We expected what came out
Why were people so alarmed with what they saw in the first Peruvian derby in the Philippines? True many Peruvian lovers were dismayed because the performances were not what they expected of the vaunted Peruvian. The haters were celebrating.
We? Well, we expected what we saw.
Ever since the Peruvian craze started about a few years ago, we kept on reminding our readers that the Peruvian is not what the lover thought it was. However, it was not as bad either as the haters would like it to appear. We kept on insisting the Peruvian got few good traits and lots of defects. But still we believed, if properly bred it could yet improve our existing bloodlines.
A couple of years ago we already wrote this.
The American Game is relatively much more stable than the Peruvians. Established American strains such as a number of hatches, albanies, whitehackles, brown reds, roundheads, clarets , greys and others, provided authentic, have been stabilized or purified by inbreeding, outbreeding and outcrossing, thus over time, individuals belonging to these strains became homozygous of the desired traits. In the case of the Peruvians, it is said that Peruvian breeders keep on cross breeding. Meaning they rely on the higher possibility of nicks because of diversity of genes and on breed complementarity to produce good fowl.
The practice is not bad per se, the more genetic variation the better. However, when you inbred these crossed up individuals the result could be unpredictable. Breeding relative to relative means the individuals mated would have many similar traits, both dominant and recessive, both good and bad. Pairing such individuals with each other could result in high probability that the bad genes which are recessive will match up and result in deleterious genes. There is also the probability that dominant traits masked the bad recessive traits, thus the individual may appear good, but in reality it has so many unseen bad traits. On the other hand, when inbreeding stable bloodlines the result would be predictable because such breeders already carries “purified” (homozygous) good traits thus they become pre-potent for these good traits as they always throw to their offspring these homozygous good traits. It will be a case of what you see is what you get. Yes inbreeding Peruvians is more risky than inbreeding American game, however, there are breeders in Peru who are known for successful inbreeding of their lines. They are experts though who know their bloodlines from many years of inbreeding with careful and intelligent selection.
A word of caution though, for breeders and would be breeders of the Peruvian. Just like most other types of roosters, there are good Peruvians, there are bum. The tendency to break high and ability to cut well are the main assets of the Peruvian. Good Peruvians break high and cut well. But even the best Peruvians have some obvious defects in fighting ability. This may be due to their size and bulk. Then, although some regard the Peruvians beautiful, the majority consider Peruvian fowl very ugly--big head, hunchback, some with very long neck, some with bull neck, big feet, ugly feathers some even naked etc.
Some of us breed the Peruvian because of the challenge. That’s right the challenge. As we said, breeding the American fowl is easy. There are so many solid, stable and indeed near perfect specimens of American game cocks available, that anyone of us may be able to produce super individuals by just acquiring expensive breeding stock of American game from well-established game farms. On the contrary, when you breed the Peruvian it is almost like starting from scratch. You have to work your way up. With the Peruvian you have to know what you’re doing. Otherwise you will end up with the bad traits of the Peruvian minus the desirable ones. You have to be a true breeder. That’s the hardest part. That’s the big challenge. But, that makes breeding the Peruvs the more fascinating.
Understanding and how to breed the Peruvian will be a topic during PMA Live 17.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
