Donald Shaver search widely for diversified breeding stock. Local breeders, knowing his reputation were reluctant to sell to him for fear of competition. In 1946, there were 256 registered chicken breeders in Canada. Shaver Poultry became the 257th. By 1958, only Shaver remained, along with seven other major poultry breeders worldwide. The principle of hybrid vigour had been well established for corn, but the costs and time required to test chicken crosses were higher. Small breeders (as Shaver was at the time) could not afford permanent scientific staff, so Shaver obtained assistance from geneticists conducting research at universities and government institutions. Shaver
Richard Sharpe Shaver during the film. Richard Shaver and the Deros are mentioned on a plaque in the video game Shivers, next to a sculpture of a Dero in the "Subterranean World" room. Both Shaver and his work, as well as "Amazing Stories", are amongst the esoteric and unusual ideas referred to in the Philip K. Dick novel "Confessions of a Crap Artist". In the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, which was heavily influenced by pulp and weird fiction in its development, there exists a race of evil subterranean dwarves called the derro, which were first described in the AD&D First Edition Monster