Classification of Poultry-Part 1

In this episode of the Poultry Keepers Podcast, hosts Mandelyn, Rip, and John discuss the classification of poultry by the American Poultry Association (APA) and the American Bantam Association (ABA). They explore different classes such as American, Asiatic, Continental, English, and Mediterranean, along with the unique attributes, history, and breeds within each class.

 The conversation covers body types, egg-laying capabilities, and the importance of body capacity and feather types. They also touch on various Bantam classifications and the categorization of waterfowl, emphasizing the complexity and diversity within poultry breeding standards.

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Transcript

Alex: 0:00

Happy New Year Everyone and welcome to the Poultry Keepers Podcast. In this episode Mandelyn, Rip, and John will be talking about how poultry are classified by both the American Poultry Association and the American Bantam Association. So let's turn it over to Mandelyn to get us started.

Mandelyn Royal: 0:28

Hello, poultry keepers. Today, we want to bring you the way that chicken breeds are classified. The American Poultry Association does it by different categories. So today, we're going to dive into those categories and talk a little bit about why they're done that way. What it might mean for what you could expect from the birds, based on what class they fall into. The American class. Rip, what do you know about the American class of poultry?

Rip Stalvey: 0:56

Mandy that's my favorite class of poultry to raise and to judge. I just like the American class, but I've raised some of all the different classes. When I think of American class birds, I think of birds that are basically dual purpose birds, or at least were at one point. And, they don't lay as good as your laying breeds that are in the Mediterranean class like Leghorns or Minorcas. And, they're not the best meat producers like early on, Brahmas in the Asiatic class were a huge meat bird early in their tenure here in the United States. But they typically lay brown eggs. They are from most of them have Asiatic blood in them. And that's where the brown eggs shall come. But, they're just a cool class. We've got breeds like Buckeye, Chanticleers, Delaware, Javas, Jersey Giants, Rhode Island Reds, Wyandottes, and a few others smattered in there every now and then.

Mandelyn Royal: 1:56

Yeah, the American class is one of my favorites. I've had most of them on the list. And they usually are like a pretty decent size, docile bird. And they usually do lay brown eggs.

Rip Stalvey: 2:08

The neat thing about them is that they all share almost a common body type, and they're somewhat rectangular in shape, some more than others. Where your Mediterranean birds are very rectangular in shape, and your meat type breeds are going to be more box like in shape, more square. So they lie somewhere in between those two.

Mandelyn Royal: 2:34

And when it comes to dual purpose type birds, that body shape and that body capacity, pretty much how they're built and what their structure is is going to contribute to how much meat they're going to be able to grow on that frame.

Rip Stalvey: 2:47

Exactly. And I see people posting sometimes that why is body capacity important? What difference does it really make? It makes a lot of difference. If you don't have a good body capacity, those birds can't process their feed efficiently. The organs are all crammed in there because the inside of the body is too small. And if you've got that body capacity, that refers to, just like we're talking about, how much stuff is packed into a all those internal organs have got to have room to function properly or they're just not going to make it.

Mandelyn Royal: 3:25

Yeah. Now, the Asiatic class, that includes the Brahma, the Cochin, and the Langshan. And I've not had the Langshan before, but I'm pretty familiar with Cochin and Brahma and both of those. are in my favorite list just because they're so large, chill, and really good broodies, too. And I've seen them in references of being a big part of foundations to other breeds.

Rip Stalvey: 3:53

That's for sure. Brahmanas, for example, and they've changed a good bit since they were first brought over. They were even bigger back then than they are today. I'm not, when I say big they're taller and a little bit ranger. The early Brahmas were than what we have today. Today they're a little smaller, a little rounder, a little more feathers to them. But you said you weren't familiar with Langshans. Interesting thing. And Langshans lay the darkest, or used to, they don't anymore, used to lay the darkest brown egg. of any breed we had over here in America.

4:32

Really?

Rip Stalvey: 4:33

Yes. If you go back and look at Marans, guess what's in their background? Langshans.

Mandelyn Royal: 4:39

That's where those feathered feet came from, because everything in the Asiatic class is feather footed, right?

Rip Stalvey: 4:45

Some more so than others. Cochins have the most profuse feathering on their legs. Followed by Brahmas, followed by Langshans.

Mandelyn Royal: 4:55

Now, in the Continental class, that's where Marans and Wellsummers are, and they have the dark legs, the dark eggs for that classification. But, they're like the oddballs out from the Continental class. Aren't most of them like a lighter weight, kind of layer? I'm thinking of like hamburgs and stuff like that.

Rip Stalvey: 5:17

Yeah, you're right the continental class, and you get birds in there like Polish, and a lot of folks when they think of Polish, they think of just something that's purely ornamental. That's not the case at all. Once upon a time, Polish were considered to be the premier egg laying breed in the United States. Now we're dating back over a hundred years ago, but they're capable of producing a good number of eggs.

Mandelyn Royal: 5:46

Yeah, I've had Polish before and they were respectable layers. They were pretty cool looking, but they were definitely hawk bait because of the floof on top of their head.

Rip Stalvey: 5:56

Yeah, that, that crest on those birds makes it difficult for them to see sometimes and especially in certain directions. I could tell the crests that were probably too big when I was judging without even looking at them because if I stuck my hand in the cage and they jumped backwards from it.

Mandelyn Royal: 6:19

Yeah, because they saw it suddenly.

Rip Stalvey: 6:21

That's because they hadn't seen me before and that's a neat thing, we talked about, we haven't gotten really into all of them, but a lot of different breeds and a lot of different categories, they are, you can literally find something for every person, no matter what your desire is and what interests you, you can find a chicken with that kind of body type.

Mandelyn Royal: 6:44

Yeah, I'm partial to the big and bulky birds. Laughter.

Rip Stalvey: 6:50

I don't like the real big birds. And there's a couple of reasons for that. The one to me is they eat a lot more feed, get that big size on them. And the second one is they are so slow to mature. Brahmas, Cochins, you're looking at almost 18 months, 2 years of age before they're really mature. That's how slow they 8

Mandelyn Royal: 7:13

to 9 months just to get that first little leg.

Rip Stalvey: 7:17

If you're lucky. I had Brahmas and they were the best. The pullets were almost a year old before they would ever start laying.

7:25

Yeah.

Rip Stalvey: 7:26

I did have

Mandelyn Royal: 7:26

a little group of Hamburgs and I appreciate that body type when they're on that delicate kind of side because they just look so tidy. It made my OCD real happy. Them and Dominiques, but Dominiques are in a different class.

Rip Stalvey: 7:43

Dominiques are American class.

Mandelyn Royal: 7:45

Yeah.

7:46

My old English pheasant fowl reminded me of what you're describing. Very tidy, very fit birds. Very wiry.

Rip Stalvey: 7:55

They have a tighter feather, it's not. It's not quite as wide and it's not quite as long and there's not quite as much fluff on their feathers where you compare it to a bird like a Cochin or a Brahma, those feathers are very broad, a lot of fluff, so there's a lot of loft and looseness look to the plumage. At

Mandelyn Royal: 8:15

one point that the fluff as it travels up the length of the feather at each individual feather, how fluffy that bird is going to be. You can track that fluff up that feather. to gauge how fluffy it is or isn't.

Rip Stalvey: 8:31

There, there is a relationship between, at least to me, between the amount of fluff and the amount of web. I raise reds and they're fairly tight feathered, or should be a fairly tight feathered, they're getting them too loose feathered now, but a good red to me has about, One third, maybe a little bit more than one third of fluff to web on the feather.

Mandelyn Royal: 8:54

That makes sense.

Rip Stalvey: 8:55

If you look at birds like Cornish, they have a fairly narrow feather. It's very held very close to the body. It's a very hard, they call them a hard feather breed. And but the ratio of web to feather, far more, it's more web than there is feather. Fluff, very little fluff on those breeds.

Mandelyn Royal: 9:15

And the web of the feather is that part where it looks stuck together. And that's the part that keeps it tight and close to the body. And on the bottom of the feather, that's the fluffy part. So if you go to any bird you have and you just get a regular body feather off of them, you can see how fluffy they are towards the base of that feather and then based on how fluffy they should be is how much fluff makes up the rest of that feather before it turns to the web part,

Rip Stalvey: 9:45

right? And from a practicality standpoint, those breeds that have. A lot of fluff and their feathers are very loose. Don't deal with heat very well at all because they're

Mandelyn Royal: 9:58

keeping it all inside.

Rip Stalvey: 10:00

That Physical construction of the feather helps them retain body heat, where breeds like Leghorns or Minorcas or Anconas, they're a much tighter feathered bird. They don't retain heat so well.

Mandelyn Royal: 10:14

So after continental we have English, and that's a pretty big class, isn't it?

Rip Stalvey: 10:20

It really is. When you consider all the breeds that are in it, but it's not one, it's not the most popular class if you were to go to a show. And I don't know why, because there's some great breeds in the English class. You've got Cornish, you've got Orpingtons Osterorps. Most of the breeds I think in the dual purpose class we would probably consider to be dual purpose birds because they're in that medium to large body size range and they have pretty laid back calm temperaments by and large.

Mandelyn Royal: 10:52

Yeah, they do. Especially Orpingtons. When I think of a lap chicken, I think of an Orpington.

Rip Stalvey: 10:59

And they have some very long and profuse feathers and the English style Orpingtons, what they're calling the English style Orpingtons, to me, they look more like coochins without feathers on their legs.

11:11

Yeah, and they give off the impression that their legs are real short, but they're not really that short, they're just hidden.

Rip Stalvey: 11:19

I've seen feathers come off those birds that were 12, 13 inches long.

11:24

Wow. From what part of the bird? Off the belly?

Rip Stalvey: 11:27

That was off the breast.

Mandelyn Royal: 11:29

That's why their feet look so short.

Rip Stalvey: 11:32

Exactly right. When you can't see a bird's thigh, you can pretty well figure they've got feathers that are too loose. Maybe they're supposed to have them. That, that could be true, too. But yeah, I was judging some Buff Orkingtons one time at a show. They look massive. from outside the cage. But when you got your hands on them, they had teeny tiny little bodies. They were all fluff and not much stuff.

Mandelyn Royal: 11:58

Yeah, that was my experience with them too. They were very fluffy.

Rip Stalvey: 12:05

Exactly. And they look like they're gonna have these great bodies on them and make great meat birds. That's really not the case. Not the English style American Orkingtons should have, or supposed to have, tighter feathers than what on those English birds, but they've got both those lines crossed, and now they're, it's hard to find a good Orkington at a show anymore.

Mandelyn Royal: 12:28

Yeah, because we have the American Poultry Association with their breed standards, and then in the other countries, they also have their own breed standards. And I haven't really looked at the differences between the English standard and the American standard when it comes to Orpingtons. Birds and how different they are, there must be differences between the way that standard is written. I should have notes on that, and I didn't look into it after I had the thought.

Rip Stalvey: 12:57

No, that's okay. But it

Mandelyn Royal: 12:58

implies that something's different.

Rip Stalvey: 13:01

And that's because it is. And I'll, while we're talking about Orpingtons, I'll just go ahead and mention, the birds here in America that they're calling English Orpingtons, don't match the English standard for the Orpington breed. They're too loose feathered. Yeah. I'm not an expert on

Mandelyn Royal: 13:19

Orpingtons, but that's neat. And there is a very distinct difference in look between what's being called English, which might not actually be correct for the English standard.

Rip Stalvey: 13:30

Correct. It just shows you how much influence we can have when we're breeding our birds if we don't follow Strictly what the standard of perfection calls for. We get these very much off type birds. And if we're in the U.

Mandelyn Royal: 13:47

S., we want to be following the U. S. standard.

Rip Stalvey: 13:49

Yeah. Let's look at Bresse. The Bresse that I see from other countries, they look somewhat like Bresse, but they're very much different than the Bresse we have here in the United States. When you get them side by side, you can see some differences, big time.

Mandelyn Royal: 14:06

Yeah, for sure, I've noticed that quite a bit. And then I ended up down a little rabbit hole of since the Bresse are not APA recognized, then what class would they be in? Would they go back to Continental because that's their origin, or would they go to American because they're being called American Bresse?

Rip Stalvey: 14:24

No, they will never be in the American class. I'm pretty sure of that. So they would be

Mandelyn Royal: 14:28

Continental if they ever get there.

Rip Stalvey: 14:31

Because we've had other breeds that were developed here in America that aren't even in the American class.

Mandelyn Royal: 14:36

Like which one?

Rip Stalvey: 14:38

Americana. They were created here in America and there was a big fuss and a fight over that. I don't know why that was before I was paying attention to all the politics, but they wound up in all other standard breed class.

Mandelyn Royal: 14:52

So after the English, we have the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean class is again, that kind of lighter weight sort of bird that tends to do a white egg. And that has Andalusian, Minorca, Leghorn, Fiomi. And I like a lot of those breeds too, but they tend to be a little jumpier and a little flightier than some of those bigger dual purpose types.

Rip Stalvey: 15:16

Yes, but I tell you, they're great out on free range. They're everywhere. They're into everything. They're scratching here. They're chasing bugs here. They're all over the place.

Mandelyn Royal: 15:28

Yeah, they're pretty savvy.

Rip Stalvey: 15:30

Let's see, I had a, I made a note here and now I can't find it, I love that. But, I can't find it, I apologize. But after the Mediterranean class, and you left this off is the AOSB class, or all other standard breeds. Probably the smallest. Probably the smallest class out there. That's your games your old English game, your modern games your some matras, it's a catch all class that he couldn't figure out where to put them, so they stuck them in that class the Americanas, like I said, were in that class, and there's no, there's no connection in body shape, or even from the general location they're from, they could be from anywhere, and they're, There's a lot of differences in the body type on those words.

16:17

Interesting.

Mandelyn Royal: 16:19

Yeah, that wasn't mentioned in any of my research.

Rip Stalvey: 16:22

There was

Mandelyn Royal: 16:23

like a little catch all class.

Rip Stalvey: 16:25

Yeah. I was

Mandelyn Royal: 16:25

wondering where the game birds fit in because I didn't see them listed. I would have thought they would have fallen into either American or, I guess it depends on the origins.

Rip Stalvey: 16:37

You got oriental games, you got English games, you got games from all over. Now

Mandelyn Royal: 16:42

the Bantam, it all ties into kind of their breed history. And a lot of'em are named for the location or maybe the person that created'em. Like the, one of my favorite Bantam types is the Searight. And that was developed by Sir John Searight in the early 19th century. So he just got to put his name on there because he came up with them That's

Rip Stalvey: 17:05

true.

Mandelyn Royal: 17:06

Some of the origin stories once you get into the breeds and where they came from and why they exist.

Rip Stalvey: 17:10

It's

Mandelyn Royal: 17:11

fascinating.

Rip Stalvey: 17:12

It's fascinating. It really is. When you get into the bantam size, they have, to me, what is a much more logical classification type. And it's based on physical characteristics for the most part. Not on where they came from, but in bantams you have the single comb clean legs, and that's Leghorns, that's Reds, that's Minorcas, anything that has a single comb and clean legs are in that class. And then there's the rose comb clean legs, excuse me, and here again, anything with a rose comb that has clean legs goes into the RCCL, or Rose Comb Clean Legs. And then we have the all other comb cleanlegs. Could be like Americana's,

Mandelyn Royal: 18:03

Yeah, cause there's a pea comb and a cushion comb and a What do they call it? A walnut comb and there's a whole bunch of different types of combs.

Rip Stalvey: 18:10

And the newest one is a chrysanthemum comb on Cochamo.

Mandelyn Royal: 18:14

I don't even know that one.

Rip Stalvey: 18:16

You don't see them around much anymore. When they were first getting them into the standard, there was a lot of them and you saw a lot of them online and a lot of people talking about them. It was the end breed to have because they're very different. It's the only breed that has a slipped wing or excuse me, a split wing. as a requirement.

18:36

Oh, on purpose.

Rip Stalvey: 18:37

Yeah. It's not a disqualification or a fault. Not in them, no. Now, after the AOCC, we get, we got through with all the clean legged birds there, pretty much, but you get into the feather legged birds, and Cochins, Brahmas, the yucca bantams, booted bantams, all fall into that feather legged class. And then you've got old English games, or in their own class. Modern games are in their own class because they're so very popular and there's enough of the birds out There's so many different varieties particularly in the old English games. I can't keep up with them They're adding them as fast as I can find out about them. It seems like that's not really the case, but And then there's bantam ducks that are recognized by the American Bantam Association

19:29

Huh.

Rip Stalvey: 19:30

Things like cull ducks East Indies, some of the really tiny, small breeds of ducks. And while we're talking about waterfowl, the American Poultry Association classifies waterfowl based on size. They break them down by size in the breeds. The bantam ducks, lightweight duck breeds, medium weight duck breeds, and large duck breeds. And they follow the same thing with geese, although there's no bantam geese, but they have light breeds, medium breeds, and heavyweight breeds.

Alex: 20:05

This brings us to a close of another Poultry Keepers Podcast Episode. Join us next Tuesday for the conclusion of the Classification of Poultry. Until then we want to thank you for listening to our show and wish you a happy and prosperous New Year.