The domestic turkey is a much larger bird than its wild counterpart.
Remember how I said that a certain image comes to my mind when the words “golden retriever” are mentioned? I think of a lightly build reddish colored beast that is not very exaggerated in appearance.
Well, the same thing happens when someone mentions the word “turkey.” No, not the country.
When I think of turkey, I think of where I grew up in rural West Virginia, where wild turkeys were common. I don’t think of a 30 or 40 pound white bird that cannot fly. I don’t think of them as incredibly stupid animals, which is what the domestic turkey is.
To me, it’s a wild animal that is hunting for game. It’s a bird that almost went extinct because of market hunted and the destruction of its woodland habitat. Like white-tailed deer, the wild turkey does well when the land is a mixture of tall timber, transition areas, and open ground. During the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, most of the tall timber was felled and the land cultivated in corn and hay. This type of environment was perfect for the bobwhite, which often thought of as a quail even though it is not related to the Old World Coturnix species.
However, much of Appalachian and Northeastern farms were abandoned following the economic boom that followed just a few years after the Second World War. A wave of industrialization moved farmers into the cities, as many people from my native West Virginia moved to the steel towns of Northeast Ohio. Others moved to automotive plants, where their standard fo living increased.
But they abandoned the farms. By the 1970’s, the bobwhites were experiencing a sudden change in their environment. The old fields they once used began to return to the forest from which they came. Bobwhites soon lost their habitat. Bad winters in this part of the country wound up finishing off the large stocks of bobwhite. Their numbers are very low in most of West Virginia today.
Not so with the wild turkey. The wild turkey was gradually reintroduced to the state using what remained of the wild stock. Some landowners stocked them using hybrid birds, but these birds failed to thrive. It was only when birds with lots of wild turkey genes in them were reintroduced that the bird took hold in West Virginia.
The local flock in the area where my ancestral farm lies numbers 15 to 20 birds. These flocks separate during the summer months, when the hens go off to raise their young. It’s not uncommon in June or July to see two or three hens working along a fenceline with about a dozen or so poults following them.
The wild turkey, in this case the subspecies called the Eastern Wild turkey, differs from his domestic counterpart in several ways. He is a svelt and trim animal, capable of running great distances to escape predators. He also can fly over several hundred yards. I have seen flocks of them fly across the Little Kanawha River, usually one at a time.
A big male Eastern wild turkey, known locally as a “tom,” can weigh over 20 pounds. It is roughly half the size of its domestic counterpart. The hens are usually smaller, usually no more than 10 pounds.
The wild turkey differs as much from the domestic turkey as the coyote differs from the St. Bernard.
These birds differ as much from the domestic birds as coyotes differ from St. Bernards. The wild birds are cautious birds that will run or take flight from even the slightest disturbance. The domestic birds are bred for such large breasts now that those that are factory farmed can no longer breed naturally. AI is the only way to produce many of the turkeys you buy in the supermarket.
The wild bird has a better flavor to its meat. It is less dry than the domestic. However, in my state, hunters are strictly limited to the number than can be killed during the fall season (only in selected counties) and the spring season (which is most of the state). No one wants to see the wild turkey disappear again.
The two birds will interbreed. I do know of some people who had free range white turkeys that suddenly hatched out black colored poults. However, most farmers do not let their domestic turkeys roam free as they once did, simply because they are too tempting for the coyotes. One breed, the Narragansett Turkey is an intentional hybrid between the two species.
Currently, domestic turkeys lack genetic diversity. Although several breeds have been developed over the years, the factory farmed birds are required to be white. No one wants a black feather on a turkey breast.
So the number top breed in production now is the broad breasted white. It is been heavily inbred to produce much more meat on its breast. Because of this breeding, the genetic diversity of the domestic turkey is low. Yes, we’ve screwed up yet another domesticated animal. Some small farmers are trying to stop this by breeding heritage turkeys.
I should note here that domestic turkeys descend from the southern Mexican subspecies, where they were domesticated by one of the farming cultures native to that region before Europeans got here. They are not derived from the Eastern subspecies at all.
And not all domestic turkeys are big breasted and giant. The rare Norfolk black and Cambridge bronze turkeys are very similar to wild turkeys in their conformation. (In Britain, the males are called “stags.”) The standard bronze turkey of the United States is also closer to this conformation.
Perhaps it is through these rare domestic strains that the domestic turkey can be saved.
I saw a TV program a few years ago, about farms that raise only rare breeds of livestock — alternative milk cows and chickens, for example — that you never see today. They described how the flavor of those breeds’ milk, eggs, and meat are different than what we all now think ‘an egg’ or ‘beef’ tastes like. The show told of how some of the old milk cow breeds make more delicious milk than Holsteins, but they didn’t make as much as that now-universal milk breed, so they were discarded.
It made me kind of sad to know that variety is largely gone from the food we eat nowadays, lost in favor of valuing sheer volume over quality.
It’s not just livestock. I don’t think the average American really knows what a good summer squash tastes like or the true essence of a tomato.
I’m glad I grew up where I did, even though everyone makes fun of us.
Milk from Ayrshire cattle is particularly good, but it’s not marketable. The cows are too spirited to be factory farmed, and they have a bit higher fat content in their milk.
My mother’s family never bought milk, vegetables, or meat. It was all produced on their acreage. To steal the Scottish term, my mother’s family were “crofters.”
What also worries me about genetic diversity of farm animals is that there could be an epidemic of some sort that affects the major strains of a particular species of farm animal. What happens if there is a disease that mainly affects the large breasted white turkeys and kills them all? That’s the end of the turkey as a farm animal, but if we have another strain built up from one of those lesser known breeds, then we might stand a chance. Genetic diversity is something we have to think about. It is that diversity that allows evolution to happen. No diversity, no novel mutations. No novel mutations means no chance for beneficial mutations.
I know you’re in a breed that has a novel mutation or two. But what if there wass situation in a hairless dog had some kind of competitive advantage over a coated dog? I mean it’s not too far fetched. We apparently have some advantage over chimps and bonobos, because they are critically endangered and there are billions of us. We don’t know what that advantage is, although there is one interesting theory called the “Aquatic Ape Hypothesis.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis
Ah, but the mexican hairless gene was a positive mutation! In South America, coated animals and livestock can quickly become flea infested — many diaries of the Conquistadors mention how fleas and lice seem to be everywhere. Xolos were one of the few animals that could be kept in homes and near humans without becoming infested or sickened from all the hair-borne parasites and spreading them to people. Xolo skin is so thick, it can be hard to even vaccinate/stitch it, let alone allow a flea or tick to get through to reach blood. Hairlessness was truly one of the reasons they were so revered and thrived as they did for thousands of years.
Also, apparently they’re pretty tasty, and the regions where they were widespread lacked many livestock species until Westerners introduced them. Hairless dogs were basically a ‘jack of all trades’ pet/food animal/religious icon for the indigenous cultures.
Like all domestic dogs, of course, their success was just as strongly based on how well their mutation suited the humans they lived with, as much as it was helpful to the dog itself.
Cresteds are basically longhaired variants of toy Xolos. Most have lost the thick skin/true nakedness that served their parent breed for so long. Like most toy breeds, they’re not really ‘practical’ outside of being cute and friendly. =)
Dog evolution has always been strongly symbiotic with our own. I would not be shocked if breeds created specifically to excel at Flyball/Agility arise in the future… like a type of modern ‘working breed’. Hunting and Herding are no longer the main reasons humans keep dogs, it’s only natural for their design to shift to suit new niches in our modern life.
That’s really interesting.
Cuteness is also a beneficial mutation. I mean which would you rather feed: a dingo or a cute pekingese? It’s also likely that South American Indians were less likely to eat the hairless ones. In Mexico, dog eating was something of a big deal among the farming civilzations (Aztec etc).
I think the future of dogs is much as you state. Although I don’t see hunting or herding disappearing, the I do see the closed registry system of the dog fancy slowly eroding. In 50 years, we’ll be breeding flat-coats, goldens, Labs, and probably Irish setters together to increase gentetic diversity. The guide dog organizations produce Lab/golden crosses. And then there are the doodles.
As for your breed, I don’t know what its future is. I find it strange that the Chinese crested dominated the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest the way Goldens dominate obedience.
I’m of the school that some of the dog’s cognitive abilities have been increased because of domestication (This is a newer school than the one that basically says a dog is a mentally deficient wolf). I think that these abilities are only increasing as we breed for greater trainability in our dogs.
Well, to be honest, most of the Ugliest Dog contestants are largely either crossbred, ancient (‘Sam’ was almost 20 with cataracts and other ailments which ‘enhanced’ his appearance), often have terribly-maintained skin or are puppymill-bred. Just read the bios for the ’08 contestants:
http://www.sonoma-marinfair.org/uglydogvote08.shtml
I mean, compare those with the random Google image results for ‘Chinese Crested’ and you will see they are not typical examples of the breed. I personally take issue with a contest that seems to glorify sickly dogs, nevermind the horrible breed PR it creates.
I, too, hope that the closed registry system fades into more progressive concepts of ‘breed health’. The mexican hairless gene, being dominant, can easily withstand selective outcrossing to ensure genetic diversity of the breed.
I’ve said many times how lucky Cresteds were, for having been products of extensive crossing during their creation in the 20s and 30s, and having been only recently absorbed into the AKC. They’re a young breed, and they still have time before the genetic bottleneck tightens too far — hopefully the breed clubs and show culture itself can evolve without needing a health crisis to spur them.
“Sam” was part Chihuahua, I think.
Yeah, they’re not like the show dogs at all.
I wonder why they don’t enter a coarse, lumbering exaggerated golden retriever in those contests, because I’d say they are by far uglier. But that’s just me.
Goldens as we know them are roughly the same age as the Cresteds. All “golden retrievers” that existed before that were interbred with black wavy or flat-coats and even yellow labs until they were separated entirely in 1916 in Britain and either 1921 or 1938 in the United States.
Do Working Golden breeders still make those crosses? I’d think Flatcoats could benefit a lot if that was allowed again; I’m guessing the near-endemic cancer rate they have is not a problem in Working Golden lines?
I’d have a flat-coat if it were not for the cancer. Seriously, they are on average much more drivey than the typical golden of average pet or show breeding. And yes, they could benefit from the outcross, as could goldens. The flat-coat stopped being the top field dog after World War I. Some conspiracies suggest that a borzoi was crossed in to narrow the head, and as soon as that rumor got started, people stopped using them. I think some of the split with the goldens had to do with the rising bad reputation that flat-coats were getting, and it’s probably the reason why they came up with crazy story that these dogs came from Russian circus dogs rather than being an important strain of the flat-coat. The truth is that flat-coats the first retrievers to be standardized for the show, and this did hurt them a bit. However, I think a lot of this malarkey about the borzoi cross and the degeneration of the flat-coat was a rumor. It’s not as screwy as the show Lab or Golden.
But no one does it. I never have. And for me to even suggest it would prevent me from ever owning a good golden ever again.
The Lab, the flat-coat, and the golden started out as basically the same dog. It’s kind of like if we went through border collies and made all the short-haired ones a single breed, then from the long-hairs made the black and whites a separate breed from the red and whites, the Australian reds, and the merles. Then breed all three to an arbitrary standard.
If you look at top trial goldens, flatties, and Labs from early twentieth century. They are all essentially the same dog, and only the flat-coat maintains the working conformation in its show type. One of the top sires of the flat-coat at this time was derived from a liver flat-coat and a golden (they were the same breed so no one cared). The golden used in the cross was a cream color (a light gold by today’s standards not one of those “white” ones), and this reintroduced the cream coloration in the flat-coat, which pops up now and again. One of the founding strains of the golden as a separate breed was the Culham line bred by Lord Harcourt. The Culhams were all interbred with black flat coats, because Lord Harcourt had both colors. These dogs were all dark gold and even mahogany in color, and these introduced the darker yellows into the flat-coat, when the black puppies bred by Lord Harcourt were registered as flat-coats. There’s also a yellow Lab that produced a few golden field champions and a few Lab field champions.
Some of these divisions get a little strange. Norwich and Norfolk terriers originally differed only because Norwiches had erect ears and Norfolk terriers had floppy ears. West Highland white terriers are white cairn terriers. Goldens are really yellow or reddish flat-coats that still have the wavy-coated genes in them. And both originally differed from Labs in only coat length and texture. The only differences that exist in all of these breeds is that they have been bred for generation to different standards.
I don’t know how would we maintain show standards under a cross breeding regime. Goldens always varied in type, even before the split between show and field strains.
Now, how similar are the small xolos to cresteds in terms of conformation?
Well, there were scandals in the late 50’s, early 60’s, after the Xolo lost it’s AKC ‘Miscellaneous’ recognition, because some of the toy types were rumored as being smuggled into the ring as Chinese Cresteds. This was one of the reasons Cresteds lost their Misc recognition in ’65, because people started getting suspicious as to how much substitution was going on, and the breed club refused to publicize the stud books. There was no separate U.S. club for Xolos and Cresteds — they shared the same registry for years and the breed’s founders were very opposed to splitting it.
To this day, you can often see ‘very hairless Cresteds’ which look a lot like toy Xolos. These are the ones which are almost totally bare except for a ‘mohawk’ of hair on their head… I guess you could call them throwbacks. Really, the major difference between the two is that Cresteds are long haired rather than short haired, and are supposed to have lots of hair on their extremities rather than being truly hairless like the Xolo. Structural differences (like the head, overall proportions, ears, and tail) are minimal.
The Crested breed standard is also pretty vague, which just encourages a lack of a distinct ‘type’. Nobody’s really been -trying- to breed towards a strong structural difference from toy Xolos. In a way, that’s a good thing, because variety has been preserved as different breeders tend to develop their own ‘styles’ which are still considered correct.
The American water spaniel also lost its status with the AKC around this time. It’s not that common anyway.
At one time, type variances were encouraged in the golden retrievers. There was a dog in the 1950’s named “Am. Dual CH/AFC Craigmar Dustrack OS FDHF.” This dog could never be shown today. He was a really lanky dog, very dark. He’s pictured in Getrude Fischer’s The New Complete Golden Retriever. http://www.amazon.com/New-Complete-Golden-Retriever/dp/0876051859
His litter with Ch. Pele of Flarewin (who was a very similar dog) is also shown in the de riguer chapter on breeding a litter. These dogs were champions in the show ring, but you’d never see a dog like them today in any show. The blockier ones were also shown at this time, but they weren’t the only type seen. Even when I was growing up, I remember seeing goldens like this in the show ring at Westminster as the best of breed competing in the Sporting Group.
I will say one thing about Chinese Cresteds: they have not become so popular that casual breeders and puppy mill people have been mass producing them. Although as small dogs, they are probably entering into the puppy mill industry. As soon as someone figured they could make a buck selling “rare, white goldens” for over $2,000. You can find the sites if you google them. I won’t link to them for obvious reasons.
The golden standard has been rewritten several times. The 1936 KC/FCI standard essentially bans darker colors in the breed. This is why so many European goldens are “white.” That 1936 standard also lowered the minimum height at the shoulders by 2 inches, but did nothing to adjust the weight requirements. That’s why the English types are so cobby and lumbering. They are “white,” heavily-boned, basset goldens with Newfoundland heads.
There was no real debate on separating the golden and the flat-coat. They were interbred, though, until 1916, when the KC said that it could no longer happen. Of course, by then the yellow genes were now deep within the flat-coated retriever’s foundational bloodline. On “The Life of Jalo” link on my blogroll, you can see a yellow flatcoat in Finland that lives with two black flatties and European golden retriever. (I actually think the yellow flattie (“Luka”) looks more like a golden than the European golden retriever.)
If cresteds are so closely related to Xolos, then why don’t people assume that the Xolo is the ancestral breed of the crested? Their Chinese origin stories sound a lot like the story that was accepted as truth that golden retrievers were of Russian origin, even though they were interbred with flat-coats from the beginning. I don’t remember anyone complaining when the two were separated, although there was some debate on whether golden retrievers, which are reddish or yellow in color, were nothing more than a different shade of liver. That’s why color gets so confusing in the early days. A liver flat-coat could be a golden. One line of goldens was started when a sportsman purchased what he thought was a liver flat-coat. The dog’s original owners offered him for sale as a liver flat-coat, even though he had a black nose and black lips with a reddish colored coat! (Liver dogs have brown skin, but it could get confusing if the dog had been a mahogany red with brown skin. The genetics of the color is very different, because black skinned yellow or reds are really blacks, and brown-skinned ones are really livers. They just have another gene that changes their coat color.)
Mahogany goldens are very rare, but they do exist. The breed’s first dual champion in the UK was “Balcombe Boy.” He was very, very dark red in color (darker than Noranby Diana– the dog on my avatar.)
I’m always confused when breed clubs cling to fanciful stories about their breed’s history, when anyone who seriously researches it can find the truth. I think it’s important to know your ancestor/related breeds, in the event that a backcross is needed for whatever reason.
The problem with Cresteds, is that early on books were published that went on about the ‘ancient China’ shpiel, and everyone assumes that if it was in a book, it was true! Even modern dog publications are still repeating it. Few people in the breed even seem to know it. The only book I’ve ever read that shows heavily researched proof and history of the breed is ‘Hairless Dogs: The Naked Truth’ by Kelly Rhae. Most other Chinese Crested breed books are useless, in my opinion, they just repeat the same old drivel.