kelso gamefowl history

kelso gamefowl history

I will also add Kelso gamefowl history so that you will know its background and history since we have Kelso gamefowl available for sale. 

Thanks to http://www.reach-unlimited.com for the well research article here is the article below

The late Walter Kelso ( 1964, bless his soul  ), from Galveston Island, Texas. ( a part of the lone star state with a semi-tropical climate ),  was a champion for crossbreeding.

To improve strains, in a time when most breeder folks fixated on the tradition of keeping their bloodlines as pure as possible, Kelso handpicked winning gamefowl to breed with his stock, something unheard of during his time.  

Kelso entered gamefowl derbies under the name: Oleander, a flower shrub, and his fighters were ALL a series of battlecock crossbreeds.  When his good friend John Madigin died in 1942, Kelso and breeder colleague Bill Japhet inherited all of Madigin's fowl, which included some of the finest Clarets, Madigin Grays, and Texas Rangers.

Kelso improved his fighters by getting winning stocks to breed with his own.  After watching another rooster win, Kelso would buy the winning fighter to breed with his. While other breeders believed that the Holy Grail of gamefowl strains lay in pure stocks, Kelso had different ideas.  He wrote,  "I immediately began infusing new blood in the Madigin hens."  

About 1940, during the Orlando Tournament, Judge Ed Wilkins of San Antonio, Texas, fought a beautiful light blue Typewriter cock that won his first fight easily and was repeated to win a second fight on the same day. Kelso asked for and received this cock.  The Typewriters are a strain of gamefowl created from the cross of a Marsh Butcher cock with two Irish Blue hens from James G.Oakley of Alabama.  The Butcher family is a cross of Grove Whitehackle (Lawman and Gilkerson) and the Marsh Gray Speeders, which are a combination of the old Santo Domingo Grays from the West Indies island of that name and Burnell Shelton's old Knob comb Blues.

Kelso was more focused on getting new traits to improve performance of any breed he owned than keeping a strain as pure as possible.  He mated a new fighter to the sister of his best fighting  gamefowl.  If the cross produced winning fighters, Kelso would add other sisters to the pen.

Duke Hulsey offered to let Kelso have any of the Clipper cocks he liked. Kelso with Sweater McGinnis handling had met Schlesigner in his deciding fight at 1942 Orlando Tournament. Kelso won the fight and the Tournament but had been impressed with the quality of the Schlesinger cocks.

- See more at: http://www.reach-unlimited.com/p/334148047/kelso--the-smartest-fighting-rooster-and-the-magic-of-crossbreeding#sthash.LO1MBgIc.dpuf