January 2010 Newsletter

The January 2010 Newsletter has been mailed or emailed to all current members. If you received your past copies by email and have changed your email address, please contact Richard Lewis, our newsletter editor, or one of the officers with your changed information. Emailing newsletters saves Richard time and it also saves the club from extra expense.

If by chance you read this message and did not get your current edition, please let us know and we'll get one to you ASAP. We want each of you to enjoy raising your Dominiques and to keep current with all that the club can offer.

'The American Dominique' almost sold out!

Mr. Mark Fields, author of The American Dominique, currently has 14 copies of this book left for sale. When these 14 copies are gone, there will be no additional copies made... that will be it!

The cost of each hard back book with the dust cover is $55.00, postage paid. The check or money order should be payable to Mark A. Fields.




The check should be mailed to:
Mr. Mark A. Fields
1410 Ridgemont Crt.
Columbia, MO 65203

Recent Club News: August 21, 2009

I regretfully anounce that Bryan Oliver has stepped down as Club Secretary and newsletter editor. His change in jobs, new and extra duties and other restraints have absorbed the time that he used to have to help keep the club going in the past years. These types of changes and opportunities come for all of us and we can only be thankful to Bryan for his past outstanding efforts. He still plans to attend the Nationals and set up a club table with coffee mugs and other items for sale and breed promotion. If you get to attend, please stop by and thank him for his service.

In the meanwhile, the rest of the officers will be taking on some extra duties to do what we can to fill his shoes. We'll be getting out a newsletter and will be seeking some nominations or suggestions for both the secretary position as well as the newsletter editor. This is your club, so let us hear your input. Until then, please feel free to contact any of the other officers and we'll try to help as we can.

Thank you,

Eddie Martin

June Message from the President

Summer Greetings from the Dominique Club of America

Many of you are probably in the midst of raising this year’s birds. Some of you are still setting eggs and looking for those best replacement or show birds. No matter if you’re finished or not, there are a few things that you might want to contemplate.

The Dominique hen is a dual purpose chicken (eggs/meat) and yet she can lay for most of the year. If your birds have been in production since late January, February or March, they have used any stored body calcium for egg shells long ago. Even with the best of available laying feed it is still good to provide extra calcium to the hens as oyster shell or in some other source.

If you are selecting hens for egg laying abilities, the summer and fall are the times to look over your hens and see which ones are still laying eggs and have not gone into early moult. The longer a hen waits to moult, the longer she lays in the season. So, selection for egg production is not just about size of the egg as you also need to make sure that the hen lays most of the year.

Odd shaped eggs, rough textured egg shells, thin egg shells and other unusual things should be avoided. You might want all of your eggs to be one shade of brown, but that is a hard thing to breed for specifically in Dominiques. Egg size can vary and nobody likes little eggs. Just be sure that when you cull for egg size that you do not cull your best type birds. You can always slowly increase egg size over the generations by breeding hens that lay smaller eggs with males that are selected from the larger hatching eggs.

Older hens will usually lay fewer eggs. If you have a top notch hen, it will be worth keeping her as a breeder with fewer eggs. You really should only compare hens of similar ages in egg production.

The final thing that has been researched and proven is that adult weight of breeders increase with selection for larger eggs. Check the standard and weigh a few of your birds to be sure that your goal does not get you out of range with standard weights.

Thanks for visiting the club’s web site.

Eddie

February Message from the President

Hello Dominique enthusiasts and club members,

Spring is almost in the air in the warmer climates and it is time to be stirring around in the hen house. The club will have a double sized newsletter out to you in March. It will have the useful articles that you have grown to expect as well a show report from the Nationals in Ohio and much more. I truly apologize for the tardiness of the newsletters in the past few quarters.

Some of the officers have been hindered with family health issues and other matters. Let me thank you for your patience with the delays. The club will do all that we can to get the publishing back on a timely schedule. The officers are open to suggestions, so let us hear from you on this topic.

Some have already suggested going to just two “double sized” newsletters per year. Other club members have volunteered to write an article or send in pictures. Please consider what you can do to flesh out the newsletters and to, generally, get the message out that the Dominique breed is alive and growing. Let us know what you are doing, too. We can get your accomplishments in the next newsletter so that others can build on your success.

What would be a useful tip to all of us at this time of the year? Are you setting up the early breeding pens? As you begin this process, be sure and cull any hens and pullets that lay poor quality or misshaped eggs. It will save you feed, it will give your roosters only the best hens to breed and your hatching percentage should go up. Boost the oyster shells or calcium supply to your hens to keep those egg shells as thick as possible.

Thank you for your interest my favorite breed of chicken.

Eddie Martin, Club President