chickens. It's an unfair characterization that was
asserted by self-styled experts, often academics and
government officials, in the latter 19th century. Their
contention that most early chickens were simply dung hill
mongrels was considered laughable by the Old Timers.
Games were very common as utility fowl in the early days. Dung Hill was a term that Cockers, cock fighters, used to describe chickens that were not Games. It did not necessarily imply a mixed origin.
Promotion of recently created breeds in which the writers had an economic interest played a role in the way breeds were portrayed after the 1870s. According to the old time poultrymen, the literary changes preceded any actual changes in the habits of typical poultry keepers.
Post Civil War Poultry
Prior to the Civil War and in the years directly following it, poultry books proclaimed Dominiques, Dorkings and Games as popular breeds. Dorkings and Games were generally considered the best table fowl and were used to produce an early market cross. Dorkings were crossed with Brahmas to produce another popular market hybrid. But by the late 1800s, writers were claiming Dominiques were too small, Dorkings were not popular, Games were tough, and that Americans preferred chickens with yellow skin.
Nevertheless, Games, Dominiques and Dorkings, in that order, remained the most common chickens on diversified farms and with small flock owners in many rural areas. In and around towns, folks who wanted to have something different from their neighbors had a little bit of everything.
Rocks and Leghorns were the dominant commercial breeds by the late 1800s. Hamburgs, Polish and Spanish had dominated egg production from the 18th century until the late 19th century, when Leghorns became the dominant commercial egg breed. On the meat side, commercial poultry operations had gone to Rocks, with Wyandottes playing an important secondary role. Around major Eastern cities some large operations retained Black chickens, the Javas and their descendants, the Giants. Others raised Dorkings for British and French immigrants who wanted a five-toed, white-skinned fowl.
Folks like Bruce Lentz, one of the old time string men, and poultry master Young John Criner liked the modern composite breeds and the egg breeds well enough. They agreed with the experts that for large commercial operations, modern composites were hard to beat. For small scale and home production, however, they gave the edge to history's chickens, which had been selected for countless generations. In the case of Dorkings and Games, they had occupied that niche for centuries.
They found particular humor in the experts' suggestion that home production should be avoided, or, if attempted, only with an incubator because hens were not dependable. Hens who raise their own broods keep a small flock going. The Old Timers knew that dependability depended on the hen and that undependable hens were more common in the "improved" modern breeds selected for low levels of broodiness.
The old breeds with natural levels of broodiness not only went 100 percent broody but had been selected for dependability, manageability and at least three cycles in a season. This was true of all the old standbys.
Today's Dominique's do not have the same level of broodiness as their forebears because they are largely descended from a 1920s' attempt to turn them into a thoroughly modern breed.
The traditional breeds not only reproduced their own kind naturally but they were normally pressed into service to produce the next generation of the egg breeds and increase the production of other poultry such as ducks, geese, guineas and turkeys. Continue Reading
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