The Poultry Keeper

CP · Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 3:48 am Post subject: Heritage Skylines

Thread for Heritage Skylines. Wink

Skyline · Joined: 23 Feb 2008 Posts: 6 Location: Dover

Hi,

I have recently got 3 Heritage Skylines and thought it right to have a thread for them.

These birds are very interesting and have loads of character. They are more active than most chickens and lay around 260 eggs a year. These eggs are 75% blue and the rest are usually khaki or white. They vary in different shades of brown grey and orange. (Will upload some pictures as soon as possible).

Thanks Very Happy

Attila The Hen · Joined: 19 Sep 2005 Posts: 440 Location: Shetland

I love the way the websites selling them all coyly describe them thus: "the breed is still in development", and then go on to explain how incredibly variable their plumage is, and how the egg colour is still not 100% blue of all eggs laid - ratio instead as Skyline above describes.

My point being, when is a breed a breed, and not a hybrid? The Heritage Skylines are clearly Araucana crossed with something else, and their variability and lack of egg colour consistency suggests this is a very early-stage hybrid, and certainly not a proper breed.

Do more established hybrids, i.e. Bovans Nera, breed true?

Should the breeds forum be split two ways, with pure breeds and hybrids threads listed seperately? Or are we happy to call a hybrid a breed?

Questions, questions!

Attila

Chris Kurzfeld · Joined: 29 Oct 2007 Posts: 1645 Location: Carmarthenshire

If you go onto the "Cotswold Chickens" site, under Heritage Skylines the picture on the right looks remarkably like a Cream Legbar.

Chris

vanessa · Joined: 24 Sep 2005 Posts: 1267 Location: Correze

I'm tickled by the fact that a brand-new "breed" gets an old-sounding name ... "heritage" ... as if we're meant to believe they've been around for ever!

Attila The Hen · Joined: 19 Sep 2005 Posts: 440 Location: Shetland

The same thought had occured to me too, Vanessa. To this cynic, it smacked of a rather amateurish attempt to a) create a breed/hybrid (at least all the other hybrids are finished articles by the time they become available), and b) market it.

Attila

nell · Joined: 23 Feb 2008 Posts: 14 Location: Dover, Kent

My Skyline has laid every egg (12 to date) in a beautiful sky blue colour. Her coop-mate has just laid her first egg today and it is more of a khaki blue. I can't wait until the third Skyline lays an egg; I hope it is slightly different in colour then I will know which hen has laid which egg.

They are so friendly - gardening is so much slower with a Skyline on your spade!

Nell

Tinks · Joined: 12 Oct 2008 Posts: 10 Location: southwick, sussex

Cant seem to find much info on these birds ;(
Mines really hen pecked by the others Sad

Attila The Hen · Joined: 19 Sep 2005 Posts: 440 Location: Shetland

Tinks · Joined: 12 Oct 2008 Posts: 10 Location: southwick, sussex

Thats just what i was thinking Smile

tuzo2k · Joined: 09 Jun 2007 Posts: 209 Location: charente sw france

I dont think Hybrids should come under the same classification as Breeds - (better to perhaps say 'hybrid birds' and 'pure breeds' - at least this is clear) but then I do prefer to have a 'standard' for a breed as comes under the auspices of the British Poultry Standards - but I do think 'hybrids' certainly have a place in egg production both commercial and domestic. My biggest problem is when some hybrids come out looking the same as a pure breed and unsuspecting poultry-keepers putting them in with their carefully guarded pure flock. I suppose the answer is never to buy any additional birds from auctions etc, unless the breeder is well-known for his determination to breed his stock pure - even then accidents happen. That's what I think anyway.