Re: Brooding hens that won't let me near the eggs

" Jill" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
Farm1 wrote:
" Jill" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
Farm1 wrote:
Pure breeds are not necessarily just Pretties

Depends on your viewpoint.

No - it depends on how they are bred

Your preference seems to be for pure breds. Mine isn't.

My preference is irrelevant in this
You stated that Pure breeds are just pretties

I did no such thing! I wrote:
"I don't like purebred flocks because I'm
into tough farm hens, not pretties."

This is not correct
It may be that you have not found any good strains, but the chances
are that
as you are not interested in them you have not looked very hard.

I do the poultry shows when they are on locally and nearer that 150 km
distance. I'm obviously not interested.

Thats fine.
It does not mean they do not exist

Mongrels do this more
effectively than commercials I find.

I can guarentee that if you make some mongrels out of most breeds
you will get poor producers
If you are making your mongrels out of the best of the productive
pure breeds then you may well get hybrid vigour sometimes.

You are stressing the "production" angle. I see it in a different
way. I don't need or seek to have top egg layers or prime table
birds. I want good tough farm birds who can patrol the orchard,
make
compost from my garden rubbish, are interesting (as in
entertaining)
and if, in addition, they lay eggs then that is also good.

Blimey -- if that is all you want then just about every pure breed
will cope
with that job specification quite happily

They don't. I've had lots of different purebreds over the years and I
am not satisfied with them. And the problem now in Oz is that it is
becoming quite hard to get good purebreds. Years of drought have
forced up feed prices and a LOT of specialist breeders have simply
gone out of the game. I think that the days of finding good quality
pure breds here is almost over because the price of good stock is now
also very high and suits the specialist fancier market rather than the
home fancier.

See above. After a lifetime of chooks, I think I'm just over pure
breds. I now prefer chooks of more character.

But you have defined nothing ;)
What have "you" experienced in the pure breeds you have met that you
condemn
so much?

Not physically tough enough, don't chook talk enough, some like the
Rhode Island Red and the White Leghorn have temperaments that I don't
like as does the Isa Brown. Oh blast, I'm being called for dinner so
must go. Will comment further tomorrow.



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