# Dorkings are endangered?



## Brodi

I was reading the different breed bios on The Livestock Conservancy site and they list Dorkings as "Threatened". 

Why is that? Is it a health thing or are they hard to raise? I just got several from Ideal in a shipment of their Rare Assortment.


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## robin416

It probably has more to do with folks not being interested in raising them.

Something to know, breeds from hatcheries very often barely represent the breed they say they are. It's not uncommon for them to actually be mixed with another breed but still be called X bree.


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## Brodi

robin416 said:


> It probably has more to do with folks not being interested in raising them.
> 
> Something to know, breeds from hatcheries very often barely represent the breed they say they are. It's not uncommon for them to actually be mixed with another breed but still be called X bree.


I wonder why people lost interest in them? They sound like they would be good for people who like free range birds (don't roam far, smart enough to roost in trees).

That's how I ended up with a Favorelle rooster that is too tall to be a Favorelle rooster.

I don't care much about the pedigree of the chickens in my flock (I don't breed or sell them), I just like diversity .


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## Fiere

Unfortunately the pedigree is what is threatened. People don't care if it's proper, they just want a pretty bird - therein the hatcheries make a mint selling "knock offs" and the purebred breeds die out.


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## Fiere

Here is an example of what I'm talking about. This is a purebred, show lineage Australorp cockerel (left) standing next to a Murray MacMurray Australorp cockerel. There is only two weeks in age difference of these birds. 
See how there is simply no comparison? They're both black with single combs, and the similarities end there. People buy the 2$ chicks from the hatchery while very few struggle to keep the original bird correct to standard - over the years the original dies out in favour of what's easy.


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## BarbaraR

*Why did people lose interest in Dorkings?*

The Dorking was one of the most popular dual purpose breeds in America. However, people just stopped keeping chickens because it was easier to go to the supermarket and buy a Cornish Cross and brand X eggs. People that did not keep chickens found it convenient not to buy eggs and meat from local farmers, but to depend on the supermarket.

Gradually, *all* the historically important breeds became less used, and finally used only for show or kept by stubborn ol' coots who thought the breed deserved to be continued. Thus the high egg production, the genetics of the meat bird, etc. became weaker because how the bird looked at the show was what was important, not the useful (edible) features.

The Livestock Breed Conservancy has some breeders who have worked very hard to return the Buckeye and the Dorking to their production quality. It is a work in progress, but I am doing my part by growing and using the breed. You will not get these genetics from big hatcheries.

And -- Information now shows that the "supermarket chicken and eggs" are less nutritious, possibly full of GMOs and antibiotics, etc. vs.local grown birds by farmers (not giant 40,000 bird operations) you can visit and trust to provide you food. Compare the eggs and you'lll see what I mean.

End of Rant


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## WeeLittleChicken

Cornish Crosses spelled the death of a lot of these meat breeds. Leghorns and production reds spelled the death of a lot of breeds as well because of their feed efficiency and egg output. A lot of the 'dual purpose' birds just aren't needed anymore. Why buy something that gets big and eats more if all you want is eggs? Why spend time and money feeding a bird who will mature slower and will never have the meat provided by a Cornish Cross? 

I have Dorkings - from McMurray. I don't need fancy pedigrees on these guys for myself because I am mainly using them as meat for myself - will be crossing them with Cornish next Spring for a type of meat bird that's favored by English homesteaders. The hens are free to lay eggs as they have amusing personalities. It is New England after all and "dual purpose" flies well here because the bigger birds often fair the winter better! And if you're wondering why I have chosen Dorkings and not Cornish crosses then I will say it has to do with self sustainability, something that's not as highly valued by most chicken keepers.


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## Fiere

You'd have better luck with a "fancy pedigree" than a hatchery bird. Did you see the pic I posted? The "fancy" bird would've been a 4lb table bird at 16 weeks whereas the McMurray bird didn't offer a 4lb carcass when I culled him at a year. He was tall (still not half as tall as my well bred Australorps) but he had no substance at only 6.5lbs live weight. The dogs ate him because it wasn't worth my time to. 

You don't need to have the next APA Champion, but if you want to have true to type birds and use them for their intended purpose, you need to get lineages that reflect that. Dorkings should be utterly massive - not just big. Folks these days don't know what a truly large bird looks like as everything is bred to be efficient and therefore is the size of a red sex link, which is unsurprising as a lot of production blood has been added to these hatchery birds specifically to reduce size and increase feed:egg conversion.

My Australorps are dual purpose. The cockerels are table sized by 16-20 weeks and the hens lay at 24-28 weeks, 5 eggs a week, for minimum 3 years. These are traits I'm breeding for as well as breeding them to be ever closer to APA SoP as I will be showing them.


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## WeeLittleChicken

Well I tried to find people willing to sell utility meat Dorkings. Bizarrely I kept running into the same thing - They'd sell me carcasses but not birds or eggs! Very weird. And I am content working with the hatchery birds mostly because of this. If they're not huge that's perfectly fine. I am only one person and I don't eat THAT much! If I did I'd have turkeys! And I am content to work with them several generations to make them larger if I have to. Not a big deal. I am not selling these guys so there's no deceptiveness in what I'm doing, it's just a different route.


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## robin416

It's surprising how many people face that same thing with other breeds. Doesn't matter what your reason is for raising them, those that have the quality you're looking for try to keep the market all to themselves to drive up the price.


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## Fiere

I just believe with starting with the best I can get and moving up, versus starting at the bottom and reinventing the wheel. Sometimes the best you can get is hatchery quality, so then it's better to get the absolute best rooster you can afford and hatch tons of chicks and cull ruthlessly. Sometimes that isn't worth it. I know I tried it with Salmon Faverolles and the hatchery stock was so terrible that it wasn't worth trying to save.

You have to look at growth rates, too. A chicken who is monstrous at 18 months but lanky and undersized at 20 weeks is not going to be a good meat bird. 

I crossed out Cornish broilers with my best Australorp rooster this year, hold crap the size of those birds. They're 6'weeks old and look like a PoL leghorn Pullets. They just tower over the others and I love it.


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## WeeLittleChicken

Well there is a HUGE inbreeding problem with the Dorkings as it is.... especially the silver grays which we started with here. Their fertility rates to begin with are suffering because of this and a lot of people are crossing even McMurray birds (which are said to be the best as far as hatchery birds are concerned for this type and breed.) 

I am contemplating ordering some Red Dorking eggs, I did find someone willing there, but if you're really seriously raising them for lots of meat the only color variation that is already routinely big and robust are the white ones. Those are the ones I could only get carcasses of!


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## Fiere

That's the problem with a lot of endangered and threatened birds, can't get new stock so you have to recycle the same lines and you get an inbreeding deficit. That being said once you get a good line established adding new blood can do more harm than good. As such there's a lot of line breeding that goes on. 

It's a fine line to walk and culling plays a huge role in maintaining a good flock. It takes a lot of work to get birds where you want them, so I can see the side of the folks who won't sell birds. Mind, I don't see the point in not wanted to expand the breed. I personally don't sell chicks or hatching eggs because I want to keep the best birds for myself to better my breeding program. As such I sell my culls, which get better and better as the season goes on and as the years progress my culls will be better than the breeding stock I have now. 

Someone took a chance on me and parted with some good breeding stock, I will return the favour when I can.


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## robin416

I can see using hatchery birds to introduce new genetics. But like Fiere said, very carefully. If the genetic pool becomes too condensed it will lead to serious health issues no matter how good the breeder is.


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## WeeLittleChicken

Well the breeders I talked to cited low fertility for not wanting to sell eggs - and after much discussion it was apparent that they all had done a lot to expand the gene pool getting birds from different places but to no avail. Curiously none were willing to outcross to breeds to make new colors and whatnot citing they'd rather their birds be historically accurate. That's nice and all but I think it could help with the inbreeding! 

And always a trouble maker I was unable to figure out if the low fertility was a problem with breeding in an achondroplasia gene (as in Scott's Dumpies) or if these birds are just short for other reasons. Breeding two achondroplasia birds together will result in 25% embryo fatality - it works the same in most mammals and I had worked with the gene in cats (Munchkins) years ago... 

There's a woman near here with Crele Orpingtons. I have been toying with the idea of crossing them for a Crele Dorking project as Orps do share a lineage, are huuge by nature, etc. I found one other person working on a similar project but he was crossing Red Dorkings to Cuckoo Dorkings (which I didn't even know existed!) Maybe I will see if he wants to talk...


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## robin416

Although I've always thought of low fertility as no fertility. Dang, I know what I'm thinking now to get it out so it makes sense. Danged drugs.

Whatever they are using in their groupings is either not producing enough sperm or the females are not releasing ovum. That is what I consider low fertility, not embryo mortality.

Some years ago a report was released that diets based heavily on soy for a protein source reduced a male's fertility. I've always wondered could that also be true of our animals or birds that had diets high in soy. Then toss in the what they are finding with Roundup and the fact that most of our feed has been treated with it and things just begin to look sorrier and sorrier for fertility and embryo mortality.


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## WeeLittleChicken

That is a fair comment. Perhaps I could have had better wording. Instead of low fertility let's call it what it is: Low hatch rate. Fetal death does constitute a low hatch rate....

Soy produces estrogen when eaten which is great for women (and female animals) but absolutely does reduce fertility in males. I have seen it happen! I used to breed rats years ago.... when they switched the lab pellets from corn base to soy I started having really small litters! Didn't take me long to figure out what was going wrong. There was a huge campaign at the time telling pet owners that soy was better. HA! Won't do that again.


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## robin416

Yeh, it's one of those things that can have two different causes. When you see high mortality rates in embryos or chicks it can usually be pointed straight back to a problem with the parents. They probably really need to look at hatchery stock to fix some of their issues. 

Self blue Silkies have an issue with high mortality rates. It probably has a lot to do with the genes making the color self blue since most other Silkie varieties don't see that problem.


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## WeeLittleChicken

Interesting... but is it just silkies or other varieties that come in blue?


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## robin416

I've only heard a couple of grumbles about the self blue in other breeds. Most of the time it's breeds that the color was recently introduced in. But I have heard that other breeds suffer some of the same issues as Silkies in the self blue, bad feathering, not as hardy over all.

I've been out of it for four years now so I don't know what the latest is on them. I remember that getting a peep to the point of hatch was about like what Powderhog goes through trying to get hatches to complete being as he's living in the clouds. The most successful hatches was allowing the hens to do the hatching. I sold mine before I got to deep in to them.


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## Fiere

Lots of varieties come in blue, not as many but still lots come in self blue (also called lavender). 

I really wanted lavender Orpingtons but it was a slippery slope, lol. Got BBS instead


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## robin416

Slippery slope is right. The self blue Orp was one of those that seem to mimic the Silkies in the same color for problems. I know someone else who had the Orps and rehomed them when they realized the trouble they were.


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## Fiere

I figure I can breed a shade of blue that looks just like lavender without all the problems of lavender. I might as well keep the BBS. 

Plus I have a theme going here: BBS Australorops, BBS Cochins, BBS/Barred Naked Necks/Easter Eggers, Blue Pied Muscovy (unsure if the gene works the same in a muscovy to give me splash), and pet quality BBS silkies. Love my Blue Birds!


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## robin416

I really, really like the BBS color. There are Silkie breeders working on the lighter blue in Silkies. 

It's been a while since I had them and was following a very lengthy discussion on the self blue in Silkies. Their gene for the color is actually a true lavender, not the genes of the self blue.


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## Fiere

I love the shades blue comes in, everything from dark slate grey with blue black lacing to a silver. It's wholly wonderful.
Im going to have to take a picture of my splash Cochin Pullet. She is so uniformly coloured she appears a washed out self blue. 

I'm going to do that right now. Actually.


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## Fiere

She's a bit dirty, but boy is she a beauty. So fluffy!


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## robin416

Good grief, no wonder you like her. She is a stunning color.

She is also a good example of why the lavender color should not be mixed with anything but black. It's impossible to tell what is true lavender and what is a true light blue color.


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## Fiere

She is sweet. I have her in with week old chicks and she is a champ, perfectly suited for the big sister role (that's how she shortened he feathers on her back, even though she's off heat now for weeks herself she decided to go sun tan - lamp has been raised!) 

I totally agree, black splits only, as you'll muddle the gene pool to death mixing blue with self blue. And she's not even blue, technically - she's a splash, but you can get this "shade" in extremely light lavs. Her blue brethren are quite regally dark though I expect that to change to a lighter grey as they age.


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## Fiere

Check o the feathering on those feet! Oh I just adore her.

I need to give her a bath to get rid of that dirty yellow tinge.


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## robin416

You know, I've never paid any attention to the color genetics of splash. I wonder if it is possible to get the light blue by breeding a girl like her to a blue and maintain the light blue color. That's probably too easy so no way would it work. 

And she's a good example when someone wants to foster chicks. It always made my life less complicated when I had hens that would do that for me.


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## Fiere

Splash occurs with the blue. It's actually really easy to breed lighter/darker, but takes fiddling as with anything. You can get a darker or lighter splash depending on the shades you breed with.

The genetics are easy, it's the shades that you need to play with:


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## robin416

The hard part, at least in Silkies, is maintaining that light blue color. So many were mixed with black that it's hard to get the lighter color. I know some are trying to get a consistent lighter blue, I just don't know where it stands now.


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## Fiere

I find with the hard feathered breeds it's harder to get that gunmetal grey with the lacing. Even if the babies have it, they grow out of it to a more uniform light grey. It's a nice colour but by the time they're ready to molt the bird is washed out and yellowed. My Orpingtons are a dark blue/splash hen mix under a black rooster - right not most have that really rich blue with lacing or a denim blue without lacing, I expect by the time they're into their adult plumes (they're just getting their sex feathers now) that the darks will be denim blue without lacing and the lights will be the light grey. It's similar with the cochins, I have black, the splash, and a couple denim blue without lacing. 
We will see how it goes.


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## BarbaraR

I had the same experience. No one would sell live birds. Someone recently told me about a local livestock auction where you can buy and sell birds. If you want birds for meat, that kind of thing would be a good bet. I'll bet if you ask around, there might be a swap or sale you could participate in.

I'll be using this in the future. I have 4 Dorking roosters and 4 Buckeye roosters. They are going to be culled, eaten, sold or something by October. Maybe soon. The biggest Dorking roo just got big enough to trounce the Buckeye roo who has held the top post since they were chicks. And all the roos are trying out their neck-grabbing techniques on the dismayed hens. Once I have enough, out they go, or into a cage.


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## robin416

Be very careful with sale barns. That is the most often reported reason for introducing chronic respiratory diseases in to existing flocks. The safer bet are poultry sale/swaps. Those people very often are breeding birds for a purpose, improving a line, for show, etc. So, the care is there that minimizes the chance of disease.


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