Page 5 - Poultry Review June 2008

r

POULTRY. REVIEW
mercial eggs, their value is in the care wins "first." Don't be afraid of the
they receive, the fact that they are from price. Better pay $50 for a pair or $10
pure stock possessing some particular for a sitting of eggs than to buy dollar
merit and are fertilized by a vigorous eggs from someone who has the same
male that will insure to them strong man's strain. If he wishes market eggs
germs that will, with reasonable care, or poultry, purchase of a breeder who
proudce vigorous chicks. When a man makes a specialty of utility stock, not
lets his hens all run together, has no one who combines fancy and utility.
special inatings, and his birds do not And another thing, don't believe that
possess some point of superiority over this or that breed are better layers than
mongrels, even though they be of pure any other breed There is nothing in
blood, and he sells the bulk of his eggs the shape or plumage of the different
for commercial use, it is despicable of breeds as described in the Standard of
him to charge a neighbor more than Perfection that markes one breed as
market price, simply because he wants better layers than another. If you get
them for hatching. a laying strain of any of the practical
When we go upon the large commercial breeds, you will get eggs; if you get a
egg farms we see there is a desire to breed poor strain, you will have poor layers,
the birds close to the Standard, and no matter what breed you choose.
some make special matings of their best Select your breed with reference to your
birds, from which they sell stock and requirements, remembering that large
eggs at a higher price than those asked fowls require more feed and produce
for general matings. There is^nothing their eggs at a greater cost, but they
said of the production of these hens; make a greater gain in weight for the
they are simply better from a fancy food consumed when kept beyond the
point of view. This has not resulted in limitations of the smaller breeds. It will
general advantage. Birds from these require about the same amount of feed
special matings do not win in competi- to bring a Leghorn or Plymouth Rock
tion with birds from a breeder who cockerel up to 10 pounds, but beyond
makes exhibition birds his study, and this the Plymouth Rock will make the
the general production of the flocks is greatest gain. Birds of the American
.reduced. At a co-operative test entered class may be termed the dual purpose
into by a number of prominent egg fowls; the Leghorns and other small
farms, under the direction of Cornell breeds the intensive egg fowls. They
Experiment Station, where the flocks may not lay more eggs than some of the
represented some 120 hens, the aver- larger breeds, but the food cost is less.
age egg-yield was less than 120 eggs per —L. E. Keyser in Commercial Poultry.
hen in a year. This shows what has
been done to the utility birds by trying Pheasants and all kinds of ornamental
to combine fancy and utility. On land and water fowl and wild animals
another farm, where the same breed is for sale. A. L. Ileinrich, Baldwin, L, I,
keep and the birds mated strictly in
accordance with their performance, of A whole lot of people fail in the fancy
course, rejecting weakly and disquali- poultry business because they are not
fied specimens, the average yield has willing to work hard enough to attain
been above 175 eggs per hen. success. This hard and often vexatious
My advice to the beginner is, if he work is where the pleasure comes in to
wishes to raise fancy poultry, to pur- the true fancier, as well as in enjoying
chase stock or eggs from a breeder who the success which results from such
wins at the large shows, and one who work.