1 Rare Feathers January 2020 2 PATRON

Position vacant PRESIDENT

Matthew Paine VICE PRESIDENT

Brady Robins SECRETARY

Jill Weaver TREASURER

Jill Weaver PROMOTIONS OFFICER

Lorna Dick Show manager/s

Brady Robins and Ellis Dick

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An up-date of the show schedule for 2020 Japanese Bantams have been removed from our show schedule. If this proves to be an unwise decision it will be rectified at our next AGM. At the date of our last AGM there appeared to be plenty being shown and a nice number of breeders in Tassie. Large Wyandottes only have been added to the Rare Breed‘s list, also all Leghorns have been moved from rare variety to the rare breeds section. Pekin Ducks have been added to the rare breed waterfowl section also. There are a few other minor changes: the colour normal (natural) has been removed from the Mallard breed so that will put them in the Rare Variety section. The colour ‘duckwing’ has been removed from the bantam only section. Pit Game bantam only ,all but henny-feathered, muffed and tasselled have been removed from list. No other changes were made in the list but depending on waterfowl numbers, prizes etc. may be combined, that is rare breed and rare variety grouped together. A breed to watch this show season will be the Australian Call Duck and we will see if the other changes we made stack up! We have kept our two extra divisions, the Crested and Mediterranean. We have invited just the one judge to come across the ditch to judge (Wayne Rigby) who judged the rare breed section for us back in 2011. Depending on numbers of entries we will invite a Tasmanian judge to help out if needed. Wayne is happy to judge up to 350 birds if the need arises.

The bush fires I feel I should say something about the horrific fires razing our country this summer. The worst in living memory, these fires are killing wild animals and domestic animals, destroying their habitat and food sources. I for one am moved to tears every time I see something new on the news, for the people that have lost loved ones, homes, properties, and pets. On behalf of all the clubs’ members I offer our tears, heartache and condolences to everyone affected during this terrible time.

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2019 Rare Breeds Trust of Australia Survey A few months ago I was contacted by the RBTA and asked to run their online poultry survey. I set about constructing the survey using the Australian Poultry Standards as the basis for the breeds to be listed. Melissa Gollin, who ran the 2017 survey, was consulted and her feedback influenced the following changes that were made. The requirement to give a postcode to indicate location was removed as many poultry breeders will not participate if their location data is collected; an optional residential State was offered; and standard and bantam were split in the data. The survey ran for a month to match the previous collection. Many poultry clubs and contacts were emailed details of the survey, asking them to forward it along. It was advertised widely on Facebook and other online locations. A paper copy, or the opportunity to submit email data was offered to anybody who enquired about those options, but nobody took up those opportunities. The survey was run online as that was the most efficient and affordable way to collect information. There is no reason to believe that this bias to online participants is correlated to any bias in breeds. The breed data collected should be a fair sample of the wider population. We recognise that the poultry community would like to see colour varieties represented in the survey. We considered this for the 2019 data collection, however it would have become too large and unwieldy. It was decided that we consider sectional surveys at a future time in order to cover any pertinent colour variety information in surveys of a manageable size. The survey stated that birds entered must be of breeding age and be a standard breed. No quality information can be deduced from this anonymous survey. In the past this has been called a census but it is more accurately described as a survey. A census implies that every possible poultry owner is included, but the reality is that is not achievable. This survey endeavoured to reach as many poultry keepers as possible given our resources and gives us a good idea of what breeds may be at risk in this country. Poultry is eligible to be included on the RBTA Poultry Red List if their status is regarded as being Critical, Endangered, Vulnerable or At Risk. Special priority is now also given to those breeds that have been on the Red List but have shown recent increase in numbers. These breeds are given an Amber status to reflect the need to watch and maintain support as there can be reasons for transient alterations in numbers.

Results 2012 respondents completed the 2019 Survey and 77,420 birds were accounted for in the responses from participants across Australia. The survey attracted approximately two and a half times as many respondents as the 2017 data collection. The respondents were spread across the wider poultry community including both the exhibition community and the rare breed community. Respondents also came from all States and Territories of Australia. This large sample has given us reasonably reliable data from which to draw some conclusions.

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Poultry Survey continued Poultry numbers had generally increased. Twenty poultry breeds moved from the Red List to the Amber List (Recovering) as a result of returning more than 500 adult breeders in the survey. There may be a number of reasons for this and their new status in the Amber List recognises that they need to be watched into the future. Of the twenty-one poultry breeds remaining on the RBTA Red List, three are critically endangered. These are the Sultan, the Yokohama and the Old English Pheasant Fowl. The Sultan and Yokohama have never been seen in big numbers in Australia to my knowledge but they do exist and are held in the hands of a few breeders. The Old English Pheasant Fowl is an Avgen import that has only been here a short time. Some of the imported breeds have taken off and become popular quickly but the Old English Pheasant Fowl has not done that at this stage. What cannot be seen in the list below is the split between bantam and large as the RBTA List deals with breeds as a whole. We did split the data in the survey and the results tells us that a number of large or bantam may be at risk. Examples are: Large Modern Game (98 in the hands of 12 breeders); Bantam Minorca (81 in the hands of 10 breeders); Bantam Malay (113 in the hands of 12 breeders) Bantams (16 in the hands of 3 breeders); Faverolles Bantams (116 in the hands of 13 breeders); Bantams (45 in the hands of 5 breeders) Bantams (13 in the hands of 2 breeders); Bantam Barnevelders (78 in the hands of 8 breeders); Araucana (224 in the hands of 42 breeders) and Andalusian Bantams (70 in the hands of six breeders). Some of these breeds are no longer on the Red or the Amber lists however are at risk in terms of their variety rather than their breed. Poultry breeder numbers were strong. Among the respondents we had an average of 88 breeders per poultry breed, with over 20 breeds having breeder numbers of more than a hundred. The waterfowl did not perform as strongly as the poultry and may be in need of even more support. Just two breeds were moved from the Red List to the Amber List despite increased survey returns. These were the Australian Call and the Indian Runner. The Australian Call in particular has made strong growth from 402 in 2017 to 1366 in 2019. This increase is reflected in the numbers of Australian Calls seen at shows around the country. Indian Runners have always been a popular breed due to their strong egg laying capacity and also their potential as a show bird. They moved from 493 in 2017 to 1201 in 2019. In recent years Runners have been seen in a wider varieties of colours and this may have contributed to their growth as a breed. There are twenty-nine waterfowl breeds remaining on the RBTA Red List. This includes nine on the Critically Endangered List, however one of them, the Pommern, may not be in Australia. It was included in the survey as it is in the Australian Poultry Standards. The remaining eight waterfowl breeds in the Critically Endangered List are: , African , Bali, Pomeranian Geese, Brecon Buff, , Rouen Clair, and the Watervale. Geese performed poorly within the waterfowl section. Most of them fell in the lower parts of the Red List. This may be due to the difficulties of keeping geese in urban and even semi-rural areas these days. The strongest goose breed was the Chinese with 324. Breeder numbers are big factor to consider in the status of breeds and across the entire waterfowl spectrum breeder numbers are consistently low compared to poultry with an average of 24 per breed compared to 88 in poultry. No waterfowl breeds had a hundred or more breeders. The number of waterfowl respondents represented around 13% of the total. This result shows that these species are at-risk to a greater degree. Overall waterfowl should be a huge priority for conservation and it would be good to see efforts made to promote them in a variety of ways.

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Poultry Survey continued Turkeys and Guineafowl were two species where colour varieties were represented in the data. This was an experiment to see how that worked. We had mixed results as people entered numbers that didn’t add up to their totals and we could see that accuracy of the data was in doubt. We chose to work with the given totals rather than the smaller broken up colour variety numbers. In Turkeys we can still follow some trends in the data. The biggest numbers were in Bronze and in White, with solid numbers in Royal Palm, Naragansett, Slate and Bourbon Red. There were quite low numbers of Blacks, Blues and Buffs which all had numbers less than one hundred. We also noticed that in Turkeys, the numbers put them outside of the Red List, however a large percentage of the turkeys were owned by one breeder in South Australia who entered 2000 birds. Overall there were 60 turkey breeders with most having smaller numbers. Without the single bigger breeder, turkeys would return to the Red List. Guineafowl numbers were greatest in Pearl and Pied, closely followed by Lavender. Cinnamon were less common and five breeders claimed to have small numbers of white guineafowl. As a species, Guineafowl are not on the Rare Breeds List. In summary, in this survey poultry appears to have strengthened but waterfowl has shown up as a big area of need. The next survey is expected to take place in 2021 and recommendations for improving the survey are already being recorded and noted for that event.

For more information about the 2019 Rare Breeds Trust of Australia Poultry Survey, please visit http://rarebreedstrust.com.au/public/pages/poultry

This survey was achieved using ‘Survey Monkey’. Cathy Newton kindly organised the survey (for the Rare Breeds Trust of Australia) and put all the data together and did some relevant analysis on the data collected. 7 SEEDHOUSE Proudly supporting rare breeds of poultry in Tasmania 8

HOT AS SHELL Birds lay eggs with a huge variety of colours and patterns, from immaculate white to a range of blue -greens and reddish browns. The need to conceal eggs from predators is one factor that gives rise to all kinds of camouflaged and hard-to-spot appearances. Yet our research, shows that climate is even more important. Dark colours play a crucial role in regulating temperatures in many biological systems. This is particularly common for animals like reptiles, which rely on environmental sources of heat to keep themselves warm. Darker colours absorb more heat from sunlight, and animals with these colours are more commonly found in colder climates with less sunlight. This broad pattern is known as Bogert’s rule. Birds’ eggs are useful for studying this pattern because the developing embryo can only survive in a narrow range of temperatures. But eggs cannot regulate their own temperature and, in most cases, the parent does it by sitting atop the clutch of eggs. In colder environments, where the risk of predators is lower and the risk of chilling in cold temperatures is greater, parents spend less time away from the nest. We predicted that if eggshell colour does play an important role in regulating the temperature of the embryo, birds living in colder environments should have darker eggs. The average colour of eggshells in different areas around the world. Wisocki et al. 2019 'The global distribution of avian eggshell colours suggests a thermoregulatory benefit of darker pigmentation', Nature Ecology & Evolution, Author provided To test the prediction, we measured eggshell brightness and colour for 634 species of birds. That’s more than 5% of all bird species, representing 36 of the 40 large groups of species called orders. We mapped these within each species’ breeding range and found that eggs in the coldest environments (those with the least sunlight) were significantly darker. This was true for all nest types. We also conducted experiments using domestic eggs to confirm that darker eggshells heated up more rapidly and maintained their incubation temperatures for longer than white eggshells. Our results show that darker eggshells are found in places with less sunlight and lower temperatures, and that these darker colours may help keep the developing embryo warm. How future climate change will affect eggshell appearance, as well as the timing of reproduction and incubation behaviour, will be an important and fruitful avenue for future research.

Dr. Gil Stokes brought this object along with him to the DPC Christmas barbecue. Gil is currently selling fertile eggs and most are going to the mainland. He needed a way to post them with minimal damage and located these Styrofoam packages designed just for posting eggs. Gil said that he had found the packaging to be excellent with eggs arriving undamaged. Also there was little else that needed doing when packaging the eggs for posting. The container slides so it can be adjusted to fit different sized eggs. Once the eggs are placed in container it is pushed closed (gently) and taped in place to keep the eggs secure. Logo a bit hard to read? Eggspress Safe. Phone 0419 859 699 9

FERMENTED FEED GUIDE Fermented feed is a GREAT way to get healthy *living* enzymes & probiotics into your birds, as well as additional protein and vitamins & nutrients, because it ramps up the digestibility of dry feed exponentially.

There are multiple methods for fermenting feed and everyone has their own tips and tricks. I employ the 'rotation fermentation' method as it is super-easy, there is no straining or draining, less mess, less chance of spoilage, and it only takes a few minutes of my time each day.

ROTATION FERMENTATION: BASIC INSTRUCTIONS FOR GETTING STARTED See more detailed information and photos below. On Day 1, fill a glass jar or other food-safe container with 1/3 feed and 1/3 filtered or untreated water; leave 1/3 empty as the grain will expand quite a bit. Stir well to ensure all the feed becomes wet. Add a lid *LOOSELY* and set the container aside. On Day 2, repeat Step 1 in a separate container and set the new container next to Day 1; stir the contents of Day 1. On Day 3, repeat Step 1 in a separate container and set the new container next to Day 1 and Day 2; stir the contents of Day 1 and Day 2. On Day 4, repeat Step 1 in a separate container and set the new container next to Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3; stir the contents of Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3. On Day 5, use the fermented chicken feed from Day 1 (it has now fermented for 4 days) to feed your flock. If it is very liquidly, add a bit of dry feed to soak up the extra water--the consistency should be akin to a thick oatmeal. Rinse out your container and repeat Step #1. Stir the contents of Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4. Repeat each day: feed off the oldest container and begin a new batch in that container so that there are always 4 buckets in various stages of ferment, with 4 days being the longest duration. Stir the contents of each bucket once a day. (Some folks will insist you have to stir it 2 - 4 times a day, but it ferments the same with being stirred just once.) Be sure to label or arrange your containers in a way that allows you to keep track of which container is oldest. You can actually start all the buckets at once and begin offering it the morning after--it won't be completely fermented in just one day, but your birds will still love it! Because feed ferments faster in warmer temperatures, you may need to cut back to a 3-day rotation during the Summer months, depending on your climate and where you are keeping your fermenting project.

Note from editor Above is part of an article I copied directly. The article continues on giving more in-depth information on everything from types of grain to smell to amounts to use for different sized flocks. I have been fermenting the Seedhouse ‘hardworking hen’ mix for many years now and find it an excellent choice for this procedure. Being partly crushed it lends itself very well to the fermentation process. I have found that during the summer three days is long enough unless you are fortunate enough to have a cool area to keep it in. Four days does yield a better fermentation and works well during the cooler months. I feed this food to my day old as well as all my other birds. I mix the orego-stim in the water used to ferment and this way the chickens get a health tonic from day one. For those of you who do not realise the value of fermenting grains for poultry, fermentation releases trapped nutrients and proteins and generates probiotics which are marvellous for fighting coccidiosis. 10

Oatlands School Poultry Show Ellis Dick judged at the Oatlands School poultry show and fair that was held on November 23rd 2019. There were forty five birds benched. Sally and Matthew Paine helped out bringing a ute load of pens through from Brighton to be used for the day. Marcus Green won Champion Bird of show with a Dutch Bantam hen bred from the line that Jill Weaver gifted to the school.

Marcus Green being presented with a prize Ellis presenting Jenny with a book on donated by Ellis and Lorna Dick. stewarding and an Australian Poultry Standards from his poultry collection to add to the school’s collection of books.

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The Devonport Poultry Club annual Christmas barbecue early in December was well attended with twenty eight members turning up and eight apologies. As usual there was plenty of food with new potatoes freshly dug from Ellis’s garden and an enormous pavlova made by Lorna. We had our usual game of pass the parcel and a grand tour of the antiques and poultry.

Above left: Mark Maloney and Brady Robins en- joying looking about Lorna’s garden. Above: Jenny and some students from the Oatlands School checking out some of Ellis’s chickens in the brooder. Bottom left: a group of children watching Ellis judge at the school fair. 12

Devonport Poultry Club 2020 Open Show. Saturday 27 th June 9.00am Feature breed, Belgian Bantam Judge: Mal McDougall (OLD) all Cash prize of $100.00 for Champion Bird in Show, Reserve Champion $25.00 & other sections $25.00 Junior 16 & under, Champion Bird, Encouragement award & ribbons Sponsored by Michael Gaffney Annual Show Saturday 25th July 9.00am Feature breed all Hardfeather Large Judges: Ray Ubrihien (NSW) Stephen Bailey (NSW) Cash prize of $150.00 Champion Bird in Show, Reserve Champion $50.00. $50.00 for all section champions, George Harding perpetual shield, for Champion Softfeather Bantam. Ron Harris Memorial, for Best ribbon, Junior 16 & under Champion Bird will receive $50.00 cash Encouragement award & ribbons, Sponsored by Michael Gaffney MLC.

Light lunch available at all our Shows $10.00 per person (plus tea & coffee). A social evening is held at the clubrooms after each show. Judge will be in attendance. New members most welcome. Devonport Poultry Club, Face Book

Devonport Poultry Club. Secretary/Treasurer, Lorna Dick Post Office Wesley Vale 7307 Phone 0364284075 or 0407889196 E-mail [email protected] Entry fees: Members $2.00 per bird for the first 20 birds then $1.00per bird. Non members $3.00 per bird. Membership: Adult $10.00, junior $5.00, Family $25.00

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The Derbyshire Redcap

The Redcap, commonly known as the Derbyshire Redcap because it was developed in Derbyshire, is a true native, being one of the oldest dual purpose breeds developed in . It is also known as the ‘Coral’ because of its colour. The breed originated in 1870 and was popular until the mid 1900’s. The Redcap was probably made up from golden Hamburgh, Old English Pheasant Fowl, Dorking and black-breasted red game fowl.

Farmers used the breed to cross with other backyard poultry to produce good layers. (It was this practice that brought about the near extinction of the breed.) The breed was recognised for the amount of breast meat it carried as well as its egg laying ability.

The name ‘Redcap’ comes from its exceptionally large which can measure up to 3 ¼ inches long and 2 ¾ inches wide on an adult male. The females also have a large comb being about half the size of the male. The pullet will develop her large comb just as she comes on to lay.

The Redcaps come in just the one colour and both sexes are coloured identically except the male will display a greater diversity of colour taking up to three years to reach his full glory. The black appearance is actually spangling (half-moon shaped tips) on the end of each feather, with plain black tails. They also have lovely large bright red wattles and slate coloured legs.

The Redcap is a non-broody breed seldom going broody which encourages them to be winter layers. They are excellent foragers and love to . It is said they need very little feeding compared to other large breeds as they will forage for most of their food if they have a large enough area to do so. They can also fly well. The hens lay a white egg although some will lay a slightly tinted egg. Eggs will weigh from 48 grams up to 55 grams depending on the age of hen.

Weights are, an adult male up to 2.95 kilos (6 ½ lbs.); an adult female up to 2.50 kilos (5 ½ lbs.)

I would describe the temperament of the bird as being very much in touch with their natural survival instincts. A wary, untrusting bird agile on its feet and quick to react to any perceived danger. It would have been a sought after trait with farmers in England presumably giving the bird a bit of an edge when it came to foxes!

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