BREEDING BROWN LEGHORN COCKERELS.

Evening Star, Issue 14420, 16 July 1910, Page 10

BREEDING BROWN LEGHORN COCKERELS.

[By an English Breeder.! It is just about a quarter of a century since I first took up the Brown Leghorns, and for the last fifteen years I have made a special study of cock-br»2ding. In my opinion the browns breed truer, and are truer, to type than any of the Leghorn family. The male bird is most handsome. His beautiful blending colors, ins noble head points and shapely body standing on bright orange legs and feet, place him in the premier position over all his i Italian brethren. | One valuable point about the browns is ; they are easy to exhibit. You do not ! require a laundry and two or three washj uig days each week to get them ready for exhibition. Their plumage never requires washing. All that is necessarv is just it sponge their comb, lobes, face, and wattles, wash and scrub their legs and feet, place them in a clean hamper, not less than 26in high, and despatch for exhibition. I have often been asked what is the right color a Brown Leghorn cock should ; be, or, in other words, the right shade of color. I may say shade of color is nothing, because you can have a good-colored bird a dark shade, a good-colored bird medium in shade, and a good-colored bird a light shade. A cockerel to be good in color must have a bright, clean, defined hackle to blend with the back and saddle; of course, soundness of black is of great importance, especially if you can attain that rich metallic black. A cockerel that fails in. color is one that is ruddy or washy, his hackle, back, and saddle being one dull color, showing no distinction. Another bad-colored cockerel is one with a light plain hackle and a dark claret hack and saddle; but remember color is not all that is required on a Brown Leghorn cock. To be successful on the show bench vou want a bird evenly balanced in every point. Notliing looks worse than a big cock short in feather or with samll comb, lobes, and wattles; or, vice versa, a small cock with large comb, Jobes, and wattles. Of course I like size in a Leghorn cock, providing it is true to type. A large cock, to possess real Leghorn type, must have plenty of stylo and bo long in feather, tail carrier! at an angle of .about 45deg, sickles long, well curved, and extra broad, shoulders square and prominent, broad, full, and round in front, head long, and sufficiently broad enough to carry a large, well-built comb, large, almond-shaped lobes, evenly matched and-well laid on, a large, full, | red eye, good round bone, .and, above all, plenty of style—that is to say, if you hav« a large bird, every point must be large and proportionate in size. •When mating up your breeding-pens for breeding exhibition cockerels, care should ' be taken that the hens <or pullets used are l of a thoroughly reliable cock-breeding | strain, making quite sure there is nopullet- , breeding blood in them whatever. It hj the pullet breeding strain intermixed with I the cock-breeding strain that gives tha; dull, plain, ruddy color, showing no defii niteness, and also robbing your cockereh of their style and alertness, which is so essential on the show bench. Cock-breed-ing liens should be tall and stylish, showing an upright appearance, especially whenj viewed from the front. She is built prac-. tically on the same lines as a black-red modern game hen, showing plenty of shoulder, and rather hard in feather, with a clear, sharp-defined neck hackle, a long broad head, clean face, and a bright red eye, medium-sized comb, not necessary to be carried upright, but see that the comb is built from the centre c< the head and straight from back to front. Another very important point is that of lobes. You do not want the big, pendant, thin, tripey lobe, nor yet the same kind of lobe you see on an exhibition hen. The lobes on a cock-breeding hen should be round and thick, quite free from wrinkles, and set clear from the face, and if “big lobed-bred” her Jobes will be very _sraa.il. What I mean by “ big lobed-bred ” is that all the lobe quality goes to the male sex. Such hens, mated with a bright, stylish cock or cockerel possessed of nice large, almond-shaped lobes, and good, firm, evenly-serrated comb, are sure, to produce exhibition specimens. I never use more than three hens in a breeding pen; certainly the male bird could look after more, but to be successful in your breeding it is necessary to know each hen’s eggs, and if you have six or eight bens in your breeding pen it is impossible to know which hen lays tho golden egg. I have a name for every hen used for breeding purposes; the name ia written on the egg of each hen, and when the chicks are hatched out they are rung or punched, then entered in a book showing* which hen they are bred from, and those hens that do not breed something decent I make a present of to my wife. I always say if a bird will not breed a good cockerel for me she is no use to anyone else. —Sight Influence.— I heard a fine story the other day, and one with a good moral, and with the editor’s permission I will relate it here, "Little Willie had two bantam hens given him by a friend, and, highly delighted, ho placed them in his father’s hen-house; but he was much annoyed when he found tha eggs were so small. Within a week they had laid nine, but all miniatures. One morning Willie's father went into the fowlhouse, and was astonished to find an ostrich egg which he had missed from his col loot hanging from the roof just in front of the bantams’ nest. Above it was suspended a card, on which were written in immense characters, but in a scrawly schoolboy hand, these words: ‘Keep your eve on this and do your best.’ ”

' So, reader, though you may not have done as well as you would wish, keep your eye on the top rung of the ladder, and do your best. You are sure to succeed in the end.