Popular Poultry Breeds

David Scrivener

• Publisher: Crowood
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781847979711
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Animal Husbandry
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Popular Poultry Breeds examines forty mainstream breeds of chickens and bantams divided into thirty-five chapters. Most breeds exist in several plumage colour varieties, and in large and bantam (miniature) size versions, all of which are also included in this comprehensive book. Detailed histories of each breed are given, in many cases including the names of the breeders and where they lived. Also, the special management and selective breeding requirements needed for certain breeds is studied, even if they are not going to be entered into shows. The book includes helpful descriptions of the breeds, and is beautifully illustrated in full colour with over 180 photographs of prize-winning birds and nearly ninety reproductions of exquisite old prints of artist's drawings. This painstakingly researched reference work is aimed at smallholders, hobbyist poultry keepers, serious enthusiasts and those researching chicken breeds.

CHAPTER 1

Ancona

Ancona is a city on the east coast of Italy, from which the first recorded shipments of chickens arrived in England in about 1850. Among the first importers and subsequent exhibitors were Mr Simons and Mr John Taylor. The latter, who lived at Cressy House, Shepherd’s Bush, London, was also a leading early breeder of Andalusians. For most of the century-and-a-half since then, Anconas have been universally recognized as a single plumage colour breed, black with small white tipping. This was not the case in the first few decades of the changes from simply being local laying hens to being an internationally recognized ‘proper’ breed. Readers should be aware that in the 1850s, although some birds had already been taken from the west-coast port of Livorno to the USA, the Leghorn breed had not yet been properly established. In addition to the expected ancestors of the present Ancona breed (birds with variations of black-and-white mottling from neat spotting to random markings like the later Exchequer Leghorns), there were also Black-Red/Partridge and Cuckoo barred ‘Anconas’. The then local name for black-and-white plumaged birds was ‘Marchegiana’, the name of a nearby district. However, even these varied, some coloured as Spangled OEG or a white-spotted variation of Duckwing Game.

Anconas. Originally a free gift with Poultry magazine, circa 1912. Artist: J.W. Ludlow

Although they were good layers, their varied appearance led many authorities in the world of poultry keepers to write them off as mongrels for many years. This attitude started to change when Mr A.W. Geffcken of Southampton obtained a fresh importation of more uniformly coloured Anconas in 1886. These were all black with white spots, although the white markings were not yet as neat and tidy as they would become. They also had the present shank/foot colour of yellow with black spots. Over the following decade Mr Geffcken, and subsequently his customers, spread them around the country. Mrs Constance Bourley of Frankley Rectory near Birmingham was a particularly enthusiastic Ancona breeder of this period, who was quoted in the livestock Journal Almanack of 1895 and in Wright’s Book of Poultry praising their hardiness, activity and laying ability on her wet, windswept hilltop farm. She said most other breeds she had tried had sickened and died there, with the survivors laying very few eggs. In contrast, Anconas kept themselves warm by foraging around the fields, even when there was snow on the ground. No doubt she would have been one of the founder members when the Ancona Club was formed in 1898. Some Ancona Club members concentrated on tidying up their plumage markings, in response to the very generous show prize money and high sale prices of potential winners then. However, Ancona Club members were aware of the dangers of separate exhibition and utility types developing, as happened with some other breeds. The Club agreed a joint breed standard with the National Utility Poultry Society in 1926 to avoid this.

Mrs Bourley’s praises of Anconas as active layers in free range conditions were confirmed by hundreds of other small scale poultry keepers through to the 1950s, but they were also rather wild and nervous. These were valuable survival instincts in free range flocks, which could get safely up a tree when foxes were on the prowl, but less welcome with larger scale commercial egg producers. Several such producers gave up Anconas during the 1920s because they could not be tamed when kept in laying flocks of 100 to 1000 in deep litter houses, with or without outside runs (normal commercial conditions then), without birds being lost by panicking. A Mr Messenger reported in 1921 that fifteen glass windows were smashed by a flock of 150 Anconas over a three-week period, despite their attendant being a quiet and elderly man with a lifetime of chicken-keeping experience.

Most Anconas have always been single-combed, but a rose-combed variety was bred by crossing with Hamburghs and Wyandottes, the latter type predominating. These first appeared about 1902–5. Eventually, say by 1930, the only difference was the comb; but up to about 1920 rose-combed Anconas were noticeably heavier and more docile than single-combed Anconas. They were made to cope with cold climates, as large single-combed chickens can suffer from frostbite. There was a separate Rosecomb Ancona Club in the UK, 1923–26.

Francis A. Mortimer of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, was the first to import Anconas to America from England in 1888. He bred and sold several batches before his death a few years later. One buyer was Mr H.J. Branthoover of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who was so impressed that he arranged further importations from Mrs Bourley. Mr Branthoover promoted them, becoming President of the Ancona Club of America, formed in 1903. The club grew from thirteen founders to over 400 members by 1912, but then declined as White Leghorns became the only breed used in America for commercial egg production.

Ancona Bantam

Mr Endson exhibited a team of Ancona Bantams at the 1912 Dairy and Crystal Palace shows, the first mention of them found by the author. Another leading breeder of them was Robert W. Tunstall of Leyburn, Yorkshire. He claimed to have made them from successive generations of ever smaller undersized large Anconas, without crossing with other bantam breeds. However, photos of Ancona Bantams in the 1920s show muscular birds with rather small tails, indicating some breeders had tried crosses with Spangled Old English Game Bantams. Mr D. Dennison was showing rose-combed Ancona Bantams in 1929.

During the 1930s the largest displays of Ancona Bantams, even at major shows, were about twenty birds, Mr Tunstall usually taking most of the prizes. They became more popular after the war, as indicated by an entry of twelve males and twenty-five females at the 1954 National Show at the Olympia exhibition hall, London. The 1962 event in the same hall had an impressive display of sixty-nine Ancona Bantams in six classes (cock, hen, cockerel, pullet, novice male, novice female). Entries at major UK shows in recent years (2000–2007) have been typically about fifty birds.

Mr W.L. Marr of Narembum, New South Wales established Ancona Bantams in Australia. He imported some hatching eggs from Gerald Gill of Kent, England in 1946, just before the Australian government banned all importations of livestock and hatching eggs. Unfortunately only one cockerel was successfully reared from these eggs, but another Australian fancier, Joe Saul, had already started to make a strain by selecting from the smallest available large Anconas. Thus Ancona Bantams were established in Australia from the imported cockerel and ‘half size’ pullets from Mr Saul. Mr Marr noted (in the 1980 Bantam Club of N.M. Yearbook) that other Australian fanciers had also tried crossing with Spangled OEG Bantams, resulting (as in the UK) in Ancona Bantams with rather small tails, some of which (unusually for Mediterranean light breeds) went broody.

ANCONA DESCRIPTION

For full details consult British Poultry Standards, the American Standard of Perfection or their equivalents in other countries. General body shape is similar to other Mediterranean breeds, perhaps more compact and meatier in body and a little shorter in leg and neck than their relations. Large fowl weights range from 2kg (4½lb) pullets up to 3kg (6½lb) adult cocks. The equivalent bantam weights are 510g (18oz) and 680g (24oz). Most specimens appear to be of approximately correct weight.

Ancona, large male. Photo: John Tarren

Single combs should be of medium size, upright on males, flopping over on females. Some females have rather small, straight combs, which could be helped by keeping pullets in warm houses for a few weeks before showing. The opposite problem is often seen on the rarer rose-combed variety; they often have rather coarse, poorly shaped combs. A neat rose comb, of Wyandotte type with the leader close to the skull, is the ideal. Cool conditions, with access to outside runs, help to limit comb growth. Remember that combs are heat-losing organs. Ear lobes should be medium sized, oval and white. Anconas allowed out on grass sometimes have a yellowish tinge, which is not considered a major fault by most judges, unlike partly red lobes, which are more serious. Eyes are orange-red. The beak should be yellow with black or horn shadings, to match their shanks and feet, which are yellow with black spots.

Ancona, large rose-combed female. Photo: John Tarren

Plumage is glossy greenish-black with neat white, V-shaped tips on enough of them to give the impression of even markings. A white tip on every feather would be too much. The white tips get larger and more numerous with each moult after they reach maturity. Novice Ancona breeders should be aware that their juvenile plumage is nothing like the adult pattern; instead they have a penguin-like arrangement of white breast and black back and wings. Very few Anconas are still showable by the time they are three years old, although some that were almost completely black in their first year, might come into their prime. The black pigment should extend down to the skin, some faulty specimens having a light undercolour. Excessive white in plumage is most likely to be seen in main wing and tail feathers. A new Blue-Mottled variety has, so far (2008) only been seen in Germany and the Netherlands.

Ancona, bantam female. Note rather small tail, a legacy from the Spangled OEG Bantams used to make Ancona bantam strains circa 1920. Photo: John Tarren

CHAPTER 2

Araucana, British, Rumpless and Ameraucana

As far as the scientific community was concerned, South American blue-egg laying chickens were first discovered by Prof. Salvadore Castello in 1914, which he made known to the general public in 1921 at the first World Poultry Congress at Den Haag (The Hague), the Netherlands. In fact, European explorers had recorded blue chicken eggs in South America as early as 1520.

Araucanas. Artist: Cornelis S. Th. van Gink

Rumpless Araucanas. Artist: R. Hoffmann

Despite being four centuries behind their real initial European discovery, Prof. Castello’s rediscovery is a significant part of the history of Araucana chickens, so is as good a start to this chapter as any.

Prof. Castello was Director of the Royal Spanish Poultry School, Arenys De Mar, Barcelona. His duties included advising and lecturing on poultry farming in several Spanishspeaking South American countries. On one such trip, on 6 August 1914, he noticed a lot of blue eggs for sale in the market of Punta Arenas, a city at the southern end of Chile. He also saw the chickens who laid them, which were rumpless, had small single combs, many of them being white or pile in plumage colour. He was told they were called ‘Colloncas’, and that local people had a vocabulary of poultry-keeping words, completely different from equivalent Spanish terms. Thus there were three unusual features: blue eggs, rumplessness and local linguistics, all suggesting they might have existed in South America for a very long time.

Although nominally a Chilean breed, Araucanas were found in many parts of South America. Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition across the Pacific from the Philippines recorded them on the west coast (now Chile) in 1520, but so did Sebastian Cabot, who found blue-egg laying chickens on the east coast (now Brazil), on his expedition which had started from Bristol.

Moving on a few centuries, one wonders why British poultry experts in the nineteenth century had not investigated the matter, as they are clearly described in Bonington Moubray’s book A Practical Treatise on Breeding, Rearing and Fattening all kinds of Domestic Poultry (various editions, 1815–1842). ‘In addition, there is a South American variety, either from Brazil or Buenos Aires, which will roost in trees. They are very beautiful, partridge-spotted and streaked; the eggs small and coloured like those of the pheasant; both the flesh and eggs are fine flavoured and delicate.’ (‘Buenos Aires’ because the state of Argentina did not exist then.)

The chickens were named after the Araucano tribe of Native South Americans, one of the few on the continent who were warlike enough to survive in large numbers as Spanish immigration increased over the centuries.

When the scientific community was made aware of the sixteenth-century references to them being bred in large numbers in many parts of South America, clearly having been there long before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, they were faced with a mystery. Domestic chickens were known to be mainly descended...