By Manny Pinol
Larry Douglas Carter calls himself an “Animal Man.”
Unschooled and barely able to read and write, Larry Carter grew up in the plains of Salinas, California where his father operated a tractor plowing the wide strawberry and vegetable fields in this scenic American rural community immortalized by John Steinbeck in his novels.
At age 14, Larry got a pair of E. H. Hulsey Pumpkins, a breed of chicken marked by their pumpkin feathers, straight combs and upright tail banner feathers.
Larry admits they are not the most likable chicken because they would have large heads and the unsightly tail banner feathers some of which were so upright.
“But who cares? I win with them,” said Carter who still has the progenies of the Hulsey Pumpkin fowls he acquired 52 years ago.
He has crossed the Hulsey Pumpkins to the Richard Bates greys he acquired in Oklahoma almost 30 years ago and produced gold colored greys which he calls the Golden Greys.
Carter also infused his Hulsey Pumpkins to a Hatch blood producing one the highest breaking Hatch families the American cockfighting community has ever seen.
Today, after years of intense inbreeding, his Hulsey Pumpkins have produced a white strain which he calls the White Hulseys and typical of all Larry Carter fowls, these whites are high breaking too.
I first met Larry Carter in his farm in Davis, Oklahoma when I and my family drove for two days and two nights to pursue my quest to get a family of his famed Richard Bates Greys.
The Greys are still in my farm today, including the offspring of the Golden Grey and Hatch families I acquired from him in 2000.
“Find me a breeder who has kept a bloodline for over 50 years and you will discover that I may be one of the very few,” said Larry who jokes that his relationship with his Hulsey Pumpkin is even stronger that his marriage with his wife who he divorced sometime in the early 2000 while he was in Davis, Oklahoma.
“I’m not a human being. I am an animal,” Larry told me during my recent visit to his farm in the outskirts of Salinas, where he has returned.
“I can relate to my animals. And I love them,” he said.
Today, Larry still breeds his Hulsey Pumpkins along with the Greys and the White Hulseys just for the pure love of chicken.
“I would like to keep breeding my chicken until I die. I love these beautiful creatures. I don’t know how the animal rights activists could take these chickens away from us and allow them to die uncared for?” he asked.
He also devotes a lot of his time for his rodeo horses and takes pride in a mare named “Hawk” who he rides during national rodeo competitions.
“I don’t fight chicken anymore. It’s too dangerous. They’ve passed a law which makes watching cockfights already a crime,” Larry said.
“It’s sad how some people who do not understand our relationship with these animals have taken away from us ordinary farmers the simple joy of raising and caring for our chicken,” he said.
Larry said he dreams that one day, some of the states where gamefowl raising has been declared illegal would open up and allow a profitable farm activity to make a rebirth.
“This is a multi-million dollar industry. Feed makers make earnings and we the breeders also make money selling our breeding materials,” he said.
But Larry admits that the day when gamefowl raising would gain legal status in some of American states may not happen in his lifetime.
(Note: This article on Larry Carter is an excerpt of a feature I am writing about him which will appear in a book about American gamefowl farmers titled “The Vanishing Breed.”)
Photo captions: Larry Carter with a Hulsey Pumpkin broodcock; the White Hulsey; the Carter Bates Grey; and his favorite rodeo horse “Hawk.”
More Stories
Kapehan With Pareng Gob
Bignay Wine, Vinegar Maker: Ito Dapat Bigyan Ng Ayuda!
OFW’s Feeding Technology Could Boost Cattle, Goat Farming!