Wingate
Brown Reds
Joe Wingate brought over from Northern Ireland a pure strain of chickens in 1870 into his Alabama farm. These birds were mostly brown red in breast and feather color, with some showing ginger colors, but all showing dark legs and hazel eyes. The hens in particular were sharp and stylish looking, all of them dark brown or ginger and some showing straw neck feathers. The stock were medium stationed and many grew spurs.
One of the Irish hens among his brood was Joe`s personal choice and he even had the chicken set up and mounted when she died as a memento of her best breeding days. This stuffed and preserved progenitus of the Brown Red bloodline is still on display but it looks nothing like the modern generation hens of the Wingate bloodline of Brown Reds. The cocks of this family were not big cocks weighing in at 5.4 lbs. or under. Joe Wingate made the effort to improve the bloodline by crossing with an English hen, mahogany colored and with dark legs, then line breeding to the original line to keep the stock intact and with new vigor. The line from this mix was brown feathered or ginger red breasted, had dark legs and hazel eyes like the original Irish gamefowl he shipped in. They were broad backed and not heavy, though strong boned.
These fighters were quick off the drop, fast and strong in the mix-up; with the cocks just rushing at their enemy with wild cutting attacks that don\'t stop. They break for defense, but don't fly high.
The
line breeding with the English hen made for heavier fighters, around
6.2 lbs. Then, to further enhance the Wingate stock, Mister Holly Chappell from Alabama, took a winning
fighter from one of his trips to the South and brought it back home
to breed with hens that were north Britain and brown red crosses.
Friends with Joe Wingate, he lent Joe one cock from the cross and
this was bred to a Brown Red hen from the mahogany chicken cross. After reducing the new cross a bit,
Wingate bred the Chappell experiment into his own Irish stock. The
final offspring becoming the beloved Wingate Brown Red speed slasher
we all know and love. Joe Wingate passed on in 1924 and left behind a broodfowl that many cockers still treasure as a pure bred stock as well as a base for breeding a better gamefowl.
The colour brown-red , just as black-red comes from the English pit description of fowl to be fought in the pit. Breast colour always is first named as it is not trimmed in any fashion. So the literal description of a brown-red is a brown breasted fowl with a red top.
Favorable Crossing Matches
Because
the Brown Red is already fast and pugnacious, crossing with a quarter
of Hatch, Asil or Jap, gives them added power hitting, endurance, and
the wits to fight drag fights against superior opponents.
