Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1908-02-20

You will soon mate up your pens
particulars you must bear in mind to
bring success.
When you have culled out all over
three years old and those with gross
defects, then take "The Standard of
Perfection" into the pen and select
from the remainder those that are
nearest to the standard type.
If your fowls look like three cents
when you apply this criterion, 1t is
time to buy new birds You can't
breed something out of nothing.
STUDY YOUR BIRDS.-Indeed, the
successful chicken hustler Is always
studying his birds. The poultryman
who doesn't study hen nature and
thinks he has such a surplus of gray
matter that he can throw a breeding
pen together like boy pitching quoits
had better "go away back and sit
down." for if he's up front he got in
on some other fellows stock or climbed
the fence.
Study your birds now. The people
who wait till they hear the whistle
blow before they start for the train
generally miss the last platform and
make fools of themselves.
There's no such thing as luck in
shaking chickens up like dice You
may get blank.
When the solons of the poultry world
who sell hens for a thousand dollars
apiece and cOckerels for five hundred
and who have thousands of bonton
birds to select from must sit down for
a day to study out u single mating, is
that not a lesson for those who mate
their pens with breakneck speed?
If birds are mated now you may be
surprised at unforeseen changes you
will make. You will thus catch the
drOnes, the hens that Will not frater-
nize with the male, and eliminate from
the pen the hen that continually bullies
the rest.
BY this early removal of the birds to
q pen by themselves they may receive
that special care and feeding which are
necessary for them to have to insure
a good output of fertile eggs, for it
is fact that hens for breeding must
have different treatment from those
which are simply fed for market eggs
This is often overlooked until the first
test of the incubator shows great in
fertility. A great many poultrymen do
their showing at the wrong end of the
hen wagon.
The hens that are pushed at the be-
ginning Of winter are up against the
wall when Matching time comes.
The doctrine that you should sepa-
rate the male bird from the females
until breeding time to promote his
productive powers Is a big fake Do
this if you wish to ruin the head of the
pen.
BAD DISQUALIFICATIONS. - Re-
tect birds with the following defects:
Wry tails, crooked backs and breast
bones, side sprigs, lop combed males,
squirrel tails, diminutive tails, white
faced cocberels except Black Spanish.
deformed beaks, purple barring, brassi-
ness white lobes in Wyandottes and
Cochins, pinched tails, feathered shanks
on clean legged varieties, clean shanks
on feather legged breeds. swinging
crops and drop wings.
You need not walt three weeks to
discover If the eggs are fertile. Test
them with strong light at the end of
five days.
If the eggs are all infertile, replace
the male bird with another If part Of
the eggs are infertile, you either have
too many hens or certain of the men,
bers of the harem do not stand in we'll
with Mohammed. If reconciliation
cannot be made quickly, remove the
offending squaws.