Back to utilitypoultry.co.uk My challenge to every poultry and waterfowl keeper and breeder however small is : Your birds are part of the national poultry flock and could be vital in improving stocks in the future. Whenever you breed you are playing a part in which direction they breed goes. WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED IN SOME WAY OF RECORDING YOUR BIRDS PRODUCTIVITY? - CLICK HERE

There are a great number of people interested in having birds in their back garden or smallholding that have the features and productivity of days gone by. A few enthusiastic folk in the United Kingdom have begun chatting to each other and trying to work out ways to increase our knowledge of the birds in the country and of the skills from the old days that were used to create the best birds. We will be hoping over the next years to all do our small part. TROUP is not an organisation or club, a statement of fact and a wish of owners nad breeders to work together.

The finances of keeping large numbers of one breed are probably beyond reach now. In the past people like Mr Clem Shaw (White Wyandotte) would have kept 3 - 5000 birds; all tagged and trap nested so that for each egg that hatched they could tell who its parents were and their productivity - coupled with records of what each chick turned out like meant that very intensive control and selection was possible. That took many man hours and I would doubt if that work will be emulated again on that scale.

Here at Kintaline, like most new places we know, we have decided to have a number of breeds - all utility stock - so we can best provide the needs of our customers. We only have space and finance for relatively few birds of each breed -(although more per breed than many places that have lots of breeds). It would be great to only have a few breeds but in ourlocation with so few breeders in Scotland we can't. However we will be concentrating our selection efforts on certain breeds we feel need more work. We will rely on other breeders having favourites and getting fresh lines from them if the need arises. So all of us that are involved in the future of utility poultry will now be reliant on there being a number of people doing the same as us so that nationally there will be a wide enough quality gene pool.

On this website we aim to explore the history of each breed in this country - what the best lines have been and what the characteristics were that the great breeders looked for.