New England Poultry wrote:
Quote:
I had someone try to tell me it was also in my large Oxfords....id have to disagree with the use of silkie blood in large strains of oxford game fowl. No cocker of the day would have put silkie blood in his birds.
Some old strains of oxford showed the dark face from use of Sumatra blood etc. I was told the silkie blood was added to some show strains of bantam oeg here in Australia, and you can certainly see it in some birds with the inky black face and some times even the pearly blue/white ear lobes.......the hens showing the pearly blue/white ear lobes get left in the pen at home while the male gets as much of that white cut out as possible before showing...........lol
i certainly don't understand peoples interpretation of the standard here.... Mulberry face IS NOT inky black, its deep red.......
I was told that is the only way Australians got their dark face fowl because the birds that were imported here didn't come dark.
Im sure we all know plenty of illegal birds came here also and i would say any one in the sport here back in the day were not going to add silkie blood.
You can see plenty of birds in America, Phillipines etc and ill guarantee they didn't add none game blood.
It is amazing what some people will do to an animal just to win a prize.....lol.... next year they add something else because the fad has changed and so on and so on....
Its a known fact in Australia bankiva gamefowl were used in some line's of OEG and Pits.. In the day bankiva gamefowl came in Mulberry face and black face, single comb and pea comb. I even herd from old cockers that some even had white lobs.. And as I been told bankiva gamefowl were in Australia in the 1800's..
The Bankiva was used in the make up of Old English Games way way before the English Fowl were brought to Australia and if the Bankiva was continued to be used in the breeding of those fowl they would have stayed in a much smaller/lighter weight class more like the little spanish fowl.
There is some evidence that the Celts did keep domestic hens though evidence shows that they tended to be small and primitive reaching between 1 to 1.5 kilos. They were probably introduced by the Scythians, but it was the Celts that are given credit for their latter spread into Western Europe."
The Tribes of Europe had two breeds or types one is refered to by Zooarchaeology as the "wild type" like a Jungle fowl from 1 lb 12 ozs to 2 lb 3 ozs. The other is a primitive domestic fowl from 2 lb 12 ozs to 3 lb 5 ozs. Small Bankiva fowl. Basically Spanish Game.
That is pretty much how the fighting fowl of Britain remained until about the time of Henry the 8th. During the time of Queen Elizabeth when war broke out between Britain and Spain and links with Spain were broken. After that the Dutch became Englands new best friend and trade was established between them. It was also about this time the Huguenots came to Britain and it was about this time that large fowl became established in the UK. ....