Winnebago chicken

Winnebago is a 19th-century American chicken breed of unknown origin. It appears to have been a precursor to the modern Golden Wyandotte.

In Principles and Practice of Poultry Culture (c. 1912) by John H. Robinson (USA), p. 408 the author states:

In "Wyandottes: Silver, Golden, Black, and White" by Joseph Wallace, 1891, Joseph McKeen of Omro, Wisconsin, is quoted as denying that the Winnebagos had been bred a long time in Wisconsin, and claiming that he originated them. McKeen places the beginning of this work with the Winnebagos "a few years after" 1872 or 1873, and indicates that, at the time he crossed them with the Silver-Laced Wyandottes, they were in a very crude condition. At about the time when McKeen said he was beginning to make the Winnebagos, the author, then a boy in Galena, Illinois, bought, in the market of that town, two hens called Winnebagos, of a redder ground colour than the early Golden Wyandottes and as well laced as the average Golden Wyandotte of fifteen to twenty years later. No doubt McKeen owed much more to such Winnebagos than he was willing to admit."

Joseph McKeen of Wisconsin was the originator of the Golden Laced Wyandotte. In 1880 he crossed Silver Laced Wyandotte females with a large "Black Red" patterned fowl of unknown origin called the Winnebago.

References

• Robinson, John H. (c. 1912): Principles and Practice of Poultry Culture

Ginn and Company, Boston. (full text at the Albert R. Mann Library. 2006 . Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA). Ithaca, NY)