2 Canadian Heritage Breeds Summer ~ 2015 2015 Board of Directors President Daniel Chappell d.k.chappell@gmail.com (403) 559-4686 Vice President Kyle Lawrence kyle_richard_lawrence@hotmail.com (403) 347-0633 Secretary Robyn Andersen robynaht@gmail.com Treasurer Davina Daly Director Kathy Stevenson hawthorn@xplornet.com Director Michelle Sulz michellesulz@gmail.com Director Crystal McKinnon lallama@telusplanet.net Director Callum McLeod mcbudner@hotmail.com It s hard to believe the year is already half over, seeds have been planted (and finally germinated now that some of the province finally has rain!), chicks have already grown into young pullets and cockerels and calves, lambs and all our other little mammals are quickly growing. CHB had quite a busy spring, planning for our many heritage livestock events. We had our first Livestock 101 seminar just two months ago, which had a great turnout and lots of positive energy. There were plenty of helpful seminars at the event, I know for me it was the first time I d actually seen an animal being milked! Now that the farming season is underway and we have a bit of time ahead of us until harvest, it is a good time to take in one of the many shows put on by many great groups in the country. Here in Alberta we have the CHB Westerner Days Open Show, Westerner Days Junior Show and the Vermillion fair poultry show in July, the Millarville fair poultry show in August and the CGS Dairy Goat show in mid July. We re also in the middle of planning a special Heritage meat dinner for this fall. We will tentatively be hosting this dinner on September 19. For this dinner we will be having a local chef preparing meat from a couple of different heritage breeds to showcase the diverse flavours our heritage animals have to offer. Keep an ear out for more details from us soon! Hope all of you have an abundant season ahead, and I hope to see many of you at one of our events over the next couple of months. Daniel Chappell President, Canadian Heritage Breeds CanadianHeritageBreeds.com Info@CanadianHeritageBreeds.com
So just what is CHB all about? We are all about the preservation of genetic diversity, heritage breeds, networking, social gathering, education, breed conservation and fun. CHB offers a number of events and resources, including a spring sale, a fall show and seminars, breed displays, social gatherings & smaller events throughout the year. Our membership includes every level of enthusiast from the Master breeder to first time urban coop owner. CHB also encourages youth involvement with a developing Jr s program. Although CHB is based in Central Alberta we aim to create a resource for not just Alberta, but for all of Western Canada and beyond! CHB publishes an online quarterly newsletter announcing upcoming events, articles by and about our members, breed introductions, health/genetics/husbandry/nutrition information and more. Don t forget to LIKE us on our page! Developing your own Heritage Flock By Kathy Stevenson, Hawthorn Hill Poultry With the growing interest in food independence, heritage chickens are being rediscovered as an effective way to take personal control over our supply of eggs, chicken meat and replacement chicks. For those thinking of getting started with heritage chickens, the first thing to do is decide on a breed. There are dozens of possibilities and it is important to choose one that will best meet your needs. The Livestock Conservancy outlines a number of points to consider when choosing a breed. Some of these include:
Geography - pick a breed that is adapted for your climate. Purpose if both meat and eggs are the goal, choose a breed that was developed to be truly dualpurpose. Personal preference, including temperament and appearance. Pick chickens you like to look at and that you will enjoy working with for years to come. By staying committed and focussed, your efforts will be rewarded as you create a high performance flock that is as useful as it is beautiful and enjoyable. Once you have determined which breed most interests you and is likely to meet your expectations, it s time to go to work to find a reliable source for breeding stock. Breeder listings, such as the one on the CHB website, can be a good place to start. Breed clubs, online directories and multi-species bird clubs can be helpful as well. Other preliminary planning should include purchasing a reliable incubator. This is the best means of increasing your flock, so it is worth spending more initially to increase your chances of success year after year. One that sets 20 40 eggs should be adequate, but be sure to research first and buy from a reputable company. Your foundation breeding stock will form the basis of your entire flock going forward. As with any livestock, this initial expense should be viewed as a key investment, but unlike many other farm animals, heritage fowl will provide a quick return on an initial cash outlay. Here is an example. Consider the expense of purchasing one sexually mature trio (1 rooster with 2 hens) in the fall. The cost for three, high quality young adults may run in the $120 - $250 range. And that original trio has the potential to expand to an entire flock that will serve the needs of your family by the following fall! A reasonable expectation for a young heritage hen is to produce 4-5 eggs per week (this rate will depend largely on the breed/strain). However, assuming the hens are reliable layers and the rooster is fertile, in the spring the trio should produce a setting of at least 16 eggs in 2 weeks to put in the incubator. From those eggs, we would expect an end result of at least 12 healthy, viable chicks to become future laying hens or meaty birds to enjoy at the table. This is a completely achievable return on a relatively small investment, and these results would be doubled with a second setting of eggs, or by starting out with an original purchase of 2 trios. As mentioned, not all strains within a breed are created equal, so ask the breeder about the traits inherent in his or her specific bloodline before buying. You will want to find a conscientious breeder who is working to preserve the same qualities that are important to you. Assess your potential purchase with care, paying special attention to signs of good health such as clear bright eyes, dry nostrils, smooth legs and a good covering of broad feathers. Look for birds that display vigour by being active and showing interest in foraging and reproductive behaviours. The breeder should be able to start you off with hens that are not too closely related to the rooster (not siblings) in order to avoid close inbreeding which leads to genetic degradation and loss of productivity.
An important step to developing a superior flock is to become as familiar as possible with the characteristics of your chosen breed. General definition of breed: Animals that, through selection and breeding, have come to resemble one another and pass those traits uniformly to their offspring. The way for us to consistently produce a set of desirable traits in a domestic poultry population is to breed to a pre-defined set of standards. For us in North America, the breed types and their physical traits are described in a reference book called the Standard of Perfection (available through the American Poultry Association). As diligent breeders, this is our guide when selecting for phenotype (the observable characteristics.) This includes everything that defines the look of the breed such as the body weight and shape, skin and leg colour, comb type, number of toes, and the colour and type of plumage among other things. Along with the correct breed standards, a well-bred heritage flock will retain essential traits such as growth rate, egg production, disease resistance, fertility, temperament and overall vitality. Continuous assessment and culling is a vital part of good flock management. Often the hens that don t make the cut for future breeding will be prized for the eggs they produce and extra cockerels will prove their value when they are packaged up to fill the freezer. Achieving and maintaining an economically sustainable flock for farming purposes while upholding breed standards is a delicate balance. Breeding always involves some degree of compromise, but the two objectives are compatible. A bird with a broad, long and deep body will have good capacity for feed utilization and egg manufacturing. This muscular, productive body type will also have a superior build for exhibition purposes. The original standards for our dual-purpose breeds were developed with an emphasis on these fundamentals. Purposeful matings produce more offspring that inherit and display desirable traits. With continuous selection, essential qualities will be concentrated and will become consistent within the flock. In other words, after an initial purchase of well-bred parent stock, the end user has the freedom and ability to select the top performers each year to further refine the strain and help it reach its full potential. By keeping at least two separate family groups within our strain we can help guard against the deleterious effects of close inbreeding. As breeders of heritage poultry, we become stewards of precious, irreplaceable genetic resources. When we make a long-term commitment to develop and maintain a highly productive and consistent strain of standardbred poultry, we are conserving all aspects of the breed as they were originally intended to perform. Building a standard-bred flock that is hardy, genetically healthy and truly dual purpose means we are not only serving our own needs for productive farm fowl, we are also making an important contribution to the long term continuation of the breed as a whole. CHB Duck Trivia Questions: 1. All domesticated breeds of ducks are believed to have descended from the mallard with the exception of which breed of duck native to Mexico, Central and South America? 2. What are the three main commercial products produced from ducks? 3. True or False; depending on the breed a duck can live up to 20 years. 4. What product naturally produced by ducks maintains the flexibility of feathers and keeps feather barbules from breaking and, through the mechanical action of preening, has a waterproofing effect? 5. True of False, both male and female ducks quack. 6. What breed of duck is most commonly raised for commercial meat production in North America? Answers are included at the end (second last page) of the newsletter.
Buckeye - Threatened Status The Buckeye is a dual-purpose breed of chicken with a deep, lustrous red color of plumage. They have yellow legs and skin, and, thanks to their pea comb, are very cold-weather hardy. While Buckeyes adapt readily to a variety of living conditions, they do best under free-range conditions or conditions where they have room to move around. Because of their active nature they do not do especially well in small confined spaces. Roosters weigh approximately nine pounds; hens weigh approximately six and a half pounds and lay medium-sized, brown eggs. Buckeyes were developed by Mrs. Nettie Metcalf of Warren, Ohio, and appropriately named after the Buckeye State. Buckeyes are unique in the American Class of chickens in that it is the only breed created entirely by a woman. Mrs. Metcalf started by breeding a Buff Cochin male to Barred Plymouth Rock females. This produced what she considered a large, lazy fowl. The next year she purchased a Black-Breasted Red Game male and crossed this male over the half cochin pullets. This cross produced several red offspring and from there she developed the breed. It is interesting to note that her creation predated the introduction of Rhode Island Reds into the mid-west. In 1896 she learned that her idea of red fowls was not new and that a very popular eastern breed had been developed, the Rhode Island Red. After corresponding with several Rhode Island Red breeders, she decided to call her breed Pea Combed Rhode Island Reds (she even traded stock with several of these breeders). Rather than helping to promote her new breed, she found that calling them Pea Combed Rhode Island Reds was in fact limiting its popularity. So in 1902 she exhibited a pair in the Cleveland, Ohio poultry show as Buckeyes. Within a few years Pea Combed Rhode Island Reds began to disappear. The Buckeye should not be confused with the Rhode Island Red, even though they share some history. Buckeyes are unique in their body shape: slanted, short but broad back, very meaty thighs, powerful wings and breast. They appear very close to the Cornish, as bred in 1905, in body shape. (It should be noted that the originator indicated that she did not use Cornish in their breeding; the Cornish body shape was simply her goal.) In colour the Buckeye is also unique. The colour of the Buckeye is darker than that of the original Rhode Island Red (later, the Rhode Island Red was bred for a shade of colour even darker than the Buckeye). The Buckeye also has a slate coloured bar in the undercolour (fluff) of its back; the Rhode Island Red s feathers should be red to the skin. Both breeds share the trait of tight feathering unique in the American Class of poultry. Source: The Livestock Conservancy By Crystal McKinnon; Pictures of Buckeyes by Crystal - 2015 young birds.
Heritage Livestock 101 By Callum McLeod On May 2 nd, Heritage Livestock 101 was hosted for the first time in Lacombe, AB. The event took place in a beautiful venue at the Lacombe Ag Grounds and created a great atmosphere for the day s proceedings. The event was well attended by around 25 people, both current and new members, with interest and experience in a range of different kinds of heritage livestock. Individual breeders brought some good quality animals for the attendants to view, including Toggenburg goats, Shropshire sheep, Rhode Island Red chickens, Standard Bronze turkeys, Silver Appleyard ducks and Fawn Flemish Giant rabbits among others. Throughout the day we had some great presentations including goat milking, raising rabbits for meat, introduction to sheep selection, poultry housing and selecting chicken breeding stock. After each presentation there was great discussion and many great questions were asked before the attendants had a chance to talk one on one with the individual breeders in the breeder breakout sessions. All in all the day was a great success with many new faces and lots of new information. Let us hope that this event becomes an annual event and continues to evolve into a great platform for jumping into the world of heritage livestock! Thank you to all the breeders and attendants for making this event such a success. Heritage Dinner 2015 CHB is very excited to be hosting a brand new event this September. In conjunction with Terre It Up Catering and Chef Blake Andersen, CHB will be hosting an evening of great food in the idyllic setting of Ellis Bird Farm. The dinner will be focused on the meat of a few breeds of heritage livestock and will be complimented by other local Alberta products, artfully prepared by Blake and his team. A tentative date of September 19 th has been set and pricing and numbers are in the works. More information will be available soon so keep your eyes out if you are interested as we expect this event to sell out quickly! We hope that many of you will be able to join us at Ellis for a wonderful evening of fun and food later this summer!
CGS West National Dairy Goat Show This year Westerner Park will host the Canadian Goat Society s West National Dairy Goat Show on July 15 th in Red Deer. This is incredibly exciting for the Red Deer area as well as our local breeders as it provides a chance to show against goats from all over western Canada. Every year on the first day of Westerner Days there is a dairy goat show and its popularity grows with each annual event. We are hoping that this will be our biggest show yet. On show day you can expect to see Toggenburg, Saanen, Nubian, Nigerian Dwarf, La Mancha, Oberhasli and Alpine goats displaying their best conformation and udder qualities! There will also be chances to interact and discuss the goats with their owners, as well as a silent auction running all day. The show will start at 8.30am and run all day in the Stockman s Pavillion. The CHB booth will be there with a fun game for the kids! Come by and say hi! Visit www.westernerdays.ca for more information. Here is the current schedule of events; Tuesday, July 14 12:00 Noon - 6:00 pm Arrival of Dairy Goats 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm Dairy Goat Wine and Cheese Reception Wednesday, July 15 8:30 am National Dairy Goat Show - Stockmens Pavilion 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm Dairy Goats Move Out 7:30 pm - 10:00 pm Arrival of Boer Goats Thursday, July 16 8:00 am Arrival of Boer Goats 12:00 Noon The Alberta Goat Classic Show - Stockmens Pavilion 10:00 am - 10:00 pm Arrival of Beef Cattle 6:00 pm Goats Move Out 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm Arrival of Miniature Donkey Friday, July 17 7:00 am Arrival of Beef Cattle, Beef Cattle Weigh In (Optional) - UFA Agricentre 7:00 am Miniature Donkeys Move In 9:00 am Maine Anjou Junior Beef Skills Competition 10:00 am Miniature Donkey Show - Stockmens Pavilion 12:00 Noon Maine Anjou Junior Show - UFA Agricentre 12:00 Noon Shorthorn Junior Show - UFA Agricentre 12:00 Noon Canadian Heritage Breed Junior Show - Stockmens Pavilion 3:00 pm Mixed Breed Beef Show - UFA Agricentre 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm Arrival of Miniature Horses 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm Arrival of Rabbits Saturday, July 18 7:00 am Arrival of Miniature Horses 8:00 am Livestock Exhibitor Pancake Breakfast - UFA Agricentre 9.30 am Miniature Donkey Show - Sand Ring 9:30 am Miniature Horse Show - Stockmens Pavilion 12:00 Noon Shorthorn Show - UFA Agricentre 12:00 Noon Canadian Heritage Breed Open Show - Stockmens Pavilion 1:00 pm Canadian Rabbit Hopping Show - Stockmens Pavilion 2:00 pm Maine Anjou Show - UFA Agricentre 4:00 pm Canadian National Texas Longhorn Show - UFA Agricentre 7:30 pm Mini Horse Social Sunday, July 19 9:30 am Miniature Horse Show - Sand Ring 11:00 am Beef Supreme Show - UFA Agricentre 12:00 Noon Miniature Donkey Junior Show - Stockmens Pavilion 12:00 Noon All Breeds Junior Beef Show - UFA Agricentre 1:00 pm Canadian Rabbit Hopping Show - Stockmens Pavilion 2:00 pm Jackpot - Yearling Heifer & Jackpot - Yearling Bull Show - UFA Agricentre 3:00 pm Jackpot - Heifer Calf & Jackpot - Bull Calf Show - UFA Agricentre
Muscovy Duck The Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata) is a large duck native to Mexico, Central, and South America. Small wild and feral breeding populations have established themselves in the United States, particularly in the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas and Florida as well as in many other parts of North America, including southern Canada. Feral Muscovy ducks are found in New Zealand, Australia, and in parts of Europe. They are a large duck, with the males about 76 cm (30 in) long, and weighing up to 7 kg (15 lb). Females are considerably smaller, and only grow to 3 kg (6.6 lb), roughly half the males' size. The bird is predominantly black and white, with the back feathers being iridescent and glossy in males, while the females are more drab. The amount of white on the neck and head is variable, as well as the bill, which can be yellow, pink, black, or any mixture of these. They may have white patches or bars on the wings, which become more noticeable during flight. Both sexes have pink or red wattles around the bill, those of the male being larger and more brightly colored. Although the Muscovy duck is a tropical bird, it adapts well to cooler climates, thriving in weather as cold as 12 C (10 F) and able to survive even colder conditions. Note to CHB Members Breeder Listing To ensure the Breeder Listing information posted on the Canadian Heritage Breeds website remains updated and accurate CHB will be changing how the list is managed. There will be a $10 per year fee for members who wish to be included on the Breeder Listing that will replace the one-time $10 fee and help ensure the information on the Breeder Listing is kept current. CHB members who submitted their Breeder Listing information prior to 2015, or those who wish to be added to the list, are asked to complete the Breeder Listing form on the website: http://www.canadianheritagebreeds.com/breeder-listing.html. Payment of the annual $10 fee can also be completed online. Each breeder is invited to list as many species and breeds of heritage livestock as they wish each year. As of April 30, 2015 all old information on the Breeder Listing will be removed and only information received and paid in 2015 will continue be posted on the website. Should you have any questions or concerns please contact Daniel Chappell (d.k.chappell@gmail.com). Answers to CHB Duck Trivia: 1. Muscovy Duck 2. Meat, Eggs, Down 3. True 4. Preen oil 5. False, in general the quack associated with ducks is only made by female ducks. Male ducks usually make a quieter raspier sound 6. Pekin Duck
Upcoming Events July 17-18, 2015: Red Deer Westerner Days Junior & Open APA Show - July 18th, 2015. This Westerner Days Open Show will be an APA Sanctioned Show! Judged by APA Judge, Ramona Trombley of Duncan B.C. This is a fun exhibitor s show. Let s see some great birds, have an expert eye look at your stock, and have a good time with other exhibitors! Contact Kyle Lawrence at 403-391-7854 for more information July 23-25, 2015: Vermilion Fair APA Poultry Show (CHB is partnering with Fair Board to host an APA show) For poultry show information, call Jennifer Jacula at (780) 741-2179 or email jjacula@mcsnet.ca Become Involved CHB is a new club growing in leaps and bounds. Who ever thought that from parking lot sales just a couple of years ago, we would be filling the Westerner! As we grow more opportunities open for YOU to become more involved with seminars, breed displays, sales, shows, get-togethers, newsletters etc. We will definitely be needing volunteers to help run the November show. If you are interested in a specific part of the event, are available for general assistance, have ideas for advertising or interesting things we should have at the show, we would love to hear from you! Help with set up and tear down are the two biggest areas where we could use even just a couple of hours of help. It is your club, let s do it right! Become a Member! For Only $10.00 per year In-club Awards Discounts of Club Events Free Seminars (up to 6 ) Hotel Discounts Advertising Opportunities Quarterly Newsletter (distributed via email, unless otherwise requested) On-Line Application (See Below) Canadian Heritage Breeds is a Registered Non-Profit Society. If you have moved or changed your contact information let us know! Canadian Heritage Breeds Association "To Encourage the preservation, growth and overall welfare of heritage breeds. CHB is the vehicle that allows the public, both rural and urban, to recognize the strengths, values and relevance that heritage breeds possess in today's marketplace. CHB will demonstrate the benefits of heritage breeds through public awareness campaigns, which are designed to educate as well as offer the opportunity to become proactive in the conservation of heritage breeds."