Is there a pure gamefowl? Yes or no.
There is the often repeated argument that there is no pure gamefowl. Of course, this is colloquially speaking, because genetically, there is.
In gamefowl breeding the word pure is often used to describe purity of bloodline such as pure possum sweater or pure Sanford yellow legged hatch or pure Travis Clark kelso. One meaning of pure is pure of a bloodline. In this sense, there are no pure gamefowl nowadays because all new bloodlines are result of mixing older bloodlines.
There is, however, another meaning of the word pure that is pure of a trait or characteristic. Example of this is a pure straight comb. We may have a pure straight comb rooster even if it is a cross between a lemon and a hatch. Therefore, you may also have a rooster much heavy in characteristics that cause it to be strong, even if this rooster is a cross, not pure of a breed. So, another meaning, which is more genetically correct is pure of particular traits.
Pure, meaning pure of a bloodline, is an over rated term in game fowl breeding. Many believe that when a gamefowl is pure of a bloodline name it is a prepotent individual. There is no guarantee that an individual that is pure in bloodline, say pure kelso, is prepotent or will make a good seed fowl. Yes, regardless how inbred it is. A seed fowl is a fowl designed to pass on to offspring some desirable traits. A good seed fowl is an individual that is pre-potent for these desirable traits. A seed fowl can be a pure of a bloodline or a blend; an in-bred or a crossbred. It doesn’t matter as long as it has great chances of passing the desired traits to the offspring. Being pure of a name is nothing. Being pure of the good traits is everything in gamefowl breeding.
When a real breeder say that an individual is breed pure, it means it is pure of particular traits that is the type of the breed. But in gamefowl breeding the purity of an individual is judged by the composition of its bloodline name. If one breeds a white legged straight comb kelso to a yellow legged pea comb kelso, then the offspring is pure. It is pure by name kelso, although it is heterozygous in leg color and comb type, or whatever other unlike alleles this offspring individual possesses.
This is one reason why breeders and buyers engage in arguments. Sometimes buyers who buy a pair of greys, complain why reds come out among the pullets the pair produced. It is not properly explained by the breeder, or the breeder himself is ignorant of the fact, that although the pair is pure Harold brown grey by name, the brood cock is split between grey and red. It just so happened it is grey in plumage because grey is dominant over red.
For example, roundheads are called roundheads because they are roundheads or pea combs. But why are there pure roundheads that are straight comb? Because they are pure only by name roundhead but are not even carrying the genes of a pea comb. Otherwise, they would have been pea comb, because pea comb is dominant and will manifest.
Another example is our own Blakliz. The supposed phenotype of the Blakliz is dark plumage, dark leg and straight comb. We have been breeding the Blakliz for more than a decade. Yet, up to now, from time to time, some variations in the phenotype occur. Because in our desire to fix fighting traits first, we cannot resist using individuals as brood cocks that are superior in fighting skills even if possessing variations in the phenotype. In the next few years though we expect the phenotype of the Blakliz to stabilize into specific varieties. We have started stabilizing phenotype as we are now confident we have fixed in the bloodline the fighting traits we are after.
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