University of Alberta heritage breeds

Preserving heritage chickens aim of U of A program
People can 'adopt a hen' and get eggs

CBC News

Last Updated: Mar 28, 2013 10:23 AM MT


The Poultry Research Centre at the University of Alberta aims to preserve heritage breeds. CBC

The Poultry Resource Centre at the University of Alberta is launching a unique program on Thursday in hopes of deferring the costs of preserving heritage chicken breeds.

"You can adopt a hen for $75 and you’ll get a dozen eggs every 14 days,” said Martin Zuidhof, associate professor of poultry systems and academic leader at the Poultry Research Centre.

“What you’re doing is just helping us preserve these lines."

Zuidhof says the breeds — Barred Plymouth Rock, Brown Leghorn, New Hampshire, White Leghorn and Light Sussex — were commonly seen on farms 50 to 100 years ago.

He says it’s important to preserve the genetic traits that have been lost through commercial production, which breeds birds that need a lot less feed to grow.

"[The heritage breeds] are more likely to have genes for a stronger innate immune response,” he said.

“So if an emerging disease came along that wiped out a commercial line, we would have the genes conserved here that could be used to re-generate new commercial lines."

It costs the centre $75,000 each year to care for the 1,500 birds. Zuidoff says university cutbacks may put the program in jeopardy.

“To help us continue our program we need public support because we’re in danger of having to get rid of the program for economics, which would be a tragedy.”

Two hundred people have already signed up to adopt chickens. An expanded program will be launched in the fall.

Zuidof says that people who adopt a hen get to select a name.

Ok, very interesting.
I would love to see what the birds look like
and $75 I would guess would cover a year. for 25 dozen eggs, so $3 a dozen.
I wonder if they cannot sell the eggs, that they have to "sdopt them out" in order to not get in trouble with the egg board or something!

Hen sharing!

I wonder if they will do the same with heritage dairy cows?

I think this gives us an idea how much our birds are worth.

barryk wrote:I think this gives us an idea how much our birds are worth.

Yes, according to their figures it costs $50.00 per year per bird to raise chickens. and remember that is operating on a large scale of 1500 chickens, so they are buying feed, bedding etc in bulk.

maybe we need to start hen sharing...hummm...LOL

Our farm does hen sharing, and our price is identical, but we just require our shareholders to have two hens, so $75 every six months for two Chanteclers hens with biweekly deliveries...but we give our shareholders literally whatever eggs we're averaging per hen which is certainly sometimes a dozen eggs in two weeks, but not always. That's what I'm having trouble understanding in this article, how they're promising 300 eggs per year out of 200-240 egg per year breeds. Maybe they figure its a balance between lay rate of leghorns and the others?

Here is a link to CBC's article on this

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As for what the birds look like.. here is a photo that CBC posted of the UofA Light Sussex. this is a current photo of their flock as well.
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Here is a pic of a few hens that I had hatched from eggs that were from the UofA Light Sussex flock. Taken in April 2010, in three years I see a bigger decline in the quality.
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I personally was not over all impressed with the quality of their lines.....they laid decent eggs but they were tiny birds. Nothing light what they should be. Type, shape, egg colour both eggs and bird weight, everything was off. I think their is a large influence of Leghorn in their lines, but that's just my opinion.

Compare the lines the UofA are breeding and what I have been working on for the past few years, check out my thread on Light Sussex


This is just one man's opinion however.
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Isn't that where true norths lines are from?

Jonny, I think they need to hire you to run their poultry program!

Yikes! They look like cartoon chickens! Are they breeding to a standard or just winging it? Yuk, yuk!

Jonny, that is sure some amazing difference.
Your birds are a good example of why small flock owners are so important to preserving heritage breeds. You are breeding quality which in my opinion is better than breeding for quantity.

I believe that you only get eggs for 5 months....so that works out to $7.50/dozen. People seem to be going crazy for it and they are close to being sold out on adoptions.

So how do you know the eggs come from your adopted chicken?

Schipperkesue wrote:Yikes! They look like cartoon chickens! Are they breeding to a standard or just winging it? Yuk, yuk!

I believe their philosophy is more about preserving genes and they do random breedings in large groups. Something about the best way to preserve genes is to not control the breedings but to have large groups of hens in with multiple males.
This may give you the most genes still available, but in my mind there is no quality control. You are not preserving the breed because you are making no choices about what genes you save and therefore there is not choice about vitality, production, or physical appearance. Even if you didn't really care about the physical appearance of a bird (what some people argue is only important to 'show' people) wouldn't you want to choose your breeders from vigorous, healthy, highly fertile birds? This method seems to put them all together and let luck be your leader.
If they are choosing mainly for laying ability, that could be why the birds are taking on a more 'leghorn' type appearance. That is a layer type body for sure.
I remember having discussions about it when I first came back to Canada. I am not totally familiar to it, but it didn't seem a method I thought was greatly effective and I think the photos of the birds proves that.

coopslave wrote:

Schipperkesue wrote:Yikes! They look like cartoon chickens! Are they breeding to a standard or just winging it? Yuk, yuk!

I believe their philosophy is more about preserving genes and they do random breedings in large groups. Something about the best way to preserve genes is to not control the breedings but to have large groups of hens in with multiple males.
This may give you the most genes still available, but in my mind there is no quality control. You are not preserving the breed because you are making no choices about what genes you save and therefore there is not choice about vitality, production, or physical appearance. Even if you didn't really care about the physical appearance of a bird (what some people argue is only important to 'show' people) wouldn't you want to choose your breeders from vigorous, healthy, highly fertile birds? This method seems to put them all together and let luck be your leader.
If they are choosing mainly for laying ability, that could be why the birds are taking on a more 'leghorn' type appearance. That is a layer type body for sure.
I remember having discussions about it when I first came back to Canada. I am not totally familiar to it, but it didn't seem a method I thought was greatly effective and I think the photos of the birds proves that.

Then they are defeating their purpose if they are keeping just any genes and not specifically selecting for genotype and phenotype that makes a Sussex, a Sussex.

Does anyone have any old pictures or drawings of the breed illustrating what the originators wanted?

They had done random breedings in the past. Dr.R.Crawford started doing that many years ago. And it's done what is intended to do. They are more or less interested with preserving genetics not breeds. So it works really will. It also gives you a nice base to start a half decent breeding program off of. Because most of what you need is there you just have to hatch a lot and cull.

So what is the difference between preserving genetics and preserving breeds?

call ducks wrote:They had done random breedings in the past. Dr.R.Crawford started doing that many years ago. And it's done what is intended to do. They are more or less interested with preserving genetics not breeds. So it works really will. It also gives you a nice base to start a half decent breeding program off of. Because most of what you need is there you just have to hatch a lot and cull.

And that is what I have done partially with the Lines we originally acquired from the UofA.

We bred out that line, and selected what we wanted and mixed in new blood, and hatched and culled, and sold off a few quality.
It took us three years and a many breedings, hatches to get them to where they are.

I wish I had documented more of my Sussex breedings since 2010, then putting such a high emphasis on my Orpingtons. I have so many pics, notes, finding on my Orps, and very little on our Sussex.


The lines I have now, are infact partially due to UofA's

Jonny Anvil wrote:

call ducks wrote:They had done random breedings in the past. Dr.R.Crawford started doing that many years ago. And it's done what is intended to do. They are more or less interested with preserving genetics not breeds. So it works really will. It also gives you a nice base to start a half decent breeding program off of. Because most of what you need is there you just have to hatch a lot and cull.

And that is what I have done partially with the Lines we originally acquired from the UofA.

We bred out that line, and selected what we wanted and mixed in new blood, and hatched and culled, and sold off a few quality.
It took us three years and a many breedings, hatches to get them to where they are.

I wish I had documented more of my Sussex breedings since 2010, then putting such a high emphasis on my Orpingtons. I have so many pics, notes, finding on my Orps, and very little on our Sussex.


The lines I have now, are infact partially due to UofA's

There is a lot of things one can do with the UofA lines. And Jonny you have done a very good job!

Sue i am working on a reply! I just have to think this reply out more than usual!

call ducks wrote:


There is a lot of things one can do with the UofA lines. And Jonny you have done a very good job!

Sue i am working on a reply! I just have to think this reply out more than usual!

Thank you, it's been a great deal of fun and learning. I am very pleased with how things have turned out. The key now and the 5 year battle ahead is to maintain this flock to the best of my abilities.

Jonny Anvil wrote:

call ducks wrote:


There is a lot of things one can do with the UofA lines. And Jonny you have done a very good job!

Sue i am working on a reply! I just have to think this reply out more than usual!

Thank you, it's been a great deal of fun and learning. I am very pleased with how things have turned out. The key now and the 5 year battle ahead is to maintain this flock to the best of my abilities.

I have to read some old lit on Sussex. I plan to breed my line 'farmer style' for production ability's. But i was out look at some of my breeders more closely this morning and they are looking awesome

To make progress in selection and breeding, you need genetic diversity. No genetic diversity, no progress. It really is that simple.

UA is trying to maintain genetic diversity, especially for those (as yet unidentified) traits that may be useful in the future. Lots of traits aren't about appearance; diversity in disease resistance mechanisms is a particularly worthwhile thing to try to preserve, IMO.

Well, I am super enjoying this thread! So riddle me this... Should we be keeping diversity for diversity's sake? Kind of a 'keep them all and let breeders of the future sort them out' point of view. I realize that when selecting for one trait you may also be losing others. However, when keeping it all, you are keeping the bad with the good.

Now, in the case of Jonny, and others who are working on a breed that a university is supporting, he has a great variety of genetics to begin with but has to work like a a dog for years to regain breed type. We know he is working also on the non-conformation traits like longevity and health, but wouldn't he be better off if the university had tried to eliminate some of the undesirable traits along the way?

Another UofA, the university of Arkanas has a breeding group do Houdans. I am delighted they are there because the ensure the continuation and genetic diversity of this breed in the US. One day I hope to get some because yes, I am hoping their diversity will help me improve the poor health and resistance of these birds. I also know that the breeding group in Arkansas is lead by a guy who does try to select for correct breed type while maintaining health and other invisible traits. I believe he is able to do this because he has a very large number of breeding birds.

Well, yes; we SHOULD be keeping diversity (genetic diversity, that is) for diversity's sake.

With no genetic diversity there is no possibility for genetic adaptation to changing environments, and a new disease, or different environmental conditions, could wipe out everything.

There are two different (well, many different, I suppose) kinds of traits: those that we focus on because we've decided they are important defining characteristics for breed x, and those that are so called "fitness" traits - those that influence survival and reproduction. By selecting and breeding strongly for the first set, one can't help but diminish variation (to a greater or lesser degree) in the second.