OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 242, 18 February 1911, Page 3

OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS

(By '•Coek-o'-the-Xorth"). The starter does not need to let the breed he thinks the best trouble him. Some poultry scribe at some remote period wrote that a person succeeds best with the breed he loves best; and this old saw has been religiously handed down from generation to generation till it has all become buckled and blunted, and is only fit for the scrap-heap. In the first place, I firmly believe that the saying was intended for the fancier only, and it is still applies to them as forcibly as ever, for unless the fancier does love a breed he will never succeed, as his is essentially a work of love, and he does not as a rule go into it for a living. Yet one sees this worn-out old rag jf a poultry proverb solemnly reiterated by lecturers and so-called poultry experts when giving advice to beginners in regard to the selection of a breed.

The utter absurdity of the saying will at once become apparent to anyone who will think the matter out in this light: Suppose some person to be intensely in love with white Leghorns, and that person, thinking them the very cream of poultrydom, adopts this breed for the 1 purpose of starting a poultry plant on a fairly large scale. We will assume that this person raises 1000 layers (after culling). This means that he will probably have raised 1300 pullets and the same number of cockerels, or, after culling out the reject pullets, he will have some 1600 for sale for table purposes. Xow, f let him pour out the whole of his love en these 1000 birds, and borrow tho love of three or four other people to pour out to them. Let him walk round them, feast his eyes on their beauty till he almost fancies they are angels of spotless white. The one stern fact remains, however, that all this love, this admiration, will not turn those birds into good table birds, and liad the person had as many good young Wyandottes of a good laying strain lie would net a nice little profit, whereas he may lose heavily on his beautiful Leghorns*.

Sfl £OU see ; <Jeaj' this 50111pletely knockts tile bot'ttrnT'oul (if the above old saw, aj though Lcghdrils are the breed he loves best, lie does not succeed with them as well as he would with Wyandottes. Therefore, he does not succeed best with the breed he loves best.

Further, when selecting from any of the breeds ordinarily-kept for utilitv'mtrposes, such as Leghorns, Wyandottes," Orpingtons, Plymouth Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Scotch Greys, and other breeds too numerous to mention, in my opinion there is no such thing as a best strain. How many persons understand this when they read it? Not very many, I will guarantee. It is amazing how little sonic people trouble to try and get the best results out of their birds by proper breeding, feeding, etc. I have heard one lady ask another if she would care to have a kitten, and when she saw that her friend was not very keen on having it she advanced as a reason for oft'erin" it to her friend, "My word, her mother was a splendid ratter!" Now by this very remark the ladv had admitted that she thought that it was not onlr possible but probable that the kitten had inherited the rat-catching abilities of her mother. Now, this same lady, when showing me her fowls pointed out to me several hens which were excellent In vers, but at the same time she admitted to me that when she set eggs under a hen she just took,thorn out of the basket and set them, quite oblivious of the fact that the same natural law which governs hereditary properties in a kitten governs the same in chickens, calves, cofts and all creation. That is to sav, if the kitten were likely to be a good ratter because its mother was one, so a pullet would be more likely to be a good layer if its mother were one and its father tiescended from a strain or family equal if not superior, to the one which produced the mother. The matter of strain will' be further dealt with next week, but before concluding this, just to show that the Leghorns are in no way superior to other breed's as layers, let anyone just look up the result of the New Zealand egg-laying competition; and thev will see that there are 54 pens of six birds each, competing, white Leghorns being in the lead. The very last pen, however, is also white Leghorns, thereby proving that breed does not count in am- wav, as if it did, the whole of the Leghorn's would be at the top and laying within .a few eggs of each other, while, as a matter of tact, there is a difference of 400 e<r<r S between the first and last pens in "seven months, and both are Leghorns. JOTTINGS.

. 'Help yourself and God will help you " is very applicable to utility poultiy culture. The man who wants nursin<r"made a mistake when he undertook this occupation. The hospital is the place for

I.oultrymen have been pretty well plucked by vendors of incubators and brooders. More power to them. When the New Zealand poultry man learns to «sc his brain., a little more incubators will come down in price with a run, and brooders will not pay to stock for sale home of those cross-grained farmers biddy out of the way as useless would be richer and wiser men if they treated the -ic n kin "f y "J'" 1 ' ,)ettcr " a,ld k(, Pt «.e kicking for themselves. At a lecture delivered in Ifawke's B-u----some time back on the maintenance and renewal of pasture land, the lecture pointed out that top-dressing could be (lone by a certain manure at the ridiculously low price- of 21s per aero. Why nine pullets, whose manure is properly «»ed, will top-dress in a year two acres •'"'l give you £4 IDs. Now, farmers' «-l».cl.lis the better thing to do. pay >U or take ,C 4 10s y „•, „" t J