The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1911-07-15
Vitality and Viror.


In looking over several poultry pa
pers 1 see that poultrymen are badly
mixed upon fertility and vitality. They
speak of a strong or weak fertility,
when there is no such thing. Concep-
ton never occurred but halfway in
any creature, and If an egg is fertile,
it is fertile; and If II is not, 1t is
naught, and that is all there Is to it.
If chick is strong or weak, that de-
ponds altogether on how much vitality
the egg that the chick is from inner
its from the breeding stock. There is
q great difference in the vitality Of
fowls. SO is there in the eggs that
they lay, and, when like begets like,
If an egg has 80 per cent. of vitality,
the chick from the egg has but 80 per
cent. of a constitution, and 1t is 20 per
cent consumptive. The chick is not
sick but it is simply Matched, lacking
20 per cent. in every respect. For fear
my readers will not grasp the fulI
meaning when say in every respect, l
had better explain. In the first place,
II is lacking 20 per cent in health,
strength and vigor
Second, it is lacking 20 per cent. In
brains. Some chicks are not as intel
ngent as others. / heard popular
incubator man say, when he dissected
chicks that died, and found the crop
full of millet seed that the chick took
a particular liking to millet seed, when
the fact is, the chick did not have
sense enough to look for variety OF
food. / have seen chicks find the beef
scraps first, and they ate beef scraps
only because they did not know any
better. These are the chicks that can
not find their way back to the hover,
and when they do find their way, they
are like the Dutchman, who simply
follows the crowd.
Third, it is lacking in digestion. 1t
does not get the full benefit of the
food Il eats, and therefore Is a poor
. layer.
Fourth, it is lacking 20 per cent. in
flesh, and always will be, no matter
how good you feed it. You have no
ticed in passing a lot of fryers for mar
ket that some are plump and fieshy,
while others are poor and thin. This
is plainly seen at the Seattle public
market where thousands of young
fowls are sold, and when passersby see
these thin chicks, some will say the
poor little things were starved to
DEATH" when the fact is, they had all
they could eat. Some folks claim a
chick can not be plump as long as 1t is
growint p, but they are mistaken. No
matter il a chick is plump or thin II
they had the same care it is their ma
ture.
Fifth, it is lacking in blood. The
fluid in it's veins is 80 per cent. blood
and 20 per cent water. When you kill
this chick, you will find that the blood
is thin and pale, and that of a plump
chick, that mas 100 per cent. of vitality,
is thick and dark (almost black. II
a chick is lacking in blood. 1t is lacking
in animal heat, and has hard work to
keep warm.
Sixth, It Is lacking 20 per cent. in
feathers. II Is not lacking in numbers,
but they are shorter, and the feathers
have not so much down. 1t IS the down
l.. - L.. IL
frost from getting next to the skin.
This chick likes to stay in the hover
and hug the warm pipes, where it flnds
the twenty per cent. OF missing heat
that makes 1t more comfortable. Il
will not lay until the approach OF warm
summer days, when eggs are cheap, as
It suffers too much from the cold to
lay In winter.
Seventh, it is lacking twenty per
cent. in oil with which to oil it's plum
age and the feathers are dry and have
a dull, smutty look, and can not shed
water as they should; and in rainy.
damp weather the chick soon gets wet
to the skin, which makes 1t subject to
colds and roup.
Eighth, 1t is lacking in egg produc-
tion by far more than 20 per cent; I
would place ii somewhere below 80 per
cent. A hen must be in blooming good
health to lay at all, and, when condi-
size does is to quit laying.
Ninth, but when II comes to flying,
one would think this chick had 200 per
cent. of vitality. 1t can fly up into the
hay loft door If il is fourteen feet
above ground. 1t is forever flying over
the fence and destroying the family
garden and tracking up the sidewalk
and the ba ok porch. Had the egg had
twenty per cent. more vitality that ma
ture intended 1t should have, the chick
or pullet would have been perfect in
every respect, and would have been
plump and fleshy and too full of eggs
to fly much. When we stop to consider
what a great difference there is be-
tween this chick and perfect one, and
20 per cent. OF vitality in the egg has
caused all the difference. We have
often read how to start right in the
poultry business, but the oily way is
to incubate eggs that have 100 per cent.
OF vitality and the rest is easy, as
chicks from such eggs have 100 per
cent. of health, and there Is absolutely
no room for Sickness. ana the chicks
are white diarrhoea and roup- proof
and proof against all sickness.
Progressive poultrymen on the west
coast are incubating such eggs, and all
that are lacking in vitality are sent to
market, where they belong. This can
not be done by testing the eggs, but by
properly managing the breeding stock.
Poultrymen that incubate eggs that
produce chicks that die in the shell,
and at the danger line, are still living
in the dark ages Of poultrydom.-W.
F. Kemper in Poultry Success.