St. Tammany farmer., 1908-01-18
BUYING BREEDING POULTRY.
Good Blood in Poultry Yard Is Not =
Mere Whim, But Money-Maker.

Breeding stock should he accus-
toned to their quarters before the
breeding season opens. Those of our
readers who have made up their minds
to dispose of their old cocks should
get them out Of the way and replace
them with new ones without much
delay. The old ones will never taste
much better than right now. A tough
old bird can be made very palatable
if put into stew and cooked slowly
long enough. If the old ones are not
out of the way before the new ones
arrive, the old ones will look upon the
new ones as intruders, and fights will
result than can serve no good end.
If the new arrivals find no opponents
they will accommodate themselves to
conditions very quickly, and the flock
will be ready to get results by the
time eggs are wanted for Matching.
There can be no doubt about it, no
doubt that those who are reading
progressive farm papers will want to
improve their fiocks. If they do not
this year, they will next or the year
after. This thing of having good blood
is no mere idle whim. 1t is a money
making proposition. The sooner good
blood is got into the flock, the sooner
will more pride be taken in the busi-
ness and more profits taken out Of
the business.
It requires so much money to stock
up on both males and females for the
larger classes of live stock that most
farmers feel they can not afford 1t;
but this is not the case with poultry.
A good male and a small number Of
females can be got at small outlay.
If there are no other males on the
place the new male can be used with
the whole flock. This will give few
standard bred birds and many others
that are not standard bred. II one de-
sires to have some that are pure
standard bred blood and to know
which are pure blooded and which are
not, it will be necessary to have
pen for the pure bloods. Usually pens
for poultry on the farm should not be
tolerated, but an exception might
properly be made in case of this
kind.
Where possible, the poultry raiser
should begin at the top every time
that is, start with standard bred fowls
in every case by using standard bred
oP hot N
not be afforded-usually it can-then
get standard bred males, and make a
practice of doing SO each succeeding
year. The change that will be wrought
in the flock in twelve months will be
enough to make anyone proud. The
second year the offspring will look
so much like their standard bred an
cestors that it will begin to be hard
to tell the birds of mixed breeding
from those that are standard bred.
When a flock reaches this degree of
excellence, it begins to be very prac-
tical fowl for the farmer whose chief
aim is to get a reasonable number Of
eggs and nice carcasses for selling
and to have every lot of eggs and
birds marketed grade evenly and CON.
sequently make that pleasant impress
sion on the eye that makes good sales.
It so happens that after a poultry
man starts with one breed of fowls
he concludes he ought to get new
blood by crossing with some other
breed. Such violent crosses are I'M
fortunate, since common result is
that the offspring do not develop the
good qualities of their immediate an
cestors SO much as they do their bad
qualities. The offspring looks too
much like mongrels. Always get new
blood by using birds of the same
breed.
The experience of practical breed
ers have so repeatedly shown that
these principles are correct that there
is no use in listening to the free ad-
vice given by some one who is unable
to tell whether a fowl is standard
bred or not. Wide experience and
many observations are necessary to
formulate rules for breeding, and il
is safer to follow the advice of those
who have attained great success than
it is to follow the advice of some one
who has really never accomplished