Poultry Notes.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 440, 22 September 1904, Page 5

Poultry Notes.

BREEDING BUFF ORPINGTONS The following is culled from an article by Mr Clement Pyne in the English " Stockkeeper " : HATING. Although exhibition cockerels and pullets can be bred from the same parents, we should advise the mating of two separate pens. For cockerel breeding we should select a cock or cockerel—not under eight or nine months old for preference—bred from a cockerel-breeding strain—i.e., a brother or near relation to a first-class exhibition cockerel—possessing a comb as near perfection as possible, a red eye, horn beak, absolutely sound on face—i.e., no trace of white in lobe—and clean white legs; this bird must be as perfect in type and size as possible, but we should prefer to have

TTPE AND QUALITY, even if our selection were to fail in size. We should choose a specimen fully developed enough to admit of our determining his shape—i e., we should not use a long-legged young cockerel, deficient in depth of breast. He should be an exhibition color, or, erring on the right side a shade deeper, so long as he were not red or patchy on wing-bow. His flights will, of course, be absolutely sound, and quills buff in preference to black or white, while if his tail were not buff we should at any rate avoid any white in sickles. And should you possess a cockerel sound in tail and quills, you need not discard kim should he not moult absolutely breast must be specially sound, both for cockerel and pullet breeding, while his under-color must be buff from head to tail. In short, we must look for a model in quality—head points and color specially—even if he be a shade too dark for the show pen or not any extra large bird; and should our choice be very limited, we would "go for "an even color first of all. To this bird we should mate as early in the year as possible not more than five or six hens—if they are all laying or on the point of it—over their first adult moult for preference, and .bred from a cockerel-breeding strain, and, better still, either sisters or cousins or aunts to an exhibition cockerel of the same strain as our stock cock. They will be firm in comb, have well cut and large skulls, and should be the biggest boned and deepest breasted that we can select They must be sound in dolor, but need not be of an exhibition shade, while they must not be red—we would rather they were lemon. If our best hens of the above description were not of perfect type, we should prefer

SIZK, combined with a sound color, to small, narrow-breasted female, of good type in other lespects. The color of their eyes is not of such great importance as that of the cock's, while it is essential that they have the proper type of head and expression, the majority of itheir pro 7 geny being equally affected in this point by both parents. If we were obliged to use a cock too pale for ex* hibition we should avoid mating him to lemon hens, as the greater number of chickens would come too washy or cream-colored, and probably more than half showing white in flights and tails in addition to being " mealy." Buff Orpingtqns have a tendency to breed lighter than -themselves, and %is is why it is only courting failure to use birds in the breeding-pen possessed of «ven a single white feather, or feathers tipped with white, Vfe should never lose sight of under color, and certainly not

.'OK THE MAIiK SEDB. Were our cockerel-breeding hens high in tail we should not discard them if otherwise good, For pullet breeding our bens, as big and fully-matured as possible, must possess typical head points and symmetry of if they are not extra large, they must EXOEL IS OUTLINE.

They should be, if not winners, bred from a pulletebreeding strain, and however nearly related they may be to this, that, or the other champion, W8 must never lose sight of type. Their eyes should be as near the standard as possible, though we should not discard them if they even possessed green eyea. Their legs should also be .white, but for tnii point and the above we rely equally upon our pulletbreeding cock, if anything rather more. An exhibition color for preference, or one of slightly deeper shade, paying special attention to undercolor and quills i and if we wish to be successful we shall aim at nothing less than buff to skin, though pullets of the first water have been bred from cocks excelling in undercolor and hens deficient in this point. To these hens of one, two, or even more summers we shall mate a cock or cockerel, also as large as possible, bred from a pullet-breeding strain, exoelling in under color, possessed of a typical head, though he need not have a perfectly cut comb, a red eye —avoiding a green flights absolutely sound, and hackles, wing-bow, and body color A BRIGHT ONE, be it an exhibition shade or deeper. We should avoid a very rich (red) buff, just as much if our hens were too light in color as if they were too rich. If he be a lemon buff, and his father a lemon buff also, we shall, generally speaking, get a large percentage of pullets too pale for the show pen. Our pullet-breeding cock should be an even shade, excelling in color of breast, thighs, and fluft, while we should not discard one du-k in tail, so long as our hens excel in this point. He should stand on a pair of the whitest, clean legs. We should always

AVOID MATINO EXTEEMEB together—e.g., a very red cock to pale lemon hens, and vice versa —for most of the cockerels will take after their aire and pullets after the hens in a carefully-bred strain, while in the case of the cock being a very rich one, the majority of the pullets will be too dull a shade for exhibition, and those that resemble the hens in co'.or at all will be too pale for the show pen, as we remarked before. In conclusion we would impress on breeders the IMPORTANCE OF- A " CLEAR " COLOR that they should stick to type like a leech, to put it bluntly; while we should aim at that size—and no more than that—which shall never obliterate the utility points we have already obtained, and we shall still see a symmetrical addition to.the poultry yard, neither exaggerated by an enormous head-piece, nor so bulky as to render the bird inactive in its habits and consequently a poor forager,