Mr John Skinner
Middleton - Wisconsin - USA

September 29, 1985

Dear Mr Skinner,

I received your letter of 9-18-1985. I also got a copy of Mr Plant’s supplement to chicken bone recoveries, and you understand he was asking me a lot on this subject. So first I wrote the letter on Houwink’s book and the Dutch Standard information. But he also wanted an answer on the Araucana question. And a comment on his theory. But this is very difficult for me. His theory is good as the theory in the chicken book written by an historian and a biologist (a grouse x chicken cross). But to answer your question I think I was not as positive in my answer as in Mr Plant’s book. I think to remember to have used the word if. If it is possible to cross a chicken and a common pheasant and have fertile descendants so why not a grouse x chicken cross.

About the fertile descendants of a pheasant x chicken cross I remembered an article in our poultry: magazine Avicultura from years ago. It was written by Mr J.L.Meijer, I believe you have met him when he visited your country, His story which he wrote around 20 years ago is never denied by other authors in the paper or by the people he mentioned in his article.

During a holiday he visited a fancier Stutvoet at Doesburg, who told Meijer the start of his Brabanter breeding:

"25 years ago there was a farmer who lived near a forest and he kept a few Leghorn hens without a male. On a day one of his hens came out of the forest with 2 very shy chickens, a white one and one with a pheasant colour. Stutvoet was interested in the 2 little birds and could have them. But when the birds were large enough to miss the hen the coloured chicken was set out in the forest and he got only the white bird. Stutvoet gave it a place in an aviary, was very shy and became a white hen with a kind of leaf comb and a beard. These details was given to the Institute for the poultry culture at Beekbergen. The director Ir. de Vries studied the bird but could not be sure that she was indeed a crossling of a white Leghorn hen x pheasant male.

"Mr vd Heuvel, who accompanied Mr de Vries, gave the advice to try to mate the bird to a male Brabanter, which he could get from Mr Sliepenbeek from Nijmegen. So the hen was sitting next year on her own eggs and when Stutvoet was controlling the nest on the 21st day the bird started to hiss like a pheasant. So he contacted the wellknown genetic scientist Ir.Hagedoorn, who confirmed after examinating the descendants (there were pheasant coloured chickens born from the Brabanter x white crossling) and knowing all the fact of the bastard hen, that here was indeed a fertile bastard of a chicken and a pheasant. During 8 years Stutvoet was breeding this hen and he got white, black and blue Brabanters from her descendants".

October 1, 1985

Pheasant x Chicken

There are some loose ends this story as the unknown sire. There are a lot of wild pheasants in our country and a cross is possible if there is no cock walking with the hens. But a first cross gives equal chickens, so the male bird must have been a crossling himself. The wild pheasants are all crossed; colchicus torquatus, mongolicus and versicolor. He could have been a chicken x pheasant cross himself.

The Leghorn hen also can have been a crossling, f.i. white x brown Leghorn. So it is possible that she had a brown and a white chicken. May be there was a pure pheasant egg in her nest.

In the books of Hagedoorn he writes that the chickens from a chicken x pheasant cross are not fertile. There are also animals as horse x donkey with unfertile descendants. But there are crossings with fertile descendants. Canary x black head siskin crosslings are fertile for the males. They can be bred to canaries. There is a rule in fertility of bastards, when only one sex is fertile, than it is the male when it is a bird and it is the female if it is a mammal. Fertile bastards are dog x wolf and hare x rabbit.

Our bastard was a fertile female, but this was possible if her father was a fertile crossling.

I believe this story, I know the people (some) which are involved. and this cannot happen so easy in a poultry research institute but very rare in the free wild nature. I have not the exact date of the Avicultura  magazine, only the page with the article for saving room.

It is hardly to believe to judge 1230 birds a day and I am glad to have here a judge-association to protect us. When there are more as 90 chickens on a show, there must be a second judge. We may do 80-90 birds, no more. I do hope they pay you for the amount and not for the hours.

Congratulations with your state of retirement. I reach that date last April and got a pension. Because of the emancipation man and woman get each ½ pension, it cost the state nothing more, but it feels good for women.

The day after tomorrow we have to judge at Ornithophilia, there are not so much birds as past year, but enough. At the end of this month Dale English visits me for a while and we went to Hannover (W-Germany) to visit the large show at November 9. There will be other Americans.

I read your address in Poultry Press and know you are selling a part of your books. I am interested and have a few dollars in USA, royalties for the Japanese Bantam book. So if you have a list I like to see it.

I do hope you’ll visit Europe sooner or later and I can offer you a bedroom for a while. It is beautiful weather now, an Indian summer, It makes a lot good after the cold summer we had. We hope Jean and you enjoy your retirement and make a good time of it.

Sincerely yours,