Dominique Chickens: Heritage Poultry Breeds

The Dominique Chicken breed is a good heritage poultry breed for those who want a bird known for staying in the middle ground: Not too big or small, not incredibly prolific but certainly steady, in both egg and meat production. This hertiage chicken breed is also calm and docile. The basic farmyard chickens brought to the New World by the English colonists were probably similar to the common Dorking, Old English Fowl, and Old Sussex Fowl that were all present in southern England in the seventeenth century. These birds arrived with the colonists before the later importations to England of the Asiatic Games, Cochins, and Mediterraneans. The Dutch colonists to the New World may have also brought along their indigenous chickens, such as the old Hamburg stock.

Whatever their exact origin, the smallish, barred Dominique type was well known before 1750. One hundred years later, one poultry writer would state that Dominique chickens were “so familiar as to need no description.” They were sometimes described as Dominickers, Pilgrim Fowls, Puritan Fowls, or Plymouth Country Fowls. Both rose- and single-combed birds were seen, although the rose comb seemed to be more common. An often-heard expression was “spunky as a Dominicker rooster.”

There is a great deal of evidence attesting to the Dominique as a popular farm bird over the eastern half of the United States by the mid-nineteenth century. President Abraham Lincoln owned Dominiques. This early farmstead chicken had to be a hardy, self-sufficient bird. Other than a few scratch grains, feed scavenged from the livestock, or food scraps, the chickens around the cabin or farmhouse had to forage for seeds, insects, and plants on their own. The irregular barring lent them protection from the predators that surrounded the farm. Fluffy, heavy plumage kept them warm in rafters or coops, and the little rose combs were far less likely to freeze in winter. The hen would raise a clutch or two of chicks to provide chickens for the cooking pot. The Dominiques were excellent layers, and their feathers were used for pillows, comforters, and mattresses or feather ticks.

At the first poultry show in Boston in 1849, these rose-combed, barred birds were entered as Dominiques. The import of the Asiatic breeds also began in the 1840s, to great interest and enthusiasm. The Plymouth Rock was partially developed from a Dominique cross in 1865 and exhibited four years later, although the name Plymouth Rock was also used for Dominique-type birds even earlier in New England. In 1870, the managers of a state poultry show in New York resolved the confusion over names. The barred birds were divided into medium-sized, rose-combed Dominiques and medium- to large-sized, single-combed Barred Plymouth Rocks. The next year, the Dominique Standard of Excellence confirmed that only rose-combed birds were acceptable. Most likely, a great many large single-combed Dominiques were absorbed into the new Barred Plymouth Rock breed.