CHAPTER XXV 

 BUCKEYES 



This variety is distinct from the Rhode Island Reds Was originated 



in Ohio and known for a time as the Pea Comb Rhode Island Red 



Males are better colored than the females 



The Buckeye, which is not altogether dissimilar to the Rhode 

 Island Red, was produced by Mrs. Nettie Metcalf, of Warren, Ohio, 

 before the Reds had become established in the central states. When, 

 in 1896, she learned that her idea of a red fowl was not really new 

 and original, and that Rhode Island Reds had been worked on for 

 some years in the east, she opened up correspondence with several 

 of the eastern Red breeders, exchanged birds and eggs with some of 

 them, and followed the advice of one of them, R. G. Buffington, in 

 dropping the name Buckeye Reds and calling her new fowls Rhode 

 Island Reds. 



The Reds were being bred in rose and single comb varieties, and 

 the new Buckeye Reds made a third variety, the Pea Comb Rhode 

 Island Red. But, in addition to comb, the fowls of Ohio origin 

 differed from the Reds of Rhode Island in having more of the Cornish 

 Indian Game type and in being of a darker shade of red. It was 

 plain that this new pea comb variety was distinct, and Mrs. Metcalf 

 saw that instead of being helped by being identified as a variety of 

 the Rhode Island Red breed, the Buckeye Red would be absorbed 

 and its distinctiveness lost, so in 1902 she exhibited a pair of her 

 birds at the Cleveland show as Buckeyes. Mrs. Metcalf then exhibited 

 at Indianapolis and at Rochester, and having thus presented her new 

 Buckeyes for public inspection, and having secured the necessary 

 affidavits from breeders as to the ability of the breed to reproduce 

 true to type and color, the Buckeye was admitted to the Standard in 

 1905. Pea Comb Rhode Island Reds then began to disappear. 



Origin of the Buckeyes. Mrs. Metcalf took up the breeding of 

 Barred Plymouth Rocks when the variety was new to northeastern 

 Ohio. She crossed Buff Cochin cockerels on her Rock hens and pullets. 

 "This produced a big, lazy fowl, so I looked around for something 

 else to mix in." She then secured some eggs from a breeder of 

 Black Breasted Red Games and raised some cockerels which were 

 top-crossed onto the Cochin-Rock females. 



This mating produced a few red birds, something that had not 

 been seen in the community before, and aroused Mrs. Metcalf's ambi- 

 tion to try to reproduce them. She penned up two pairs, and, writing 

 in later years of the results, said: 



My, what a flock I raised that year ! No wonder my friends laughed. Green 

 legs and feathered legs, buff chicks, black chicks, and even red-and-black barred 



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