The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-01-21


We are often asked which is the best
breed of chickens and we reply there
are several best breeds; it depends on
what you want them for, says the Prac-
teal Farmer. Take the Light Brahma
for instance. For person who wants
few chickens just for home use, eggs and
an occasional chicken to eat, don't know
of breed that will beat them; they are
Of quiet, gentle disposition. small
yard or free range suits them as well If
you want to go into their coop at night
they do not jump down from the roost
and about give you heart failure by their
noise and fright as some of the other
breeds do and with very little trouble
they can be tanned so that you can pick
them up almost anywhere. They lay such
nice heavy brown egg. and after they
get started to laying they keep it up.
Some strains are noted for heavy layers
| When carefully bred their clean white
plumage with the black stripe in neck,
| hackle and well marked tails make them
a handsome bird. Then a three foot fence
will keep them in nicely; we keep ours
part of the time inside of a two-foot
fence and they never tried to get out.
We know of a breeder near here who
keeps Light Brahmas, White Wyandottes,
White Locks and White Leghorns, and he
/
would keep Light Brahmas.
We hated awfully to give ours up but
the pullets would not lay for us until
| after they were seven, and generally
eight, months old and we had to hold the
| cockerels so long before we could get them
| plump and fat that they We're so large
| the commission merchant called them
STACEY and did not get us the top price,
| so we decided that they were not just the
/ nd
| Barred Plymouth Rocks are widely
known The are undoubtedly the farmers
! fowl and come as near being perfect as
any of them.
The White Rocks dress up better than
the Barred on account of the absence
/ of dark pin feathers, but we did not find
them quite as hardy and easy to raise as
| the Barred. Perhaps we did not happen
to get hold of a strong strain, though we
tried three of them and the breeder above
referred too makes the same complaint.
| We found them excellent layers, about on
| an equality with the Barred variety but
we finally gave them up on account OF
| kck of hardness. This is a point in
which the Barred Rocks are o. K, the
eggs hatch well, the chicks grow nicely and
with good care at five pounds the cock
erels can be put into market as roasters
and at six months the pullets begin to
! lay and if you have the right strain they
will lay just about as many eggs as any
other breed with perhaps one or two ex-
ceptions and they are awfully close to
them. In fact, the Barred Rocks are
about as good as they make them, and
| yet they have their faults. The Old hens
will get baggy behind and when dressed
that lump of fat detracts from their good
looks and we could never get the top
price for our old hens. We generally sell
| our hens in September and occasionally
we would get a hen that was starting
the pin feathers and those dark blue
pins made the hen look badly when
dressed, and it took about two or three
times as long to dress it while white
| fowl would not have shown these pins so
plainly and so would dress better and
easier. We would find the same trou-
BILE in the young cockerels when dressing
for pound broilers; again the white fowl
would have the advantage.
| The White Wyandottes are now COM
| ing into competition with the Barred
Rocks and at the Boston show last win
! ter took the lead though / think it was
only in the show room that they pre-
| dominated. On the farms the Rocks are
| still plentfully bred, but the Wyandottes
| are getting there and we think it will
only be a question of time and not so
very long either when there will be as
many White Wyandottes bred as there
are Barred Rocks few years ago the
! White Wyandottes were tender and hard
to raise and the number of breeders were
| few. But the breed has been boomd by
! these breeders and the editors of some
| of the poultry papers, new breeders have
| taken hold of the variety and they have
| bought stock here and there and mixed
! the strains and this mixing has hardened
! the breed until now we find no more
| trouble to hatch the eggs and raise the
| chicks than we have with the Rocks,
| Brahmas, Leghorns or any other breed.
| The absence of dark pin feathers makes
| them little better in our estimation than
| the Rocks, but otherwise we find them
| just about the same