A Guide to Practical Breeding A Guide to Practical Breeding First edition, 2012 | Page 15

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Practicality, Realism
Game fowl breeding is not only complicated, it is also time- consuming and expensive. Thus, it is tagged as domain of the rich. Small
timers may be able to challenge the big timers for supremacy in other aspects of cockfighting such as selection, knife tying, conditioning and
handling, but not in breeding. Because breeding, supposedly, does not
only require substantial capital investment in breeding stock, land and
facilities, it also demands quality time from one’s self, as well as, paid
manpower and expensive technology that are beyond the reach of ordinary chicken lovers.. Plus the fact that game fowl breeding is a hit and
miss affair, meaning it is like lottery wherein we always hope to hit some
prizes but more often than not end up with nothing. In this regard, the
more advantage the rich breeders enjoy, because they will have the luxury of more brood fowl which is
same as buying more lottery
tickets, thus, improving their
Maybe, we can still pursue chances of hitting a jackbreeding even under less-than- pot.
ideal conditions? Anyway, in
Most books on game
fowl breeding begin in discusscockfighting, each one of us, like
water, seeks his own level. ing the huge amount necessary to
Maybe we could just set our start up, therefore, disqualifying
outright the ordinary aficionado
breeding goals to the demands of who dreams of someday producthe level and the standards of ing game fowl of his own creacircuits we intend to compete in? tion. Well, this is proper and
true. But that’s when talking of
nothing but the ideal situation. It
doesn’t, however, mean that
those of us who could not afford
the ideal situation, could no longer try. Otherwise, this would mean that
ordinary chicken lovers no longer have the right, or chance to face the
challenges in game fowl breeding and experience the enjoyment in trying, or the satisfaction in reaping the fruits of their labor?
Maybe, we can still pursue breeding even under less-than-ideal
conditions? Anyway, in cockfighting, each one of us, like water, seeks
his own level. Maybe we could just set our breeding goals to the demands of the level and the standards of circuits we intend to compete in?
Maybe less expensive but acceptably good breeding materials will do.
For after all, breeding is so complicated that one could not ascertain the
outcome. Sometimes, the most beautiful brood stock produce mediocre
offspring while average parents produce outstanding progeny. The reason
for this is that we only judge the parents based on the traits we see or
phenotype. It may not be enough, because, there are characteristics we
could not see, the genotype. Therefore a beautiful and superb fighter for a
brood cock does not guarantee success