The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1871-08-10
FARMERS COLUMN.
NoN-s1rr1NG BREEDS OF FOWLS.
gFrom the Hearth s. Home.


In cases where many fowls are kept, 1t
is desirable to have the greater part CON
sist of some breed of non-sitters. by
having few that are frst-rate mothers,
to fill the Matching department., and the
rest. saw three quarters of the whole,
made up of breed that never offers to
sit. great deal is saved in the labor OF
attendance. In this country, labor is so
high. that it is worth while to save the
time of man, woman or child capable of
managing poultry. It is as easy to take
care Of two hundred non-sitting hens
through the laying season as one hum
dred of sitting variety. Suppose the
former are kept in eight yards, each con-
tanning twenty-five layers, with no
trouble from fussy, obstinate, clucklng
hens; also, the latter in four yards, of
twenty. five each. It being agreed among
poultry managers that fowls must be
kent tranquil to do well, and therefore
not mixed with strangers, the sitters from
3 ward must be confined in particular
iail.pen to cure their incubating propen-
stiles. and afterwards returned to their
own friends in the same yard. Now four
Yards each with its jail-pen, make eight
in all toEbe furnished with food, fresh
water, and dust-bath, and to be clean
ed regularly, as we'll as Whitewashed
or treated with carbolic acid, the labor
being about equal to that required by
the eight yards of non-sitters in the for
mer case, and if we consider the time
gpent in detecting and removing sitters-
no small item where there is considerable
number of foWls-the sitting breed COM
pare at a still greater disadvantage.
A well-bred race of non-sitters will
not give one confirmed case of sitting
among fifty birds, though there are some
times feints lasting perhaps few hours,
or a day, when they sit, but leaVegott
without needing any corrective measures.
They commonly have periods lasting two
or three days, or week, when they
stop laying, without taking to the nest
at all. These spells correspond to the
sitting fever of the incubating breeds
The non.sitting include all the differ
emit varieties of Leghorns, Spanish, Ham
burgs, and Polands together with some of
the French breeds. The eradication of
an instinct which is so persistent in wild
birds, and necessary to their very exis-
tence, has been effected by keepers who
have culled to lay eggs for Matching the
least constant sitters for many genera
tions It is a remarkable instance of
what may be brought about by the
breeders art, and is as valuable as it is
curious, the principle of division of
labor operating as economically in the
poultry.yard as in human society.
The instances which occur rarely of
fowls sitting steadily, though belonging
to a strain of thorough non-sitters. show
reversion to the primitive type when in
cubation was universal. To keep your
stock fully up to the mark, do not breed
from such. A cross between two non
sitting races brings, strange though it
may appear, a progency that sit with as
much regularity and persistence as any
fowl. Some crosses between breeds are
very desirable, but the non-sitters should
be kept pure, or the trait which makes
them specially valuable is lost.
Fl. HIS.