Sound ideas always find a place
For decades a number of odd notions existed in the field of gamecock breeding. When I started writing for the gamefowl industy in the Philippines at about the turn of the millennium, I immediately begun to advance some revolutionary ideas. I sounded odd then.
But now I have started reading similar ideas everywhere. Not that the writers and advocates of similar ideas got the hint from me. Only, perhaps, that revolutionary ideas have found a place nowadays. Indeed, sound ideas eventually find a place.
In the days of advanced information technology when anyone can be read or heard, a new idea reaches a large number of audience at great speed. If it is sound it will get accepted and repeated. Whereas before, we read or heard only what the old hands said several decades ago. And, most people, because they didn’t want to think on their own, took the path of less resistance and just accepted and repeated what they had read and heard. Anyway it was fashionable.
That is no longer the case now. Today, sound revolutionary ideas are quickly disseminated, accepted and repeatedly shared too.
One idea that I started circulating two decades ago is the futility in giving importance to bloodline names. What the heck, when not all roosters with the same bloodline names fight the same? Some roundheads are good, some are garbage. Some hatches are dead game, but there are hatches that are not that game.
For instance you like a roundhead because they said roundhead are smart and good cutters, why not just look for smart and good cutting chicken, regardless it is a roundhead or not?
One reason why roosters with the same bloodline names sometimes come different is that majority of gamefowl breeders are not that particular in breeding true-to-type. Many are not aware or just neglect the fact that in real breeding individuals belonging to a strain or a breed must breed-to-type. Because actually it is not necessary in game fowl breeding where most important is to produce winners in the cockpit. And, winners don’t have to be uniform in fighting ability, nor in looks.
Of course, it is not an original idea. Richard bates, for one, didn’t call his roosters by bloodline names, he called them black, red or grey of Richard Bates.
But at the time when to become fashionable is to own a Dink Fair sweater or Travis Clark kelso, everybody was acquiring sweater or kelso or just calling every pea comb, light legged red as sweater or kelso. It was actually fashion, not logic at work.
I have always maintained the idea that breeding is all about fixing traits not names or bloodlines. In the same manner I always affirmed that breeding is genetics not mathematics, so stuffs such ¾ of this, ¼ of that are likewise meaningless.
Ask a question on the internet what best to cross with a certain bloodline and you immediately get dozens of answers such as half and half of this and that or ¾ of this and ¼ of that. As if they are sure that all individuals of the same bloodline name have the same traits.
However, gamefowl breeding is also for enjoyment, if that what makes you happy, go ahead and make your day. But if you want to enjoy and learn real breeding at the same time, think about better ideas that work.
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