BONE DEFORMITIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 153, 26 December 1936, Page 8

BONE DEFORMITIES

CAUSED BY BAD REARING'

Crooked breastbones are objectionable for two reasons. From , a fancier's viewpoint a crooked breast is a disqualification in the show pen and very often for stud stock sales, while from the utility viewpoint buyers' of table poultry will discount usual rates when a hi|h percentage of bent keel bones is experienced, since they naturally detract from ■ the appearance of a dressed fowl. For many years it has been thought'that the complaint was due to bad breeding, but recent experimental work has shown that -the method of rearing has more to do with the trouble than anything else. Some consider that too ■ early perching will result in a higher percentage of crooked breasts, but this, t&o, has been, found incorrect in most cases. Certainly, too early perching/nay result in a perch mark or dent on the breast, but this is not considered very objectionable. The worst type is where the breastbone is so 'twisted that it appears almost like the letter "s." It is not easy to carve a fowl at any time, but he who tries to carve the breast of one of these twisted birds will havje a real job of work. ■■■'■'■■:■■. "'■■. Many factors will..cause this trouble. In experimental work'carried out at Massey College it has' been clearly shown that chicks reared.under broody hens and running on free range are remarkably free from any bone deformities and definitely have a stronger bone framework than chicks.reared in large numbers artificially. The following remarks by Mr.'J. Gibson in "The Australian Poultry Standard" are of interest:— ■■■•■■"• .■■■-■ ' . One of the greatest disappointments in poultry keeping is to find the specimen you have thought so much of has developed a crooked breast. Many reasons are given for the cause of this blemish, heredity, feeding, and perching being the commonest factors claimed for the occurrence. _ ' Hereditary weakness is no doubt sometimes the cause, but my experience is that in strains having good bone it is very rarely the cause. Generally the bad breasts are found in two classes of birds, the largest and the weakest, being quite absent in the medium birds. I find if you start witn a breeding pen very early in the season say April, the chickens hatched then will bo very good, growing to quite outsizes and in these the crooked breasts will be prominent; later in the season the fault disappears. Then if late hatching is undertaken a certain amount of weeds will come along, many of which will have bad breasts. This has been the writer's experience over ten years or more. The reason T Give for it is that the early-hatched birds have such favourable growing conditions that they outgrow he strength of the bone, the result being the breast bone bends. Crooked breasts.can develop from day-old to six months, and m -heavy laying pullets they can develop up o wolve months which rather points to the bird drawing on her own bone for S£ material. Lack of bone-forming fcod™ tainly helps to develop crooked breasts. I knew one lot of fowls reared on rice boiled in skim milk, that grew wonderfully big and heavy but practically alidad faulty breast bones, though it was absent in their parents. / PERCHING BLAMED. Perching is often blamed, and my idea of a perch is quite The fiat 3in by 2in perch is a great idea for bending breasts of growing fowls. If you- take a young^ chicken and perch it on your finger it will be found that when the claws grip the fln»er the chicken's body cannot be lorced down on to the finger, but tegs on natural springs formed by is legs Now place the chicken on a piece of 2in wood and you will notice it cannot close its claws round it, but must spread its legs out and its body, comes to rest on the breast -bone,' not on the springy legs, which I am sure Nature intended it to* H you try this experiment you will soon see that a flat perch is more inclined to bend a breast than a round one. : The question then often arises, shall a crooked-breasted bird be allowed in the breeding pen? Well, this is for the owner to decide. If it \s from straight-breasted parents and is otherwise sound in-!bone and has a. good frame- and sound legs, it can generally be relied on to produce straightbreasted progeny. But if the .strain is addicted to this fault it should not be used. A fair guide is the brothers and sisters. If they are sound in this feature there is little to be afraid of. To my mind many a good bird is potted for this fault, and his much inferior brother used in his place. A bird with this fault and plenty of vigour is, to me, much preferable to a soundbreasted bird lacking the least bit of stamina. There is another cause of crooked breast not so generally known and not so common, but still met with. That is the bent breast caused by faulty incubating. It occurs when eggs during incubation are not sufficiently dried down, incidentally in this case a lot of dead in shell also occurs. What happens is that the chicken is crowded- in the - shell and as its ' neck lies across its • breast bone it is a case of the breast bending over or the chicken smothering when it attempts to break its way out of the shell. To sum up, a breast bone that is deformed through accident, wrong feeding, or unsuitable perching, would not be hereditary. But one caused through weak bone would most likely pass on this defect, to its progeny.