Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
keeping your final outcome in sight. Wing band markings, leg bands, or toe punches —
or whatever you system you use — will be absolutely necessary for identifying your
work and verifying your results.
BREEDERS
Rick and Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm
Central Alberta, Canada
“H
EEL LOW!”
The stockman's call is a familiar greeting from Rick and Tara Lee Higgins in the
foothills of Alberta. Their signature form of “hello” refers to the Australian sheep
dogs that help herd their collection of exhibition poultry, sheep, and goats on the farm
where they have made a childhood poultry passion their life's work. Higgins Rat
Ranch Conservation Farm raises exhibition livestock guided by the concept of nat-
ural preservation and conservation. The couple have combined Rick's cabinetmaking
skills in designing and crafting functional facilities with Tara's analytical approach to
animal husbandry and genetics to turn their conservation dreams into reality.
“Making positive differences by preserving uncommon poultry was foremost in
our minds when we imported our heritage chickens and turkeys, pheasants, ducks,
geese, and swans,” says Tara. “You can build the barn, but if you don't have the tint,
you'll never paint her right.”
To achieve healthy genetic biodiversity while maintaining biosecurity protocols,
the Higginses keep a minimum of 12 breeding birds per variety. Rarer color patterns,
such as bantam Chocolate ducks, require more individuals to ensure continued sur-
vival. Certain varieties at the Higgins farm have 75-plus years invested in sustaining
the color pattern integrity, and in some breeds the lineage may be traced straight back
to the original creators.
Rick credits an understanding of what makes birds “happy” for their breeding suc-
cess. He cites happiness factors such as limiting stress, providing greens and safe,
quiet nesting sites, and attention to simple basics of species-specific nutritional ra-
tions, whole grains, pure water, fresh air, weather protection, and secure outdoor for-
aging on grassy lawns. All of this is paramount in establishing breeding groups of
creatures that naturally want to procreate, Rick says. “If you give any living thing a
stress-free, healthy environment, it will live well.”
Successful poultry breeding under extreme climatic conditions is both “a science
and an art,” Tara says, but it doesn't intimidate them. “A duck bevy may overwinter
