"...when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another Heaven and another Earth must pass before such a one can be again."
-William Beebe

Heritage Turkeys || Chickens || Biosecurity || Financial Resources || Getting Started || Protocols

Chickens

• ALBC's Chicken Assessment for Improving Productivity
• Learn more about Heritage Chicken and raising Heritage Chickens

Chicken Assessment for Improving Productivity
This outline for selecting desirable production traits in chickens was developed as part of an American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC) pilot project to recover breed production characteristics of endangered poultry. These guidelines are from well-established parameters developed by “old school” poultrymen, as documented in some of the early to mid-20th century poultry texts. This once commonplace knowledge and practice has become unknown to most modern chicken farmers due to the ready availability of chicks that can be purchased from large hatcheries.

ALBC offers this information for free download in an effort to support small-scale poultry keeping. Hard copies may be obtained from ALBC at a charge for printing at ALBC store's poultry page.

• Chapter 1. Selecting for Meat Qualities and Rate of Growth (PDF, 470K)
• Chapter 2. Selecting for Egg Production (PDF, 344K)
• Chapter 3. Ongoing Selection of Breeding Stock (PDF, 291K)

Additional useful forms:

• Toe Punch Chart (PDF, 169K)
• Chick Assessment Form (PDF, 15K)
• Breeder Qualification Form (PDF, 20K)
• Satellite Consignment Agreement (PDF, 35K)
• Breeder/Hatchery Agreement (PDF, 32K)
• ALBC Chicken Breed Comparison Sheet (PDF, 40KB)

Heritage Chicken:
Check-out the Heritage Chicken section of our website for more helpful resources. Learn how Heritage Chicken is defined, discover what breeds of chickens are considered Heritage, use our pick-a-chic chart to learn what breed of chicken might be a good fit for your farm, and more!

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