Page 18 - Poultry Review June 2008

IS K)tJLTRY REVIEW

time will come when they have reached vitality. Sometimes the very fact that
the limit of their resources, and they a hen is the best hen we have got on our
will not be able to produce eggs. It will place will indicate she is not a good hen
.
show especially in the moulting time to breed from. The best hen we have
when they are asked to reproduce and got on our place at the present time, hen
put on a new coat of feathers. No. 6 1, laid 216 eggs in the first 10
Insomecases these chickens that were months of her laying period, she was
weak have overcome it to such an e.^tent most vigorous and could give us the most
that you would hardly be able to tell fertile eggs, and the most hatchable
them now from the strong; just eggs out of seventy hens. Her record
the same as a child is born weak, by shows right straight through that she
being kept under the most favorable was one of the most reliable hens in the
' conditions overcomes that weakness and whole place. She had a constitution
eventually grows to be strong. Yet if that would stand up under heavy feed-
we know anything about the law of here- ing.
dity—like producing hkc—there will Wc have found hens that in their
always be a tendency of the individual general appearance and almost every-
that was once of low vitality to break thing that we generally understand to
down or rep rod Lice that weakness. be egg type, and yet they were not good
Wc then come to the problem of pick- layers. We have, by caliper measure-
ing out the strong and the weak for ments and by the use of scales and in
breeding purposes, going right into the other ways, found that there is such a
pen and picking out those fowls that thing as an egg type. We have just
show strong vitality. worked on the white Leghorns and the
I believe that we can pick them out Barred Plymouth Rocks. I believe
so that when we put them into the breed- strong production is associated with
ing pens they will give us strong or low strong nervous disposition. The egg
vitality according to the birds we producer is a motherly hen, and they
selected. Jt does not necessarily follow will show mentality. They will be the
that if we picked out a hen who is now most intelligent hen you have in the
showing low vitality that she would bunch. That hen No. 61, is the most
produce chicks of low vitality. I picked intelligent hen we have. You can
out a hen of low vitaHty and Prof. handle her and yet if she did not want
Graham said,- "Don't take her, she is you to catch her, she knows how to get
to well known, she has a wonderful away from you. She was in an experi-
record behind her." It is not an in- ment where every hen had been dipped
dication that that hen has not been a in Diamond Dyes, every single bird of
hen of strong vitality. She might be these 350 hens was picked up and per-
of low vitality because of that heavy egg sonally examined, a record made of the
proudction. I have seen hens of the conditions of the moult in different sec-
strongest possible physical strength, tions of the fowl's body and whenever
the picture of health, and that had we drove the hens into the catching
never laid an egg. There was no reason frame that hen (61) was the last hen to
in the world why they should not be go through the hole, she always man-
strong, healthy and vigorous. I main- aged to get away, she showed mentality.
tain that no matter how good a trapnest That hen had brains. The same thing
record nor how great a reproduc- is true of the best dairy cow, the best
tion power the hen may have, if at the horse, they are animals of strong men-
time she produces these eggs she is of tality.
low vitality her chicks may be of low