MATING POULTRY FOR BREEDING.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2201, 16 March 1881, Page 3

MATING POULTRY FOR BREEDING.

[“Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener.”]] We hope our preliminary observations on strains will enable us to make some of our promised hints on the mating of poultry more intelligible than they would otherwise be. To begin with, there is an important fact to be remembered —viz , that as a rule the male bird chiefly affects the external appearance of the produce, the hen the internal qualities. It was long ago pointed out by some of the best authorities on such subjects. We have, however, fully verified the fact in our yards. The natural deduction, of course, from this is that if we wish to keep a breed or strain of special excellence as layers or mothers, we should carefully mark the hens which lay large eggs, or many of them, or which have proved themselves particularly assiduous mothers, and keep their eggs for hatching. We wish people would more often take the pains to do this. A good henwife should know the eggs of every hen, and if only the trouble were taken to discover the most productive really improved strains of any breed might bo obtained. For points of feather, fanciers will take almost any trouble over pedigrees. Why should not some of them do the same for the perpetuation of useful qualities P On the other band, sines the cook so strongly influences the appearance of his progeny he must chiefly be looked to for particular points, as well formed comb or crest. Again, if it is desired to obtain cross bred birds chiefly resembling one of the parent races the cock, of course, should be chosen of that kind ; when, however, it is necessary to introduce fresh blood from a different breed on different strains, and yet there is fear of some beauty being thereby diminished, let the extraneous bird be the hen. There are exceptions to most rules, and we think we know one to this. Great size may generally be traced to the mother.

The first rule generally laid down in all instructions for mating for the production of both special form and feather is that the nearest approach to perfection is to be expected from parents which hare opposite exaggerations or defects rather than from birds almost faultless themselves. To make this comprehensible we will give an instance or two. Firstly as to form : a Cochin should have heavily feathered legs, yet should be free from stiff wing-like vulture hocks, which are an exaggeration of heavy leg feathering ; it is then generally asserted that perfection in this respect —i e., amass of feathers curling closely round the hock joint—is more likely to be obtained from an outrageously vulture-hooked bird and one sparsely feathered on the lege than from two almost perfect specimens. Or again as to feather : a Light Brahma should have broadly and darkly marked neck hackles. If these stripes are absent the bird looks poor and washy ; if, cn the other hand, they are very heavy, in nine cases out of ten they are accompanied by spots on the back— i.e., a eta tinuation of the dark markings, which entirely spoils the contrast between the clearly defined hackle and the pure white. To breed this variety, then, it would follow that one of these heavily marked birds should be mated with one almost devoid of marking. This has long been looked upon as a first principle for mating by many of the initiated, but we must beg leave to dissent from it. As a matter of foot probably some very good birds may in this way be produced ; but to us it appears objectionable, for in the long run it encourages diversity of types in a breed. It is probably only the few, the very few, of the produce that will bo good ; the many will bo defeotive in the one direction or the other. What, too, of the next generation ? It will be impossible to depend upon having birds of any particular type. Peculiarities commonly skip a generation and reappear in the next; some, then, of the offspring will in all probability take after one grandparent, some after the other, and great diversity will ensue. This is a source of great disappointment to purchasers of birds and breeders. Many a fancier has from this cause been unfairly charged with selling eggs from inferior stock. As we said when speaking of strain, every breeder should make up his mind what type he wishes to produce and stick to it, After a few generations of careful selection he will find that his ideal is much more nearly attained, and, in addition to the satisfaction of being able to calculate to some extent upon the produce, he will see a new beauty in a lot of birds strikingly alike. Often have we remarked on the beauty of numbers of birds. We have lately for the first time, tor oonve nienoo sake, put twenty hens of ono variety in a run together, and have come to tho conclusion that though for years we have seen good specimens of the breed, yet we have never seen it. to suoh advantage as in the case of this uniform lot of hens. We deprecate, then, this common system of mating extremes together as the rule ; of course, in exceptional oases it may bo necessary to correct a tendency to some fault in a strain. This brings us to tho real difficulty of all breeding for feather —ore that cannot well bo surmounted, save by practice and obseryation. In all the gallinaceous race (with probably the solitary exception of the Guinea Fowl) there is a great dissimilarity between the male and female. The difficulty, then, is to know what particular points in the one sex correspond to particular points in the other. A few of them, of course, are obvious, but many of them are not so. For instance, only personal experience, or perfect confidence in that of an informer would assure us that the Wheaton Game hen will produce a more brilliant cock than the ordinary Black Red, that the SilverGrey Dorking hen with deep robin breast will probably re the mother of cockerels with striped neck hackle, that there is some mysterious connection between spots on the breast of a dark Brahma cook and good p»ncillings in the hen, and of almost innumerable similar correspondences in the Hamburgh family. These facts can, to some extent, be learnt from books, but experience will teach them with far more minute accuracy. It will probably be found, as wo have before observed, that it is not easy to make a strain of somo varieties famous fur the beauty of both sexes. In this case a little may be sacrificed in each, or the fancier may be content to be famous for the ore, and to put up with such a type of the other as naturally produces the ono in perfection. Anything is better than to insist upon types in the two sexes which do not corn soond, and involve tho breeding of cocks and hens of, to all intents and purposes, two distinct races.

Wo will brief!?, then, recapitulate the points vrhioh we would oi*ll to the attention of an inexperienced fancier. X. That as a rule the offspring are most influenced by the form of the male parent, by tho qualities of the female. 2. That matching of birds with contradictory extremes should be avoided, and all breeding stock, as far as possible, selected, as near as may be, from an ideal type. 3. That tho natural correspondence between the feathering of the two sexes in any one breed should bo studied and allowed for. We trust that attention to these principles will smooth the road towards the formation of a strain.