APA Reviewing Recognition process for New Breeds or Varieties...

Galep wrote:

call ducks wrote:I don't think they should have to be a member, though the idea of showing poultry was started by gentlemen that had a lot of time and money across the pond.

I agree just a game or sport Take any of the American breed APA birds and leave them free ranging for maybe 5 years (If they survive outside there cages) and nobody will probably be able to call them by there breed names  reverting to ?
But probably a nice game for the one that go that way...

Someone has missed the point.  Many of the American breeds that are raised in larger numbers do free range and are the healthiest birds.  The modified meat birds, Broilers, Cornish Crosses, Cornish Giants and others are the ones that can't live outside in the free range and require special feed to keep them alive. As for the egg layers, again the modified ones, Gray-lines, commercial leghorns, Isa-browns are the ones that are in cages.  

The APA sets the standard and maintains it for purebred exhibition type poultry.  The APA is the governing body for sanctioned shows and is authority on what is accepted or not accepted as purebred exhibition type poultry breeds.

The APA will always like comments and feedback but please understand the organization and what it stands for and what it does before you start to run it down.

The APA sets the standard and maintains it for purebred exhibition type poultry.  The APA is the governing body for sanctioned shows and is authority on what is accepted or not accepted as purebred exhibition type poultry breeds. ''sebas49)

Purebred ?? Phenotype as nothing to do with purebred...

The APA will always like comments and feedback but please understand the organization and what it stands for and what it does before you start to run it down.[/quote]''sebas49''

APA is just a game I have nothing against it except when the knowledgeable  judges gives first place to birds than can not reproduce by themselves like Cornish but this is just one example.

Or when those knowledgeable's write on ''ShowBird'' that my birds look like Leghorn...?

I have been there, done this they say's  breeding for more than 40years with subjects all over the world.

Like 150 years ago APA is just a game for the one that like to play it.

Very interesting comments, but again some don't understand why organizations are required. If you think organizations are formed for a game you have missed the whole concept of keeping animals pure.

I always find it odd that those who profess to have no interest in showing and/or say they don't follow the APA SOP for their breeding program seem to have the most to say about it.

As firstly a breeder of dogs, then rabbits, then poultry, I recognize the importance of written standards as well as an official group that is dedicated to maintain those standards.

Unless you keep everyone on the right track with their breeding program a breed that took hundreds of years to develop could be gone in a flash due to poor choices in breeding practices.

Schipperkesue wrote:As firstly a breeder of dogs, then rabbits, then poultry, I recognize the importance of written standards as well as an official group that is dedicated to maintain those standards.  

Unless you keep everyone on the right track with their breeding program a breed that took hundreds of years to develop could be gone in a flash due to poor choices in breeding practices.

Well said Sue. Thanks.

Tank you all for  the nice comments, they are a precious thing without them nothing move.

First Standard breed are not pure breed they are a reproduction of a picture or a written phenotype standard.

Would you call a mongrel a bird with a 100 years of records that would not get  best of something in a show?

Breeding +300 birds a year there is more to judge in my back yard than in any  shows (for my breed).

I have nothing again Show for the one that find pleasures in the hobby but do not step on other toes it is just some peoples hobby's.

Breeding to a standard and showing birds are two entirely different things, yet may also be entwined.

Many breeders breed for certain traits. Either standardized traits as put forward by an association or governing body, or behavioural traits, or health traits, or physical traits of their own choosing. All are certainly valid reasons to breed a variety of animal.

If you are breeding to a set standard as produced by the APA, you may want to enter shows so a person who is knowledgable in the SOP can give you their opinion on how your breeding program is going. This is one person's opinion which you may choose to either take or not. If you are not interested in the opinions of APA judges, then you do not enter shows. Lastly, if the traits you are breeding for are not a part of a set SOP then showing may not be a useful practice.

I am glad this post has brought up some good discussion!

Like poplargirl I understand why the APA would be looking at making the requirements harder for admitting New Breeds/Varieties. The new breeds/varieties need to have a large enough stable population to make sure they are going to be around for fanciers/breeders to works with for generations to come.

As a breeder working on trying to get a breed Admitted to the APA Standard I have had some unpleasant experiences not being taken seriously by some Judges and feeling like I am fighting a losing battle... When I exhibit my non recognized large fowl Buff Chanteclers at APA sanctioned shows, often the judges spend almost no time on my entries as they are unrecognized so they are unable to compete higher than their variety. I try to enter between 5-15 Buff Chanteclers at each show I attend. As an exhibitor I put the same work (if not more, due to lack of stock available in Alberta) in breeding my non APA recognized Buff Chanteclers as I do with my APA recognized breeds. I pay the same entry for whether the birds are recognized or not, but I often don't get the same respect given to my birds.

I recently have became an APA member as I do see the merits in all the APA does for the Hobby and I would be lost without my Standard. Making the changes to the Acceptance process may be need, but hopefully those changes do take in consideration the work some dedicated breeders are doing with their breeds. If the APA does change the requirements to require the (min) 5 breeders to be APA members for 5 years before starting the process, the Buff Chantecler project will be a ten year process. There are many breeders/backyard flocks of Buff Chanteclers and it is a variety that has been around since 1940's and earlier.

Maybe the APA might look into requiring 2-3 judges written approval of a breed/variety that have been shown before the process can be started. I do believe that all breeders working on the project should be APA members. I have been breeding and showing birds for 8 years now (still rather new), but only this year did I become a member to the APA. Having a membership to a club doesn't necessarily make you a good breeder, it takes determination, hard work, willingness to learn, culling, mentorship...etc

Also it would be nice to see the (min) 50 birds show at the qualifying meet stay the same. I do believe strong entries like the Ko Shamo's really show the strength of the breeds existence in the nation. For large fowl it does take a large amount of work to have that kind of entry at a show, especially if a long traveling distance is required.

Also for fun lets put on someone else's shoes:

Take one APA recognized breed that each of us breed... Now lets see if you would be able to get the breed re-recognzied by the APA with all the new changes.

Could you get 100 birds of the ______ breed/variety at a qualifying show with, (min) 5 breeders who now have been APA members for 10 years (5 before you are taken seriously and 5 for your work with the breed) at a single show.

Would ______ breed/variety have all 100 specimens pass the inspection of the Judge at the qualifying meet? No Disqualified entries.

Also of ________ breed/variety each of the (min) 5 breeders is required to show an even number of each sex. So each breeder needs to have minimum 5 Cocks / 5 Hens / 5 Cockerels and 5 Pullets that meet the Standard.

I know I have yet to own at one time 5 of each C/K/H/P that all meet the standard in my recognized breeds.

So did your _____ breed meet the requirements to get re-admitted to the Standard???
Some food for thought...

That is a very interesting way of looking at it k.r.l. I honestly dont think there is a single breed in Alberta at this point that would meet those requirements. There are very few breeds in Alberta that have five breeders working with them, let alone all in the same variety.

Even at very large shows I don't think that that requirement could be met. At a 7000 bird show I went to recently a very common show breed like black cochin bantams wouldn't have even met that requirement and that is with more than 15 different breeders!

While I do understand the reason for these reforms, I feel that especially here in Alberta it makes the recognition process almost prohibitive, which is no way to encourage the breeding and showing of poultry.

This is what I said on that thread, you can see some details of how they do it in Europe. The dutch have 92 large fowl recognized and in the European entente there is 165, not even counting bantams. Also breeders who want to present a new breed or variety just need to be a member and not at least for 5 years. Also 1 breeder can do it himself.

Van Genugten
Joseph Marquette good point, they actually do that in Europe. The committee decides if they can carry on and start the process. The process actually can succeed in one year, but they must have a good presence across the country and have animals in all categories (cockerel/rooster/pullet/hen) score minimum of 91 points. Also they respect the country of origins opinion when its about a new variety of an existing breed. The committee will run it past the sop committee from the country of origin first and if they do not allow it, it stops right there. When a breed has not been shown for 5 years, they will take it out of the sop book. First it will be announced to the specialty club and the membership, then 2 months later if no answer it will be taken out the book. with new breeds, they want at least 3 significant differences from any other existing breed to protect the other breeds already in the book. That is why in Holland we do not have the white New Hamps, they are too similar to the white Barnevelders.

Sebas49 wrote:

Galep wrote:

call ducks wrote:I don't think they should have to be a member, though the idea of showing poultry was started by gentlemen that had a lot of time and money across the pond.

I agree just a game or sport Take any of the American breed APA birds and leave them free ranging for maybe 5 years (If they survive outside there cages) and nobody will probably be able to call them by there breed names  reverting to ?
But probably a nice game for the one that go that way...

Someone has missed the point.  Many of the American breeds that are raised in larger numbers do free range and are the healthiest birds.  The modified meat birds, Broilers, Cornish Crosses, Cornish Giants and others are the ones that can't live outside in the free range and require special feed to keep them alive. As for the egg layers, again the modified ones, Gray-lines, commercial leghorns, Isa-browns are the ones that are in cages.  

The APA sets the standard and maintains it for purebred exhibition type poultry.  The APA is the governing body for sanctioned shows and is authority on what is accepted or not accepted as purebred exhibition type poultry breeds.

The APA will always like comments and feedback but please understand the organization and what it stands for and what it does before you start to run it down.

The commerical birds are not modified - please be more selective in your terms people get the idea that they are GM with the word modified. And why yes they can live outside. The survivability depends on the the strain though...

Schipperkesue wrote:As firstly a breeder of dogs, then rabbits, then poultry, I recognize the importance of written standards as well as an official group that is dedicated to maintain those standards.  

Unless you keep everyone on the right track with their breeding program a breed that took hundreds of years to develop could be gone in a flash due to poor choices in breeding practices.

But chickens are different. Breeds have not existed for hundreds of years. At best they have existed for 150 years maybe. The idea about poultry showing really only game around after cock fighting was shown in bad light in Europe.

Take the (original) Sussex, it came from the Sussex region was bred very differently than they were today.
Take the Plymouth Rock, Again named after a region. Has anyone ever wondered why the barred pattern was favoured by farmers? It's because the barring gene (B) can hide almost any other colour. So farmers could mix birds together and have productive flocks. While still maintaining one look.

I have an entirely different look on chickens because they are livestock, they are supposed to earn there keep on a farm. I can tell you this 200 years ago people were lucky to be able to read, and a farmer almost certainty had basic level reading most things were verbal so if we think farmers could (have the time to) read a book sort through thousands of chickens and select the perfect ones we are crazy. It was the wealthy gentle men that had the education, time and money to burn on the chickens not farmers. I don't know if I can stress this enough.

I guess it really eriks me that people seem to have this romantic idea about heritage poultry and all these separate breeds. Only recently have some small farms started to use pure bred chickens. If pure bred chickens were able to be very productive farmers would have went with them. Because trust me on this a flock of pure breds is a LOT cheaper than a strain of meat breeders... Like thousands of dollars cheaper.

Breeds of poultry did exist and are well documented prior to the 1800s. 1600 Ulisse Aldrovandi wrote one of the very first books on poultry where he recognized several breeds of poultry. In Russia there are references to breeds in the 1700s. Same with Silkies [often referred to as wool bearing poultry] and the Pekin [Cochin].

Many regional breeds also existed before poultry shows. However, as the term implies, they were regional breeds. Interest in them likely came about after cockfighting was outlawed in Great Britain in 1849. Also it is interesting to note that poultry shows did exist in Great Britain before 1849. I believe the earliest know was in 1805. Some show poultry did come about from a region specifically for show, but not all of them did.

I think it's a bit of a snub that one would say that farmers would have no time to waste on figuring out purebred poultry. Purebred anything, simple means an animal with unmixed breeding over several generations. True while most farmers 200 years ago lacked formal education, that didn't mean they didn't practice breeding purebred livestock. True that they didn't practice it for the purpose of showing birds. However, they did breed for vigor and certainly for size. Much in the same way they did for horses, cattle or swine.

When you take a moment to think about it, all livestock 200 years ago certainly were looked at way differently. The interest of exhibiting livestock not only changed poultry, it also changed cattle and swine.

toybarons wrote:Breeds of poultry did exist and are well documented prior to the 1800s. 1600 Ulisse Aldrovandi wrote one of the very first books on poultry where he recognized several breeds of poultry. In Russia there are references to breeds in the 1700s. Same with Silkies [often referred to as wool bearing poultry] and the Pekin [Cochin].

Many regional breeds also existed before poultry shows. However, as the term implies, they were regional breeds. Interest in them likely came about after cockfighting was outlawed in Great Britain in 1849. Also it is interesting to note that poultry shows did exist in Great Britain before 1849. I believe the earliest know was in 1805. Some show poultry did come about from a region specifically for show, but not all of them did.

I think it's a bit of a snub that one would say that farmers would have no time to waste on figuring out purebred poultry. Purebred anything, simple means an animal with unmixed breeding over several generations. True while most farmers 200 years ago lacked formal education, that didn't mean they didn't practice breeding purebred livestock. True that they didn't practice it for the purpose of showing birds. However, they did breed for vigor and certainly for size. Much in the same way they did for horses, cattle or swine.

When you take a moment to think about it, all livestock 200 years ago certainly were looked at way differently. The interest of exhibiting livestock not only changed poultry, it also changed cattle and swine.

The only case I can think of where farmers use purebreds for the final stock is the dairy industry, but that's another beast. Farmers really did not pratice the same idea of pure bred livestock because that idea has changed so, so much.

I would call them landfowl because they really were not a breed per say. At least in the hands of a farmer. Farmers for century's have not been using pure breds for the production animal. Farmers are not stupid and realized that by crossing birds they got something grew faster, and better, it produce more eggs and thus produce more offspring and income for the farmer. Though Chicken really was not a big part of human's diet's until the Chicken of Tomorrow contest.

Chickens were regional because of a look but not because of the genetic make up. The way they were bred is much different from today's methods. Why do you think the industry uses a 4 way cross (and it's not just poultry that utilize 4 way crosses). They are more efficient and productive. FCR of a commerical broiler is 2:1, of a Free ranger broiler 3-4:1 of a heritage chicken, 8-10:1.

Again I have a different view, I come from a farming background, I was raised by freaking old farmer. If there is one thing I have learned everything needs to be productive and if it's not it has to go.


Not say that a bit of phenotype selection is not important - but its not all that we should be breeding for. And I know people sware by that darned bible, how ever that does not mean that it is always correct...

And because I don't want to get this to much off topic I think I am done posting anything of that sorts on this topic

call ducks wrote:And because I don't want to get this to much off topic I think I am done posting anything of that sorts on this topic

Call Ducks, you are correct that this isn’t the thread for this discussion. The merits of keeping our standard breeds standard is a common theme for discussion. Maybe it deserves to be discussed again - but then another topic should be started.

Kyle that was an eye-opening illustration. If these criteria were implemented, the acceptance of new varieties would become a rare thing indeed. I think Rico has an important point that the process for a new variety should be less stringent than introducing a completely new breed. I believe the APA is listening to its members and nothing has been decided yet, so lets hope they will reach a reasonable decision.

I too have some serious concerns about how the APA has conducted itself in recent history and until the organization addresses the issues with sincerity, it won't be seeing my volunteer help. This, however, does not block me from recognizing the overall "good" in what it does. Especially with respect to the standard.

I live and breath heritage poultry Conservation, which would be completely pointless without the Standard. Rico makes an excellent point about toughening up the "new breed" rules to try and increase the resiliency of new breeds. Some of the darkest days of the SOP was when they relaxed the rules to admit Ameraucanas and Araucanas. They drafted breed and variety standards before they had even bred birds that matched those standards! As a result, proper standard bred ameraucanas are just now (after 30 years of being in the SOP) finally becoming more consistent in the shows. Well for one or two varieties. However, I wonder how many bona fide Brown Reds exist in North America?

The Araucanas have been in the Standard for 38 years and they are still a genetic mess. That breed would have definately benefited from rules as tough as what are being proposed. I can assure you they would have written a completely different standard and the breed would be completely different than what it is today. Forcing 5 breeders to submit 20 birds would have exposed the genetic flaws in the current standard. Unfortunately, as it stands, breeders are bogged down with a set of traits that are genetically incompatible. For this reason, the proper standard bred version of the breed will never amount to anything sustainable. Tremendous conservation potential has been wasted due to a poorly written Standard.

I do wonder though whether toughening the standards will make it harder for regions such as ours to get the larger breeds recognized. Do we have any shows in western Canada capable of hosting a muscovy, goose, or turkey recognition meet? Will these breeds be limited to only those regions capable of hosting large numbers of the bigger birds? Or is supplying specialized caging part of the cost of getting a large breed recognized?

Getting 100 OEG bantams recognized is completely different that getting a turkey variety recognized. The logistical difference between large and small breeds is acknowledges by the point system, maybe it should also be acknowledged by the breed/variety recognition process.

I would also like to point out another detail often overlooked by those who share my interest in heritage poultry conservation. Protecting diversity does not mean we need to save everything that once existed. Breeds come and go, this is the natural evolution of life. The only reason conservation became an important topic is because we hit an age where we were loosing breeds at a much faster rate than we were creating them. This deficit is the true source of lost genetic diversity. Our evolution is not finished, we should be willing to let breeds drop from the Standard just as we add breeds to the Standard.

There is a finite limit to the number of breeds that the Standard Bred community can sustain. Spreading our collective efforts across too many breeds simply weakens the overall benefit of our efforts. Chasing the obscure and "ready for extinction" simply takes valuable energy and resources away from the more valuable breeds. The APA could show leadership in focusing the energy of newbies by putting as much thought into dropping breeds as it does to admitting new ones. Now I don't mean completely delete a breed, but simply drop it from the published standard. If a breed regains form and popularity, then hold a modified qualifying meet before re-admitting it to the published Standard. I believe this is the position of the Buff variety of Turkey which was dropped from the Standard and is now enjoying some recent interest. Given the sad state of most turkey varieties, I would hate to see it re-admitted without it proving it's quality and value at a qualifier meet.

This approach would have several benefits:

1) it would keep the Standard relevant to the heritage/standard bred birds commonly found in North America.
2) it would encourage those who are invested in certain breeds to keep working them and keep showing them if they want them to remain relevant.
3) It would focus the attention of novice fanciers to investing in those breeds which have maintained the healthiest populations.