Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-20
IT'S A GOOD CHICKEN
j. L. HARRISON

sure II is! GOOu lot DrOlleT, fryer
and roaster, hardy and quick matur-
ing. All around market chickens pos
sessing the above requisites are hard
to find and in running through the
Standard classification no other breed
seems likely to dispute the eminence
of the Reds for hardness, at least.
They will stand more cold, wet, neglect
and abuse than the average chicken
ought to experience without succumb-
ing. Undoubtedly there are plenty OF
roupy Reds in the world, but the
breeders and owners are at fault every
time when anything like an epidemic
is seen. Sporadic cases come TO all
breeders in the course of time, but one
stroke of the hatchet is the sure rem
edy for such ailments. Breeders who
deliberately breed from sickly birds
reap what they SOW and leave an alter
math of diseased stock wherever they
have succeeded in selling eggs or BABY
chicks.
There is a tendency among some
breeders to breed Reds as large as
Brahmas. This is all wrong, contrary
to standard or market requirements,
and calculated to bring the breed into
bad repute, both as table birds and
layers. The big boned broiler and fryer
is not in demand in good markets,
while the eight to nine-pound Red hen
is a slow coach as 4 layer and Will not
yield as good a per cent profit as the
standard weight hen. Another class
of poultrymen go to the other extreme
ana breed them down to Leghorn SIZE
More money in these than in the big
ones, perhaps. though the writer's eX-
perience leads him to give the prefer
ence to hens weighing from five to SIX
pounds when in laying condition. These
will fatten half a pound or more IN
three weeks time when needed for
market and are large enough to meet
the requirements of first-class table
trade.
In mating up yards breeders pay lit
tie if any attention to the long keel or
breastbone, which is one of the trade
marks of a good Rhode Island Red.
The long keel, with its correspondingly
long, straight back, may not be an
infallible sign of a layer, but it has
some of the systems of selection now
in vogue beaten mile.
Vending so-called systems of selec-
ton appears to be a more profitable
business these days than keeping
chickens. The writer hasn't the slight
est objection to any body getting next
to all the information obtainable,
either real or pseudo, but he hates to
see a nice colored, straight backed
flock of Reds broken up just because
some peripatetic individual AYERS that
part of these are drones and the others
are from 17S to 1863 egg hens. Maybe!
The Maine experimental stations
summary of its work, published last
year, furnished considerable food for
thought, but the rank and file of poul-
try keepers, if they ever read it, have
forgotten it quickly and are eager to
grasp at any easily filled egg basket
scheme that is offered. Briefly stated,
the Maine experimental station after
several years of trap-nesting and
breeding from their best layers, found
they were right back where they
started, with an average yield of near
ly twelve dozen eggs per hen. 1t is
the writer's belief that the standard of
perfection is the best textbook for
either fancier or market poultryman
to follow and the birds bred nearest
to standard shape and size will prove
the most useful and profitable. This
remark applies to all of the American
breeds, and the breeder who exhibits
nice clean-cut goodshaped stock at
the leading shows will be doing busi-
ness long after the man who does not
exhibit but advertises his phenomenal
laying strain has withdrawn from the
field.
The very pronounced broody instinct
of the old-time Red hen was a source
of annoyance and trouble to the owner.
This fault is easily corrected and no
one but an extremely careless breeder