEASE – if you would like to help in any capacity in this club or know of a member that you would like to see fill a position, let a board member or director know as soon as possible! Thanks again to all our members and have a great spring and early summer!
Juniors are also eligible for cash prizes. Bailey Glashan with her 2014 winnings.
March 2015, Page 4
American DominiquesThis article was originally printed in December 1922, in vol. 53 of American Poultry Journal
by W.F. Gernetzky
We have read with interest your denunciation of the American Domi-nique in the November issue of the A. P. J. [American Poultry Journal]
The barring requirements for the Dominique are quite as definite as for any other barred fowl. There is just as much under barring called for as in the case of the Barred Plymouth Rock.
You state that “the barring of the Dominique can be easily produced and is to be found on thousands of dung-hill fowls all over the country.” To a true fancier or even a poultry raiser of experience there is a vast difference between a true Dominique and a com-mon scrub. Any person who cannot tell the difference at a glance could hardly claim to know anything about
Standard Bred Poultry as a whole. We gladly admit the Dominique
is built for egg production and that she fulfills every desire in this line. We also are happy to state that this breed has the qualifications to meet the criti-cisms advanced against the overbred classes which are bred for beauty of feather above every other consider-ation.
The statement that “not over $500 worth of Dominiques change hands in a year” comes as the biggest surprise of all. In the small city of Columbus, Wisconsin, population 2500, well over $500 worth of Dominiques are bought and sold every year. If this city is the biggest producer of Dominiques in the United States we would be glad to have an authorized statement to this effect. It should have great advertis-ing value.
At the Columbus (Wis) Poultry Show, January, 1922, 40 Dominiques were cooped; 10% of all the birds ex-hibited. Dominiques won First Pen and High Male in the Sweepstakes and the judge’s comment was that they were among the best bred birds exhibited.
Our opinion is that instead of the “Dominique having no architect” they are so finely designed that only the cream of poultry fanciers can see their merits. Some paintings are beautiful only in the eye of the true connoisseur and the Dominique stands out in the same way in the eye of the true poultry fancier.
There may be only a compara-tively few Dominique breeders, but they are true blue. I have many breed-ing this grand old American Fowl for many years and expect to continue for many more. Three Cheers for the Dominique, she may wear plain feath-ers but she delivers the goods.
From the Regional DirectorsCalvin Walsh, Central Region Director
Well, I got the current membership list, and am grateful for every name. If I do any traveling, I will try and work in a visit, the closest name in my region is at least 800 miles, unless the one in Iowa is in the NW part. Any Dom raisers traveling through SW South Dakota, feel free to call, visit, etc. I can always come up with a spare bed, etc. Call anytime and leave a number if I am outside. I will help anyone, any way I can. Send me an e-mail so I have your address. Denver is not in my region, but I get there on rare occasions. Phone 605 255-4755.
Chris Tamayo, Western Region Director
The recent show in Red Bluff, California, was the last of our winter season. We had Dominique bantams at every show in the state this season and are looking forward to more people exhibiting them next year. We’re also hop-ing for some large fowl exhibitors. Bailey Glashan, Jan James and I raised enough bantams to introduce some new people to Dominiques. We also traded birds back and forth. It’s a lot easier to maintain a breeding program when you have others in your area who are raising birds.
There are several DCA meets at shows in the Western Region for 2015.
Only paid members of the Dominique Club of America can be members of the DCA Facebook page. Join the club’s page, read all the news as it happens, meet your fellow Dominique breeders from across the country.
March 2015, Page 5
The DCA Master Exhibitor Program
In order to further its goal of protecting and promoting the Dominique breed of chickens and to encourage its members to achieve high levels of proficiency in breeding Dominiques, the Dominique Club of America shall provide appropriate recognition to any Club member who quali-fies for the award of Master Breeder, Large Dominiques or Master Breeder, Bantam Dominiques, according to the following requirements and upon approval by at least four of the five elected officers of the Club.
A. General Conditions
1. Application for this award shall be made by the Club member to the Club’s Show Secretary, who will pro-vide advice, information and application blanks and will forward the completed application to other elected officers.
2. The applicant will be notified of the outcome of the application by the Show Secretary within a reasonable length of time.
3. Accumulation of points and “qualifying years” toward receiving either of these awards can be retroactive and can start on January 1, 1974.
4. In matter not covered by this resolution and in case of dispute the decision of four of the five elected officers shall be final.
B. Requirements and Rules for the Master Breeder Award
1. The applicant must have been a member of the Domi-nique Club of America in good standing and have sup-ported the Dominique Club, its goals and its purpose of promoting large and bantam Dominiques during the period of point accumulation.
2. To qualify for either award a member must have earned at least 30 points per year according to the attached ta-ble, in showing either category of Dominiques during six calendar years over a period of up to twelve years. Each year with 30 points according to the attached ta-ble shall be called a “qualifying year”. A member who writes or has written a significant article on breeding Dominiques which is published in a recognized poul-try publication, including Dominique News, shall re-ceive five points for each article up to a maximum of ten points per year. Members who are qualified APA or ABA judges can receive credit for three points per major show judged, up to a maximum of nine points per year.
3. Members must have conducted a continuing and effec-tive breeding program for the category of Dominiques in which he or she applies.
4. The applicant shall have actively encouraged and helped other persons to keep, breed and show Domi-niques.
5. As a breeder and exhibitor of poultry, the applicant must have demonstrated high ethical standards.
6. Birds for which points are claimed must have been hatched and raised by the applicant from eggs from his or her own flock. Eggs or stock from other sources may be procured when necessary for continuing a breeding program, but may not be used for qualifying points within one year after being obtained.
C. Earning of Qualifying Points
1. Point totals and numbers of entries are for large Domi-niques or bantam Dominiques, not the combination of both categories.
2. Points can be earned by the applicant’s large or bantam Dominiques only when judged by an APA or an ABA Judge.
3. Meets that qualify for members to earn points accord-ing to the attached table shall be Dominique Club of America Annual National, Regional, State and Special Meets; APA or ABA Annual (National) or SemiAn-nual meets; or any other APA or ABA sanctioned show which had previously been announced in the Domi-nique News, the Poultry Press, or Exhibition Poultry, or any other APA or ABA sanctioned show provided the total show entry is 400 or more birds and other re-quirements of the table are met.
4. Results of any qualifying meet, in order for points to count, must be verified by the show’s Meet Secretary to the Dominique Club of America Show Secretary or another Club elected officer.
5. Extensions to the length of time allowed for obtain-ing “qualifying years” may be granted by the Club’s elected officers upon application by a Club member contending with extenuating circumstances such has his or her severe illness, Federal or State quarantines or job relocation.
6. Consideration may be given for special arrangements for the award for potential applicants living in areas of
Continued on page 6
March 2015, Page 6
infrequent Dominique meets, e.g. Oregon, Washington or Idaho.
D. Recognition for Members
1. Members completing the requirements for Master Breeder, Large Dominiques or Master Breeder, Ban-tam Dominiques will receive an appropriately lettered patch, and their achievements will by duly announced and noted in the Club minutes at the next annual meet-
Master Exhibitor Program(continued from page 5)
ing and in the Dominique News, and submitted to Poultry Press and Exhibition Poultry.
E. Changes in Requirements
1. Changes in requirements for these awards can be made upon an affirmative vote of 4 elected Club officers and twothirds of the qualified members at the next annual meeting at which a quorum is present.
Editors’ Note: To date there have been no Master Breeder Awards given.
March 2015, Page 7
John Hrycek Jr: After lighting the fire I did respond back that it is an excellent venue and encouraged all to attend. Here is where I will place the rest of my response. Attend the show, but don’t take a scale. You would not make it to the door. I do not mean to ruffle any feathers, for if I did, a lot of the LF Dominiques would have to be dou-ble cooped. I was verbally slammed at that show last year for having birds that were too small. Remember that Hen I posted a couple of weeks ago? Her and her sister were shown there and they were spot on in weight. It was a very draining weekend of constant debating of trying to prove the standard to those that felt this is what we have in the Dominiques today. It even pushed me, after some of these pointless conversations with one individual to not renew my membership with the APA this year. After looking at show premiums I will not attend shows, for I know certain judges will not even compare the birds to the standard, but to what they are used to seeing. I for one will continue to breed towards the standard. On a positive note for my-self, after Poultry Congress, I went through my flock and culled hard for weight and loose feathered birds to keep my flock to where I wanted it to be compared to the standard. Was not a good day for my birds, but we as breeders of the Dominique have to work hard at keeping the Standard Dominique in the showroom and show others that their opinion of the breed is just that. An opinion.
Vince Cooper: Well stated John, having an established standard is pointless unless it is universally upheld. Thanks for pointing out.
Wendell Knighton Smith: That is bothersome. So how do we help the judges? I already have my breeding pens stocked and no overweight bird made it in. The overweight ones and the hens with the big cushions are in the laying pen for eating eggs only.
John Womack: I agree wholeheartedly John. I’ve had similar discussions at every show I went to in 2014. What was I repeatedly told...”size wins,” my reply- “without re-gard to the Standard?!”
Heaven Roberts: The way to help the judges is to make sure that the birds they see - to make sure that what they are used to seeing - are the right size. If we show up with classes of uniformly sized high quality birds, they have to
look at that row and say “hm, well there are a lot of birds there and they all seem small, wonder why that is?” They may not be convinced that time, or the next, but keep put-ting those beautiful birds on the table and some day one of them is going to have a light bulb moment and realize that the best looking ones, the ones that look like the standard, are the small ones. Enough times of getting blue in the face, enough times of taking birds and losing to an overweight bird... This is a battle for all those breeding to standard in the APA. John, your birds look good and would not look so nice with an extra 3lbs and another handful of fluff. I think it also helps the LF breeders to see the bantams doing so well, as the bantams tend to have that gamey-er look about them already, they are tighter feathered, etc. When judges see that, and then go look at the LF, it’s a little harder to place the “Ms. Frumpy” on the row. I know that Jan will be driven nuts the rest of her days fighting to have the bantams judged to their standard as well. All we can do is encourage our fellow breeders to breed to the standard, no matter the show winnings, and continue to support this beautiful, old-est, and smallest, American bird.
Tracey Rodenbach: Well done. Heaven Roberts. I’m get-ting a feeling we have discussed this on a grand scale too!
Melody Hobbs: I think as far as LF are concerned, we stress the correct sizes; 7, 6, 5, 4. There are no leftover half pounds, no odd sizes. Its easy to remember; perhaps some-one could start with an article in the Poultry Press about it?
John Womack: Janice is there an article that had been done in a past newsletter addressing this? Maybe the club could pay for the press article, if so.
Heaven Roberts: You don’t have to pay for Poultry Press articles, and I have written one in the past regarding this issue, but perhaps a refresher is in order.
Mark Fields: I’d be willing to stir this pot in Poultry Press - I’ve done it before. A couple of us old timers remember when the push was on to increase the LF weights. Roger was on the fence, David was against it, as was I. We dis-cussed this at length and decided to leave the Standard “as is” to prevent a drift of type. After Roger passed I became
Too Big?Started by John Hrycek, Jr.f
Conversations onacebook
I am going to let this all out, as everyone here is breeding towards the Standard, I do not feel any one will take this personally. Over on the American Dominique FB page I was tagged if I would be attending the Poultry Congress show. I replied that my birds are not large enough to be competitive.
Continued on next page
March 2015, Page 8
embroiled in arguments over the Standard again but fortu-nately the APA officers reached out to me for advice and guidance and again the old style Dominique prevailed. This is one of those problems that won’t go away. It’s frustrat-ing to those breeding to the Standard. I was traveling when I saw your post John and I thought “Oh My, he’s run into THAT brick wall.”
Mark Fields: I think we have to change our strategy. In-stead of “Preserve the Standard” we need to move to “Edu-cate the Public” (and judges). I had proposed a flyer/pam-phlet at one point. It would be a good idea to work on this as it would help us collect our thoughts.
John Womack: And that ties in directly to the theme of our latest newsletter - promoting the breed and disseminating information.
Janice Blawat: As long as we’re stuck with the current pictures that are in the Standard of Perfection, it’s going to be hard. If you show the Schilling pictures to people (ANY people) and ask them to pick out the birds that look most like the pictures, they can do it. But the pictures in the Stan-dard just don’t work. In the second place, Dominiques are not the only birds that aren’t being judged properly. OEGB are much worse, and there are a LOT of them. If you breed to the standard with that breed, your birds will never place. Ever.
Melody Hobbs: I agree Janice, the color images in the col-or standard promote that oversized, “Rose Comb” Barred Rockinique.
Janice Blawat: This is the point when I finally started making some progress showing my birds: When I took lots of birds to every single show for two years and the judges (I know all of the local ones) finally realized I was serious about this breed. I have managed to buttonhole every sin-gle one of them at a show where they weren’t judging and asked them to evaluate all my birds. Is this being pesky? Well, of course it is. But I’ve learned a lot, and I think they have, too. I don’t subscribe to the practice of avoiding cer-tain judges. I consider it a challenge to change their way of thinking.
Stephenie Surbey: I’m on Team Janice!
John Hrycek Jr: It is great to see an overwhelming sup-port for this old bird. Not me, the Dominique. As a club we will always have an obligation to preserve what is in front of us and not let others sway our decision to get the bird on Champion Row. Like Heaven has stated we need to fill coops with uniform size and feather to convince those
around us that we are serious of our intentions.
Suzette Ellington: I’m 5’8” with a large frame. I can carry 150 lbs. no problem. However someone who is 5’2” with a small frame will be considered overweight. When I look at the scale, I do see that my birds are at weight if not a little above. As a matter of fact on two occasions this year judges informed me that they wouldn’t want to see them any bigger. It’s been a long journey of learning for me with these birds, and no matter how many photos you see on line, there is nothing like a true comparison of live birds side by side. Last year I drove nine hours to a show with what I thought were my best birds, spot on for weight, only to be crushed to find out that they were too small. This year, I drove 3 hours and won over you, John, to discover not even by using the scale, but by visual examination, that my birds are too large. They have a large frame. Like maybe 3 inches at least in height and 1 or 2 inches in width. It would really be difficult to drop weight and still have the proper fleshing that is desired. More than dropping weight, I need to select for smaller framed birds, with tighter feathering. I always win over myself with the larger birds as you can see in this photo the male on the right won over my smaller framed male on the left. I have taken note of this event. All we can do is learn and resolve to not repeat our mistakes.
Wilbur Hanley: The APA standard allows for a 20% swing in weight it also states that the size of bird must match the weight. For example a cock weight is 7 lbs using the 20% that bird can weigh anywheres from 5 lbs 8 oz to 8 lbs 4 oz. Thats a wide range. I don’t always agree with this due to the fact most always goes to the larger size. When breed-ing and selecting your birds it is most important to always remember type, cause without type it doesn’t matter how much your bird weighs. Also the standard is a guideline to go by everyone can interpret it differently.
Heaven Roberts: I think when we all see a balanced bird that has an upright, alert posture, looks productive yet hardy and self-sufficient, etc. etc. etc. All those traits that are meant to be in the breed... When you see that bird in good condition, as a cock bird with a nice tail and eye and balanced on his legs with a good head, comb, wing car-riage, etc. When we see that bird and think “Now THAT is a Dominique!”... That bird weighs about 7 lbs.
Melody Hobbs: Don’t get discouraged; there are always other considerations besides size. From what I can see in your photo, (that is, no tail showing on one bird), the bird on the left seems more elegant, with a smoother topline, the one on the right seems to have a better wingset and an obviously more attractive comb.
Too Big? Continued from p. 7
March 2015, Page 9
Interpreting The Dominique
Standard in 2015
Mark A. Fields
New Booklet Clarifies Standard for Judging Dominiques
Points for Evaluating a Dominique
By Mark A. Fields
For the past 30 years I have been a champion of America’s oldest breed of livestock, the Dominique chicken. I’ve seen the fortunes of the breed rise and fall. Likewise I’ve seen breeding pressures that sway the type, color, pattern and weight of the Dominiques swing wildly.
When first approached about creating a judging brochure I dismissed it until a dear friend pointed out that there are few of us left that have seen the quality Dominiques of yesteryear. It is my intent that this brochure gives us a common judging standard for our breed so that we might slowly turn the tide and once again have Dominiques of quality shown across the nation.
I am not so naive as to believe it will be universally accepted. Currently there are breeders who are winning with large Dominiques of poor type that are grossly oversized. Likewise the bantams are all over the map. Part of the blame is judging, but in my mind the majority can be pinned on the breeders themselves. It takes work to produce Standard bred Dominiques.
Speaking of the Standard of Perfection and the Bantam Standard I do not believe you will find anything that runs contrary to them. The “Standard” that I present is based predominantly on A. Q. Carter’s recommendation to the APA in 1914. This was the “Standard” used by the National American Dominique Club (precursor to the Dominique Club of America.) It goes into greater detail than the current APA Standard of Perfection. I have woven into this Standard the bantam details and tweaked a few passages for clarity and to emphasize points pertinent to today’s fanciers.
The price of a booklet is $10 and may be ordered from: Mark Fields
678 SW State Line LaneAsbury, MO 64832.
The price includes postage. The booklet is printed on heavy paper and is in color.
Shape of the Male Back
Attention to this point is particularly important because the back shape -- by this we mean the overall side view encompassing the back of the neck, the top of the back and front of the tail—is first in importance of the items for consideration in judging Dominiques in competition. Secondly, and from an aesthetic viewpoint, the Dominique male with a proper back profile is a joy to behold even if some other characteristics are only average. Unfortunately, males with this prescribed shape are few and far between. Specifically, the male Dominique’s back profile should describe an opened-up letter “U” that has the side representing the tail tipped out to be at ail angle of 45 degrees from horizontal. There should be a continuously curving sweep down the back of the neck, across the back and up the tail without any straight lines or sharp break in the curve at a point where the tail starts up. This shape is shown below.
Profile of Dominique male’s back
Shape of the Female Back
First, consider what the Standard of Perfection calls for. The back, starting near the base of the neck, should be of medium length with a curve that is so slight as to be almost flat to a point where the tail rises. The next important point is that the back should slant to the rear over the entire distance from the neck to the tail. The outline figure shown below, with a dashed line to show the horizontal plane, indicates these.
Profile of Dominique female’s back
In contrast, the back of the Dominique male has a definite “U” shape, and thus does not show the characteristic slant of the hen’s back. It is also shorter than the hen’s considering the comparative size of Dominique rooster and hen.
Crosses with Barred Plymouth Rock and Wyandottes have obviously been used in the past to instill new vigor and other
Sample pages
March 2015, Page 10
Hey Mark. Read your Dominique booklet. You are a great breeder and researcher, but I felt you missed some points that I should share with you privately. I have han-dled and evaluated great examples of numerous breeds and when you do so without looking at the birds you come to understand that most breeds can be distinguished, when they are correct, based upon how the body feels in the hand.
I have found that really good Dominiques much more resemble a Leghorn in the hand rather than a Plymouth Rock. They even appear to be right between these two breeds in traits.
On a Leghorn, as your hand measures the heart girth and then slides along the thighs the width increases. Then as you progress from thigh to lateral process bones there is no reduction in width and the transition is very even – al-most unnoticeable. There is a fair length of lateral process bone holding the width through the end.
In a Plymouth Rock, you have greater heart girth, no-ticeable but slight (compared to a Buckeye) increase in width as you reach the thighs, then a slight reduction of width as you transition to the lateral process bones. You find a fair amount of flesh on the thighs of the Rock, where-as you do not on the Leghorn.
On the Dominique, you have a fair amount of width at the heart girth, a little wider at the thighs, and LITTLE OR NO TRANSITION FROM THIGHS TO LATERAL PRO-CESS BONES just as in the Leghorn. The Dominique is slightly wider but shorter than the Leghorn in lateral pro-cess bones, but not as wide as the Rock and not so much wider and shorter than the Leghorn as to be readily notice-able to most people.
But when you feel the breast of the bird for flesh, the Dominique breast is extremely well fleshed – for its size, more so than the Rock or Leghorn. And this all makes per-fect sense. If you read the histories of the Dominique it becomes clear that this was a dual purpose breed selected more for egg production than for meat production. So em-phasis on egg production gave the breed the thigh-to-lateral process bone transition of a Leghorn. It also seems appar-ent that the meat section of the Dominique had been select-ed with emphasis on white meat production – which tends to be more tender in old birds than dark meat.
So, in hand, the Dominique will resemble a Leghorn, but one a touch wider and with a lot more flesh on the breast.
The following comments are from Don Schrider, who was writing to Mark Fields about the judging booklet Mark produced. Don has given his permission to share this. Don Schrider is perhaps best known for his work with Brown Leghorns. Mark became acquainted with him when he worked as pro-gram coordinator at American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. Don is very technical in his approach to evaluating birds for both production and exhibition. We appreciate him sharing his observations.
The Old Schilling pictures for the Standard also reveal a few interesting tidbits – one of which is that the Domi-nique, despite its spritely stance, has a fair depth of body and controlled length of body. The relation of the length of the body (under the feathers) to the depth of the bird gives proportions which are pleasing on the dinner table.
The importance of depth in a great Dominique is also revealed through the position of the wing. You will note that many of today’s birds have wings whose horizontal line, bottom of the folded wings, formed from the folding primary feathers, is close to the bottom of the birds. Where-as, the old Schilling cuts show this line closer to halfway from top line to bottom line.
You also write quite heavily about the outline of the bird – the silhouette. I did not see any indication that the body under the feathers is being considered. So forgive me if I go on about this for one moment.
What holds most poultry breeders back from becoming true master breeders is knowledge of evaluating the birds by considering the importance of the body under the feath-ers and how it controls the silhouette that most of us focus on as the ideal. It is the body under the feathers that needs to be adjusted in order to produce, consistently, birds of high caliber with correct or near correct silhouettes. Only a few of the really top guys seem to get this.
A few things that help see birds in this way are hands on appraisal as I described at first, trying to “see” the body under the feathers or even drawing it over top of photos, watching the angle of the horizontal position of the wing as it indicates the angle at which the body under the feathers is held. For instance, the Dom female photo in your booklet shows level wing position, and thus the bird has horizontal shoulders and the back feathers progress upward to the top of tail. Whereas the Schilling pics show wings that angle downward and thus the front of the body is higher and the feathers lay, in both male and female, to create the proper outline. This angle also has much to do with the amount of breast showing in front, as compared to extending or meeting a vertical line from beak, and the amount of body showing in the fluff area and the balance or leg position.
I think if you consider this, you will find it much easier to correct the type on the Dominiques in an expedient fash-ion.
Best Regards as always. Don Schrider
How a Good Dominique Feels in Hand
March 2015, Page 11
Snapshots
Maureen Smuin’s Flock
Maureen Smuin’s LF Cockerel
These are some photos our members shared online.
Erika Marczak’s LF Hen
March 2015, Page 12
Snapshots
Tracey Rodenbach LF Cockerel
Tracey Rodenbach LF Cock
Suzette Ellington LF Females
March 2015, Page 13
Snapshots
Lisa Beth Chmelar’s Flock
Suzette Ellington LF Pullet
Parker Padilla Bantam Cockerel
Maureen Smuin’s LF Hen
March 2015, Page 14
I Am a Chicken Snob!
I am a chicken snob. I freely admit it. When I was a kid, we had chickens. Lots of them. We had ducks, and geese as well. Beef calves, sheep, dogs, cats, etc.
The chickens were mostly Plymouth Barred Rocks. We also had some White Crested Black Polish and some true Araucana (Rump-less, tufted). I took Ag science class-es in high school and learned about the basics of breeding, culling, etc, all which went along with an agricultural life as a child and teenager.
When we got chickens again as an adult, I pondered for many months about which breed to get. I didn’t even toy with the idea of just basic “barnyard mixes”. Why? Because I am a chicken snob. I didn’t really understand that I was a Chicken Snob, but I was one all the same. We decided on American Dominique chickens. This is recog-nized as the first truly American chicken. We got a few EEs just to get some colored eggs, but they were actually part of a deal we made with some friends, and were bought and paid for by the friends. Originally we also had some Narragansett turkeys, but now we have Standard Bronze turkeys. Last month we expanded our breeds to include Ameraucanas, specifically focusing on Blue Ameraucanas. We acquired a good Blue Ameraucana cock, and a very nice blue Ameraucana hen (we travelled to Duchesne, Utah to bring her home).
I don’t like weird mixed and crosses. I let my daugh-ters hatch out some Dominegger (Dominique-EE crosses) just to see what we would get, but we didn’t keep any…Why? Because I am a chicken snob.
Being a chicken snob has its rewards, but also has its drawbacks. As a chicken snob, you focus on one or two purebred chickens, bred to American Poultry Association (APA) breed standards. You know what is expected, you have defined requirements, and your birds (if you pay at-tention, generally speaking) are much higher quality than those purchased from most hatcheries. You look at your flock and take pride in how they look and the progress you have (hopefully) made with your breeding program. This however requires that you cull hard. Culling is actually not just killing, but the removal of specimens that don’t meet your goals or breed standard. You are also emotionally tied to your flock, and losses from disease or predators can be devastating.
Another drawback is selling your extra and cull birds or hatching eggs. It is popular these days, especially among backyard chicken owners, to “create” new crosses. To a
By Wendell K. Smith
Chicken Snob, those birds (though cute, etc) are nothing more than barnyard chicken mutts. And then try to com-pete when marketing your birds to the general chicken buy-ing public.…In my case, we will try to sell an American Dominique pullet. This pullet has light gray and dark gray zig-zag barring and a rose comb. It is smaller than a PBR, and lays a medium-large brown egg. Trying to compete with a blue/green-frizzle-sizzle-silkie-rock that lays striped eggs becomes problematic. The average person (who isn’t a chicken snob) is looking for something pretty, out of the ordinary, that lays different colored eggs and makes all their neighbors and fellow suburban chicken friends go “OOOOOOO!”
Now that isn’t all bad, I’m not that bad of a snob. There’s nothing wrong with trying to create new breeds, or new crosses. That being said, don’t be surprised, given the amount of time and money that we chicken snobs have into our addiction, that our plain boring standard bred chicken that you can take to a show ends up costing WAY more than the designer chick that is selling for $10-15 per chick…I still don’t understand why someone would pay those prices for a cross-breed over a purebred. To see and handle a nice APA standard bred chicken is awesome. Hatcheries have their place, and put chickens out there making them avail-able for thousands. But compare a hatchery RIR or Domi-nique, or most any hatchery bred bird for that matter to a good standard bred bird from a responsible breeder flock, and the differences are astounding. It’s like comparing a dog from a puppy mill to one from a responsible breeder. You can instantly tell which one comes from a love of the breed and years of careful breeding selection, and which one came from a for-profit large scale business.
We call the male chickens cockerels and Cocks and roosters: NOT “Roos” like is so popular in current chicken circles. We keep records of egg laying, temperatures, hatch-es, breeders, and so on. Most of our chickens don’t have names (some do), rather they are all numbered. We don’t treat them as pets, nor do we use chicken diapers. We don’t spend hundreds of dollars to keep a sick chicken alive. We breed for disease resistance and overall good health. If one has a cross beak, they go away. If a chicken gets sick and doesn’t recover on its own, they go away rather than affect the health of the flock as a whole.
I guess we are boring…LOLSo, yes…I am a chicken snob.
March 2015, Page 15
Dominiques – In the old books they are referred to as the “dunghill fowl” because of their being derived from fowls running out back, making their living from the dung heap.
During the last 30 days I’ve been trav-eling in Central and South America. I had stops in Miami, Key West, Mexico, Guate-mala, Belize, Honduras, Costa Rica, Pana-ma, Ecuador and Peru. Our excursions took us through many very poor parts of these countries and I saw a lot of chickens.
You know what was missing? I did not see a single cuckoo patterned bird. The old books claim that cuckoo will appear when indiscriminate matings occur. In the travels I certainly saw the equivalent of pre-mod-ern era poultry keeping!
Most of the birds running around the hovels are best described as BB Red pattern (wild type), regardless of size, shape or conformation. The next most common type could best be described as a rusty red laying type hen. In Belize in one neighborhood there are flocks of what might be called Mottled Javas, or maybe Ancona colored Sussex? White birds were very few. Of course I saw many other colors and patterns but again not a single “barred” or “cuckoo” bird. The type of these birds was all over the map, bantam to laying type to game to heavy. There was little uniformity.
These observations (and yes I was specifically look-ing for cuckoo patterned birds on this trip) has rattled my thinking on the development of the Dominique. The chick-ens of Central/South America have certainly had many dif-ferent “breeds” added to the mix, so why no cuckoo?
Over the next few months I’m going to continue to mull this over. My newly developed theory is that the Domi-nique did appear from an indiscriminate mating, but then people added deliberate selection pressure, otherwise the genetic dominance of the red genes would have covered the cuckoo back up in subsequent matings. The Dominique may have started as a few flukes but they only made it be-cause of deliberate actions on the part of our fore-fathers.
I welcome other thoughts on this matter.
Dunghill Fowl at work. Photo by Maureen Smuin.
Dunghill FowlStarted by Mark Fields
Rendy Tomkins: Other thought, conditions were different in colonial New England. At least half the year was spent in grey shadows not brightly colored tropical vegetation. Just a humble 2 pennies.
Maureen Smuin: I talked to my husband about this. He described the book, “1421 The Year the Chinese Discov-ered America”. This was written by a British Admiral who poured decades of study into early exploration. The book describes the multiple year voyage of the Chinese and that they loaded their ship with livestock, including chickens. They crossed the Pacific, made landfall in South America, explored the Americas and then continued on across the At-lantic. When the European explorers later came to Argen-tina, they found the Araucana already there. Maybe, even after all these centuries, there is still an influence from the early birds.
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March 2015, Page 16
Dominique Kids
The Morrill family’s Dominique bantam cockerel loves to be snuggled.
Lily Womack welcomes Spring with her new Dominique chick.
Sheyanne Stewart’s girls with their Dominiques.
Bailey Glashan won a gold award at the North-ern California 4-H Regional Presentation Day with an Interpretive Reading of the beginning from An American Dominique, a Treatise for the Fancier, by Mark A. Fields.
March 2015, Page 17
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Are Color and Type Sex Linked?Started by Mark Fieldsf
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I'm wondering .....is there any truth about color following one sex and type following the other? I was thumbing through some genetics books today and thought of it...there's nothing in the books about it other than "sex linked" colors.
Dustin Wilson: I’ve heard that theory many times over the years and have no idea where it came from. Each parent contributes half the genes so they both influence type and color.
Keith Bramwell: I don’t believe there is any truth to that. I have never read anything that scientifically connects the two and, in general, anecdotally I have not seen this to be the case either. However there my be ‘a few’ exceptions to the genetic rules, but I don’t believe this is something than can be considered a constant across breeds, colors or types. (With sex-linked traits excluded)
Danny Feathers: Well I don’t do anything scientifically here on my farm. But I have lived by that for yrs. It has always worked for me and I will continue to use males for color and females for type. It ain’t broke and I ain’t fixin it.
Matt Stillman: Ditto everything Dustin and Keith said. That’s not how genetics work. Is it possible to follow that guideline and have success? Sure! But correlation and cau-sation are not the same.
Danny Feathers: Y’all keep looking in those books, I’ll just keep breeding birds and scoring points. Lmao
Matt Stillman: Danny Feathers, that was kind of what I was hinting at, but obviously didn’t get across. I know folks that have plenty of book knowledge but can’t breed their way out of a paper bag, and guys that don’t understand what a recessive gene is, think allele is something you cook with but produce awesome birds.
Janice Blawat: I’ve heard that chicken genetics don’t re-ally work the same as mammal genetics, that in chickens there are some traits that go together. For example, UCD had a flock of Silkies with an extra toe, I think, and those were susceptible to some disease that the others were not. (Sorry I’m not up on genetics well enough to back up that information.) I’ll ask Dr. Bradley for a better explanation.
Danny Feathers: People try to make this out to be hard. It’s not. You will either be a breeder and improve your breeds or you will be a multiplier and just raise a bunch of
birds never reaching that top shelf. Its a sad fact that 97% of the people in poultry will be the later. They will just never get it. But at least they are enjoying birds and that’s the main thing.
Janice Blawat: Danny, I love to have textbook reasons for things. It just doesn’t seem to work that way with chickens, and there aren’t any textbooks that have the information I’m looking for. It’s wonderful that there are people who have a lot of practical experience. The problem is, I hear a lot of things from old guys that sound nice, but I haven’t personally observed that all of those things work.
Keith Bramwell: Not picking a fight, but science is science. No need to reinvent the wheel. However when you mix scientific Information WITH practical experience it’s does nothing but help a breeding program. No need to reinvent the wheel and no need to spin your wheels where no trac-tion can be gained. I value the tried and true information gained from the established breeding programs. However, I sometimes I am still Stunned by practices that are still
In use that have been PROVEN BEYOND DOUBT to be just good Ol wives tails. But I am not one to step in and. Tell you to quit doing what has worked. Biological and ge-netic variation and mutation ensure that NOTHING is a certainty.
Keith Bramwell: Janice, there are actual some very good books and resources on avian genetics and reproduction. Everything from qualitative and quantitative traits to mo-lecular genetic advances. There really is A LOT of quality information out there. Much of it goes back to the 20’s and 30’s when good old fashioned ‘cross this breed and trait with that breed and trait’.
Mark Fields: The trait I’ve been attempting to research is how to clean up the barring on a Dominique without losing the good cuckoo pattern or changing the dark bars to black. The stock I used to do it 20 years ago isn’t available today.
March 2015, Page 18
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Danny Feathers: If y’all will follow the APA standard its not just for judging its set up for breeding. Now if you think that you can get it down to where everything you hatch is show champion worthy well that ain’t gonna happen.
Mark Fields: LOL. I’d like those Champs a little more fre-quent than they are now!
Janice Blawat: Keith, are those books for production fowl, or are there some that cover exhibition birds as well?
Keith Bramwell: Exhibition fowl
Janice Blawat: Any titles I can look for?
Janice Blawat: Here is an example of cuckoo pattern that needs to be cleaned up, I think.
Are Color and Type Sex Linked? Continued from p. 17
Keith Bramwell: Genetics of the Fowl. Written by FB Hutt in 1949. Still available today on Amazon. Introduction to color forms of the domestic fowl, written by Brian Reeder. Genetics and evolution of the domestic fowl, written by Lewis Stevens. These are a few of my favorites. I have sev-eral more titles if you are interested.
Keith Bramwell: Much of the working knowledge of how to practically implement this information into breeding programs is still being determined by the many experi-enced breeders.
Keith Bramwell: Another one is a book called Registry of poultry and genetic stock, published in 1974. Unfortunate-ly out of print but it list every recognized APA breed and details the genetics behind its makeup.
Keith Bramwell: Poultry Breeding and Genetics published in 1990 by RD Crawford is a good genetic source book but written for the hard core geneticists and wouldn’t be of much use for exhibition poultry breeders, except as a periodic reference.
Michael Schlumbohm: I think a lot of the thought of “the male carries color” comes from the fact that in flock mat-ings or in trio/quad mating situations, one male will have more of an influence over the quality of all of the offspring than any one female will.
So if a male that has great color is used on those females then it is more likely that all of the offspring, regardless of which female they are out of, will have good color.
Likewise, a male with poor color will influence all of the offspring, regardless of which female the chicks are out of. Resulting in a larger proportion of poorly colored off-spring. Otherwise I don’t think one sex is more influen-tial over a certain trait than the other sex. (Excluding sex-linked genes)
Keith Bramwell: Very good Michael. That’s helps explain that theory and how it can seemingly work in group mating situations.
Joe Emenheiser: I thought about this a lot, too. Wives’ tale or not, it’s certainly made its way into lots of old text-books and breeding programs. What Michael alludes to is the best explanation I’ve been able to come up with, which is that in most breeding programs, one male is used over several females, thus within that limited pool, the female, not the male, is the source of variation for most genes influ-encing type. The other explanation is that many important color genes are located on the Z (male) chromosome.
Keith Bramwell: Actually, if a color gene is carried on the Z chromosome it is considered a sex-linked gene. If, when breeding it does not behave as a sex-linked gene, then it is an autosomal gene. There are several sex-linked color traits but when it gets to patterns most are autosomal and not car-ried on the Z chromosome.
Joe Emenheiser: Oh I understand, but if a person doesn’t understand genetics, it’s easy to see how things like sex-linked barring, gold/silver, dermal melanin inhibition, etc. could lead to the conclusion that the male influences color.
Keith Bramwell: True, and maybe the knowledge that in avian species it is opposite as mammals in that the fe-male determines the sex therefore she carries the Z and W chromosome and the male has two W chromosomes. This makes a difference when you consider color traits that are sexlinked.
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Are Color and Type Sex Linked? Continued from p. 18
Vickie Murrill Dawson: As a long time dog, horse, and dairy goat breeder, I questioned this idea at first, even to Wilbur Stauffer. He told me, “Just wait and see kiddo, chickens are different.” My import Buff Orp cock bird has put incredible color, even on washed out females, and the color breeds true. I’m a believer Danny.
Joe Emenheiser: So the next generation, the color comes from the females, too, right?
Joe Emenheiser: It shouldn’t be a great surprise that you breed to a superior individual of either sex, whether that superiority is for type or color or both, those characteristics can be expected to carry forward to the subsequent gen-erations to some degree. I have found this to be the case in both livestock and poultry breeding. Every exception I have observed was able to be explained by uneven sex ratios (usually more females than males) in the parental population, sex-linked traits, or otherwise lowly heritable traits.
Joe Emenheiser: Lowly heritable traits indicate an over-whelming influence of non-additive gene effects and the environment, as compared to additive (heritable) genes, on phenotype. Non-additive gene effects describe gene com-bination values like heterosis, dominance, and epistasis, that are not passed down through generations because a parent only contributes a random half of its (autosomal) DNA to its offspring. This is just scratching the surface of genetics, but I expect already too deep for most “believers” in the old wives tale.
Joe Emenheiser: So I’ll leave it with a final thought. In order to publish science, statistically significant differenc-es need to be detected from an experiment that involves a proper control. In other words, the treatment that is be-ing tested needs to be compared to something else in order to determine whether it is effective or ineffective. I don’t think that anyone will argue that a good colored male will contribute good color genetics to his offspring, or that a good typed female will contribute good type genetics to her offspring. But just because that is the case does not mean that a good typed male or a well colored female won’t con-tribute the desired genetics just as effectively. Most of the folks who swear by the old theory are only observing that it works, they aren’t setting up both matings and comparing the results to conclude that the opposite DOESN’T work. Especially with a large enough sample size and enough replications to determine statistical significance.
Keith Bramwell: Amen Joe!!!
Joseph Marquette: I think Michael’s idea has a lot of mer-it as a means of understanding how the notion came to be. We’re only left to imagine scenarios, but the potential of a prepotent male in a flock to distribute color aspects over several hens would make it seem highly important. Then one could imagine a scenario in which a homozygous male with a recessive pattern like mottling could be seen as set-ting the color if in his harem there were several split hens who, phenotypically not mottled, would then throw a high percentage of mottled chicks, which would make the cock appear disproportionately potent. Add these two scenarios to the several sex-linked color genes, and one could eas-ily begin to imagine how the “color from the cock” myth would come to take hold and probably “prove” itself again and again.
Joseph Marquette: Then, in appreciating Danny’s experi-ence, if one is working with a stable line of birds over time by following maintaining consistent selection criteria one is going to start seeing predictable results. Providing the stock isn’t absolute crap, by selecting males for color and females for type one is going to increase the quantities for both in some of the progeny, at least, save in a pattern that must be double mated for color. Over time, one is, if one has “the eye” invariably going to end up selecting males for color that happen to have improved type, and females for type that happen to have improved color. Evetually it all works itself out. Then one could imagine, in a flock that is generally tight for type that, if a male were to have specific type faults, but good color, the female would be able to compensate in a potentially large number of progeny. Then, as Joe pointed out, it’s probably also good to consider the fact that one has to prove that the other direction doesn’t work, and I think the default here would be the simple fact that it’s easier to get more progeny from one cock than it is to get the like number of progeny from one hen; so in general one is going to see the cocks broad influence more easily.
Dan Honour: Good results justify the practice and if you think enough you can build a case in behalf. Using a male on a number of females and raising a large number of off-spring gives the good male a better chance of passing along good color.(This is the reason I do not care for mating pairs). Big females should have size or frame and skeletal genes and if big females are mature,laying good sized eggs,then the chicks should be large ,strong and vigorous,all of which contributes to their offspring being big like the dam. On the other hand if a line has been selected for enough years,in size or color,both sexes will contribute which is finetuning or refinement in breeding.
March 2015, Page 20
Joseph Marquette: It’s fun that there are many ways to get to the core.
Joe Emenheiser: The mode of inheritance for the trait of interest is also important to consider. Type traits are gener-ally polygenic, meaning they are controlled by more than one gene. Color traits are more likely to be simply inher-ited. As a result of this, type traits like back length or body weight are usually continuous in their distribution (think bell curve) whereas colors are more likely to fall into dis-
crete categories. Another major issue is whether the trait of interest is controlled by mostly dominant or recessive genes. The offspring phenotype for traits that are controlled by recessive genes are obviously more dependent on the other mate, and the desired phenotype can “skip” a gen-eration as a result. Some may dismiss this as irrelevant theory, but understanding that not all traits are inherited the same way, and getting to the root of “why” prior to making breeding decisions, has worked well for me in practice.
Joseph Marquette: “polygenic” – I like this term. I prom-ise to steal it.
Are Color and Type Sex Linked? Continued from p. 19
As the year 2014 is ending, I did my annual review of the egg laying stats for my flock. Comparing them to the prior 2 years, I found that, at least with my birds, the daily egg totals are more affected by the average daily temperature than any other single factor. Daylight length is a factor, 10 hours seems to be the pivot point, with the moult coming into play as well. Just my observations. Now, if we combine shorter days, which seems to be the trigger for my birds in starting the moult, add in some very early cold temps in early November, and we get conditions that result in se-verely reduced egg laying. My hens are now back up to
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their Nov 1st laying level. They started the upswing about 2 weeks before the solstice, but we had warmer temps and they finished getting their feathers in.
Julie Groves Gupton: Can you separate out egg produc-tion based on age of hens as well?
Wendell Knighton Smith: I didn’t keep track of hens vs pullets. But you can see the increase starting in Sept throughlate October that coorresponds with the pullets starting to lay.
Wendell Knighton Smith
March 2015, Page 21
When Do You Add New Blood?Started by Mark Fieldsf
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Mark Fields: On various groups I’ve started seeing the annual posts from people looking for new blood. I con-tend that the time to add new blood is when you experi-ence genetic issues (toes, beaks, fertility, etc) or only when trying to fix a major fault. Many people blame inbreed-ing for what is most often poor decisions on the part of the breeder. So, a simple question: “When do you add new blood to a flock?” I’m not referring to the “side projects” that most master breeders are doing to tweak a particular trait, but rather the scenario of “toss a new male/female in the breeding pen.”
Danny Feathers: I never add any new blood from outside my lines. I maintain a lot of families in my breeds. If I do go outside of my families I usually go to one of my trusted friends that have my birds already. By doing this I get very few surprises in the offspring. This isn’t probably what you were asking for. Just thought I’d give you how I do it.
Melissa Ahlers: That is key Danny, maintaining families that are related. It gives us lots of choices to choose from when we need a trait.
Donchandler: Adding new blood has messed up more than it helped.
Shawna Lowry-Smith: Like Danny, I never add new blood but rather keep several family lines, from multiple generations, and work with several other breeders that only raise the same line.
Edwin Smith: After a few years when you realized you bought crappy birds. Which quite possibly means not add-ing new blood but replacing with new blood or both.
Edwin Smith: If you do add new blood be sure you main-tain the pure line. You can’t unring that bell.
Zach Rose: I did a line cross of two completely removed lines. I had issues hatching anything of mine. The result was not only great birds, but hybrid vigor to las me for years! Other breeds did not work out so well, crossing lines. I have so many breeders at this point that I have little need for that new burst, however, you can’t breed for something you don’t have. Weight won’t magically increase if all your birds are small.
Don Schrider: Many people keep a small number of breed-ers and a larger number of breeds. This lack of focus means
they will need new blood periodically. Often in a breed or variety you have one master breeder and others that buy from them. This trickle down effect maintains quality. That one master is often responsible for the quality of the breed or variety and maintains diversity as he/she can seldom go outside their own flock. The question is really how do balance between keeping enough diversity and increasing quality (which is really more about reducing diversity).
Anthony Ashley: Many people can’t figure out why I hatch so many and have so few to sale. Yet they are the ones contantly buying birds every year. I try to keep 10 pullets and 10 cockerels in both my varieties every year. Some of my birds are not replaceable. I have to keep plenty not just for numbers but to be substitutes in case a breeder dies, doesnt lay or fertile. And I will keep birds that most of these “buyers” would not have. Because it has a desired feature I need or have been working on. If you dont breed it you will never have it.
Don Schrider: Francis LeAnna of WI once said there are two ways to have top shobirds - one get a good start from a master breeder and create a line and families from it; two, get a trio from a master breeder and every year or two pur-chase a new male from that same breeder. Option two pro-vides customers for the master and allows you to rely on his breeding skill to keep up your own line. I have known many people over the past 25 years that produce their win-ning birds from first generation outcrosses. Problem is they do not know where to go to in the following generations. Most master breeders have taken two or more lines and produced their own line with them. They have done this to get traits they envision on their ideal bird that did not exist on the birds of any one line they found. They spent the 3-5 years settling the results of these outcrosses. While master breeders are few and far between, we should not look too far down on these practices as it is a growing curve for anyone entering poultry. Instead we must look for those people with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on one breed or variety and parcel out knowledge to them over a few years. To develop them, we must help them find the in-formation and yet spread it out long enough that they don’t get bored and stay hungry for more. We must share more of our lines with these folks and congratulate them when and if they beat us... after all they cannot be worthy successors if they cannot stand on their own. And we must help them
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March 2015, Page 22
understand that producing a large number of high calibre birds can be done by using a small number of breeder birds, but doing so means the gene pool is reduced too far and so matings must be made to support the line for a long time. Developing master breeders is as much work as developing a line.
Mark Fields: Many of us on here remember John Norris and his games. He and I bonded over a shared interest in inbreeding suppression. This came to light when I bought a rare White Park cattle book from him (Don, remember my work with those?) He relayed that “his” line was actually purchased from another breeder who had kept the family closed for 39 years. John’s goal was to also keep them 39 years which he was fortunate enough to attain. What in-triqued us both is that this line had been closed for 78 years and most years only 5 to 7 birds were used as breeders. Rarely did his entire flock number more than a dozen.
He attributed this longevity of the line from having been bred tight enough to go through the inbreeding bottleneck and having a breeder that was observant enough to recog-nize the birds that would maintain the flock on the other side.
He and I conjectured that if even one bird had been brought into the family that this would have thrown the entire flock into genetic disarray.
I agree that when forming a line you need to look for birds with the traits you desire. Heck, it’s a not big secret that I’m scrambling to find the exact birds needed to rebuild my Unbeatable Beauty line of Dominique bantams. But, once that flock is set I will slam the door shut and work on what I have, because most of the time the traits really are there that we need it’s just a matter of how long we want to work to shift the traits to where we want them.
The problem I see is this desire to obtain new blood with-out a clear reason why. As a loooooong time member of AMBC/ALBC/ALC, & APA and other orgs. I totally get genetic diversity, BUT I don’t believe most “new blood” selections are really made with good stewardship in mind. Most are “my birds aren’t good enough so I’ll get one from XYZ”. Maybe we should be counseling more people to scrap those poor birds and just go buy a pair/trio from XYZ.I guess it’s probably because I’m older and restarting with a breed I dropped, but I don’t want to spend another 2 de-cades to get back to where I can go to a showroom and my family is “THE FAMILY” to beat. I have the fortune of hindsight to see some big mistakes made in the past and hope to avoid them this go round. Most folks don’t realize that dropping a new bird into the mix isn’t usually a simple, quick or permanent fix.
When Do You Add New Blood? Continued from p. 21
Dominique Club of AmericaPATCHES
$5.00 each
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Julie Gupton370 Brewer Rd.
Louisburg, NC 27549
March 2015, Page 23
Show Reports
California Classic Poultry ShowHollister, CA January 17-18, 2015Reporting and photos, Janice James
Please Help...I am reprinting this from the last newsletter in case you didn’t see it.
We are great about sharing our news and photos on the DCA Facebook page, especially when we win!!! Yay for us when we win!!!
However, we post pictures that don’t identify the people in them. Your editor (me) lives clear the heck in California and truly regrets not hav-ing met most of you who live east of Arizona. I’m beginning to be able to identify some of your friendly faces,
but it would be so nice to correctly identify everyone.
If you could remember to include these things, we could have more complete reports:
• Name, date, location of show
• Name of person who took the pictures
• Names of everyone in the pictures
You don’t have to win big stuff to make a show report. The rest of us enjoy knowing you were there. It’s good to include information like who
judged, how many Dominiques were entered, how many Dom exhibitors were there, and how the birds placed. These are things that should also be reported to DCA by a show secretary.
So, after you share that big win with us, please remember to go back later and add the information needed for the newsletter.
Or email it to me: [email protected].
Thanks,Editor Jan
There were one Dominique large fowl and 24 Dominique bantams, with 6 exhibitors at the Hollister show. Chris Hawes, from Mississippi, judged the bantams.
Large FowlPullets1st, BB, Chris Tamayo
BantamsCocks (2)1st and 2nd, Janice James
Hens (2)1st, RB, Janice James2nd, Janice James
Cockerels (8)1st, Janice James2nd, Deborah Kunic3rd, Mark Fields4th, Janice James5th, Chris Tamayo
Brett Morici with her BB Dominique pullet that was also Reserve RCCL in the Junior Show
Pullets (12)1st, BB, Reserve Junior RCCL, Brett Morici2nd, Janice James3rd, Mark Fields4th, Janice James5th, Janice James
It was a lot of fun having so many Dom bantams at the show. Hollister is a central location for exhibitors from both Northern and Southern California.
March 2015, Page 24
Show ReportsFt. Worth Stock ShowJanuary 24, 2015Reporting and photo by Mary Jane Massie
Abby Hand and her Dominique cockerel “Elvis,” which won Reserve Champion in the Open Division.
Canadian Valley Poultry ClubFebruary 7, 2015
Photo by Mary Muller
Best of Breed in both Dominique large fowl and bantams, Melody Hobbs.
March 2015, Page 25
Show ReportsPacific Poultry Breeders Association ShowModesto, CA January 31-February 1, 2015Reporting and photos, Janice James
At the PPBA show, there were 13 large fowl Dominiques, exhibited by 3 people, and 18 Dominique bantams, from 4 exhibitors. This is the largest show in the west and tradition-ally draws birds from several states. This year it was lim-ited a bit because of an AI outbreak at a commercial facility 15 miles away. Some exhibitors did not attend, and some brought their second string birds, but the show did go on, under careful supervision.
Bantams were judged by Tom Roebuck
Cocks (4)1st, Jan James2nd, Bailey Glashan3rd-4th, Jordan Imada
Hens (5)1st, Bailey Glashan2nd, Jan James3rd, Bailey Glashan4th-5th, Jordan Imada
Cockerels (5)1st-5th, RB, Janice James
Pullets (4)1st-3rd, BB, Janice James4th, Brett Morici
Large Fowl were judged by Don Nelson
Cocks (1)1st, Emmett Wild
Hen (1)1st, RB, Emmett Wild
Cockerels (3)1st, BB, Emmett Wild2nd, Bailey Glashan 3rd, Chris Tamayo
Pullets (4)1st, Emmett Wild2nd, Bailey Glashan3rd, Emmett Wild4th, Chris Tamayo
Above: Emmett Wild (left) finishing his judging apprenticeship. He also judged a class of showmanship kids.
Left: Brett Morici, using one of her Dominique bantam pullets for showmanship.
Below: Emmett Wild’s BB large fowl cockerel.
March 2015, Page 26
Show Reports
Dominique Bantams, judged by Amanda Stallman
14 birds, 2 owners2 were scratched, 2 DQ’d for mites (those were mine, I was mortified)
No cocks
Hens (2)1st-2nd, Janice James
Cockerels (3)1st-2nd, Janice James3rd, Mark Fields
Pullets (5)1st, BB, Reserve RCCL, Janice James2nd, RB, Janice James3rd-4th, Janice James5th, Mark Fields
Humboldt Poultry Fanciers ShowFerndale, CA February 14-15, 2015Reporting and photos, Janice James
Amanda Stallman is a relatively new judge who had never judged Dominique bantams before. After the show she had lots of questions that I forwarded to Mark Fields. These questions might have been a factor in helping him finish his brochure on Interpreting the Standard for Dominiques.
Janice James with Reserve RCCL Dominique pullet, Katherine Plumer with Best RCCL Rosecomb cockerel. We had travelled to the show together, all our stuff barely fit in my little RAV4.
Greater California Poultry FanciersFresno, CA February 28, 2015Reporting and photos, Janice James
Large Fowl judged by Connor Keegan, bantams judged by Donald Barger
5 Large Fowl shown by 3 exhibitors
Hens (2)1st-2nd, Columbus Sanders
Cockerels (2)1st, BB, Best American, Reserve Large Fowl, Debbie Kunic2nd, Chris Tamayo
Pullet (1)1st, RB, Debbie Kunic
17 Dominique bantams, 4 exhibitors
Cocks (2)1st, Janice James2nd, Chris Tamayo
Hens (1)1st, Janice James
Cockerels (5)1st, RB, Janice James2nd, Mark Fields3rd, Janice James4th, Debbie Kunic5th, Janice James
Pullets (9)1st, BB, Janice James2nd-4th, Janice James5th, Debbie Kunic
Debbie Kunic’s large fowl Dominique cockerel was Reserve Large Fowl and was one of the most popular birds at the show.
March 2015, Page 27
Show ReportsSouth Central Texas ClassicLa Grange, Texas March 7, 2015Reporting and photos, Lisa Beth Chmelar
Best of Breed large fowl pullet, bred by Sam Brush, owned and shown by Lisa Beth Chmelar. Reserve of Breed, cockerel by Lisa Beth Chmelar.
Sweetwater Grange #727 Poultry ShowEdgefield, South Carolina March 7, 2015Photo by John Womack
John Womack’s large fowl cockerel was BB, Reserve American, and Reserve Large Fowl.
The judge for LF was Danny Hughes. What I am finding is that...I am most often the only one there - which, to me, just means that when I show them Dominiques I need to show them good examples of the breed so, the ones I have are from some of you wonderful breeders...thank you so much for sharing them with me!
March 2015, Page 28
Show ReportsUtah Fancy Poultry AssociationFarmington, Utah March 20, 2015Photo by Chris Tamayo, Report by Janice James
This was a double show.There were 7 Dominique bantams, one exhibitor
Show A, judged by Dave Anderson
Cockerels (3)1st, RB, Janice James2nd-3rd, Janice James
Pullets (4)1st, BB, Janice James2nd-4th, Janice James
Show B, judged by Marilyn Novat
Cockerels (3)1st, RB, Janice James2nd-3rd, Janice James
Pullets (4)1st, BB, Reserve RCCL, Janice James2nd-4th, Janice James
Janice James pullet, BB in both shows, Reserve RCCL in Show B.
Chris Tamayo and I drove 9 hours for this show in Utah. What a treat it was to meet and get to know a bunch of new peo-ple! I left a pair of Dominique bantams with Bob Adams, whose Wyandotte beat mine in RCCL. I’m looking forward to seeing him show DBs next year.
John Womack working at Smithfield show. Photo by Suzette Ellington.
March 2015, Page 29
You are invited to join the Dominique Club of America
Join online at www.dominiqueclub.org/join.php, and pay with Paypal, OR send this form with dues, according to the following schedule.
Membership will be for January 1 through December 31, 2015.
M Junior membership (18 & under) $ 5.00M Individual adult membership 10.00
Mail membership form with check payable to Dominique Club of America c/o Suzette Ellington, 4430 Takach Rd., Prince George, VA 23875
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Address ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
City/State __________________________________________________________________________________________ Zip ____________________
E-mail address, please _________________________________________________________________________________ Date ___________________
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How to Renew Your DCA Membership
The deadline for the next issue of
Dominique News is June 15, 2015.
