HIGH CLASS HEN

Hokitika Guardian, 2 October 1930, Page 8

HIGH CLASS HEN

FICTITIOUS PRICE MADE.

(Auckland *Star.)

Tlier© was a flutter of excitement in til© poultry .pens at the Auckland city marts on Saturday morning when the news spread that the Black Orpington hen Te Hawaii Princess, which broke all world’s records at the Normanby egg-laying competition, had been sold to an American fancier for £125. . >

Feathers were ruffled in indignation at the fancy price made by tlie aristocrat. “Mrs White Leghorn”, felt quite limp about it all. “Lizzie Wyandotte” preened her shiny coat a® usual, and tried to look unconcerned, until, roused to protest, she puffed out her crop in scorn at a- hapless neighbour who attempted to establish relationship with the champion.

“Why, yesterday you could not even make i miserable three shillings,” she said reproachfully to a black bird of doubtful parentage, who claimed she was a second; cousin to the Great Princess of Royalty. “You’re lazy and unattractive. You came liere because your laying was uncertain, and you would disgrace any dinner table.” The sum total of all the wrangling was that it was agreed that the price realised by the Taranaki bird was scandalous and unheard-of. It was certainly a sorry day for old liens who had seen better days, and for pullets who were embarking on unknown cai - eers, for it was easy to measure up their inferiority in £. s. d. In round figures, assessing the present-day value of ordinary poultry offered at the value of a dollar, it would take a flock of 600 birds to make the price of one Princess. Cluck, cluck I It was wrong! Poultry men largely confirmed the judgment of the population of the marts. They frankly confessed that nothing like £125 had been made before by a New Zealand-bred hen. Too. they doubted the wisdom of the purchase of the American breeder, it being generally accepted that a .highclass bird rarely reproduced strongly and was not the best for breeding purposes. It was recalled by one fancier that a few years back Mr J. N. McLean, of Rotorua, had paid £2O for Kismet Dot,' an egg-laying record holder bred by Mr Brewett, of Christchurch.

“Fictitious prices are realised now and again,” said a Manurewa breeder. “I think the price paid for Te Kawau Princess is wonderful, but absurd. It is quite probable that the bird will die on the way to America. Besides, one never gets good results from highclass birds like her..” A Henderson fancier said that Te Kawau Princess might be a good bird so far as egg-laying was concerned, but on the other hand it might prove useless as a breeder. It might be very poor in type and hardly suitable for reproducing purposes. Personally he had sold special birds for breeding for as much as 40 guineas. Good breeding hens usually sold at from 2gns to 3gns, but very good ones commanded lOgns. Te Kawau. Princess was going away to America, and yet he believed it was not known definitely which birds were its parents, as it came to the present owner from another breeder. Therefore it was a problem whether the bird would prove itself capable of reproducing as good stock. It might prove what was termed a reversion. A good cockerel mated to an inferior class of hen, with no known pedigree, might improve progeny sq far as egg production and type were concerned. On the other hand, the next generation of birds might turn out absolute failures.