I noticed a lot of talk here about rare, unusual or hard to find poultry varieties, and wanted to let people know about an e-mail list that I belong to. It's for people who breed or are interested in rare breeds, and has people on it from all over the world. Some I know are from the U.S. and Canada, but there's also a lot of people from Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, and a few from European countries. There might be some more, but those are the ones I remember.

Some people from the U.S. and Canada are working out plans to import/export eggs or birds to each other next spring, some others in the U.S. are working with some people in Australia to import, and a group is trying to get some hatching eggs in from France and the Netherlands.

On a more normal level, the list has a lot of talk about sources for rare breeds, swaps back and forth by breeders in the same country, tips on breeding, some information "articles" posted on breeds such as Marans, Westfal Todlegers, Flower Hens, and less exotic birds like Dominiques, Cochins, Sussex, etc.

If you want to subscribe, send a blank e-mail message to: RarePoultryBreeders-subscribe@onelist.com and you'll get an introduction from the people who run the list and instructions on how to get to the archives and files page.

I've learned a lot from the list and met some really interesting people. I think it's a lot of fun. There's about 10 to 12 messages per day right now, but after I signed up I changed to getting a digest that sends only one message each day with all of the messages in it. It makes it a lot easier to read and keep up with things.

Joe Cortez