We got Marsh Daisies.
Actually, I got them.
Thomas said he liked those birds, there were very scarce then. And the internet was not like today. But I always get what I put my mind to. So I found some birds like those ones that Thomas liked, and we bred them.
The first year we bred infinite birds. They were lovely and our starter group possessed a great genetic variation, our second generation displayed all sort of traits. Some of them good, most of them fitted the breed description.
I remember looking on line, going crazy with the little information available then, and the discrepancies on the descriptions depending on the author or the year the poultry publication was made. It was not very well defined. Little I knew then that Marsh Daisies come as well in all variety of colours. This is the text I went by:
“John Wright and Charles Moore of Lancashire created the Marsh Daisy from a mixture of breeds between 1880 and 1913. […] The Marsh Daisy copes admirably with swampy, marshy land and that is where the name comes from […]. The breed was almost lost into extinction but a flock was discovered in Somerset in the 1970s where it was thriving. However, it is still a very rare breed today. It is a small bird for a heavy breed and is seen in several colour varieties, all having a large rose comb, white earlobes, willow green legs and horn coloured toenails. The tail is held at 45′ and the breast is nicely rounded. They are very similar in build to the game birds. The plumage of the male is gold turning to red then black towards the tail, which has black sickles. The female is wheaten with neck hackles which are chestnut edged with black. The eyes are red and the rose comb is bright red. They make excellent table birds with well-flavoured flesh. There is no bantam version.”
That plumage description actually misses the several colour varieties and matched more likely what I later discovered to be a brown bird carrying wheaten genes. But we are not getting very specific about this here. There is a UK website dedicated to the breed. More accurate and updated information can be found there. What happened is that with no resources, no other breeders in sight, and getting no many eggs, no much meat, flying birds (yes! They fly, and they roost in the highest of trees, and escape and hide in the hedges…) We gave up and mixed our MDs with our layers to simplify our lives. We ate a few chicken legs and soups that year. But that was not the end of it. It actually was about the get exciting. Well…, only two years later.
Kestle Alpacas 