It has been my experience that most backyard breeders are unaware of what it takes to create and maintain a strain. Or they are afraid of the potential consequences if they do it wrong. Some lack patience, while others want something for nothing. Many believe it’s better to let the so-called “Big Time Breeders” in the magazines, with large fancy ads, do it for them.
So they buy a high priced trio, carrying the name of a famous breeder who no longer exists. Many times, the birds they get in the mail are quite different than originally advertised. Or they get great fowl, but don’t know how to breed them. So they learn from their friends and family, who rely on old wives tales and superstitions, that inbreeding is risky and crossbreeding is safe. Within a few years the original fowl no longer exist, and every bird on their yard are the product of hybrid-crosses.
Because they rely on old wives tales and superstitions to guide their selections, or because they simply lack the ability to select properly, they produce substandard fowl. There’s no uniformity or consistency of traits between the offspring, and any fowl that do come good are the product of chance.
This is the result of ignorance, on the part of the buyer, and love of money with no respect for the breed, on the part of the seller. This is the commercial side of the hobby, and is a peddler’s playground.
Peddlers know that “the names of strain” still sell chickens, and they are always on the lookout for fowl that have a popular name, or fowl that resemble a famous strain. If he doesn’t have it, he will get it. He then hatching all he can, raising every one of them, good, bad and indifferent, never culling, and will sell these fowl to anyone with cash.
This is how so many inferior fowl are being created and dispersed, and are finding their way in the yards of our struggling beginners. It’s a scary thought, isn’t it?
The proper way to obtain good fowl is to find a reputable breeder, who raises healthy, genetically superior fowl, and learn how to breed them.
You can depend on “others” for certain things, but when it comes to your fowl you have to raise and breed your own, and they will be just as good or bad as the amount of knowledge, care and management that you put into them.
