POULTRY NOTES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIII, Issue XLIII, 3 April 1909, Page 1

POULTRY NOTES

(By "Buff.'') j LINE BREEDING. It is a common saying that "like bco-ets like." It is equally as often disputed. We aay without fear of 'contradiction that like begets like. ! not once, but all the time just as 2 and 2 makes 4. But there is such a . thing as ancestry and it is often of a mixed nature. Too little notice is taken of the forefathers of our flocks. Many of the specimens that worthily grace our show benches and our laying competitions are chance birds — flukes. They are mnted with : other flukes, and produce — a few more flukes and a lot of culls. And Iso the game goes on. | But where we pick one bird on its 'appearance or laying and mate it i promiscuously with another selected in like manner, without taking here- , dity into consideration, the conflcting I elements of the sires and the grand- | sires and great-grandsires will continue to fight for supremacy, with the result of a few chance birds — flukes — pand a lot of culls. 1 Take the laying Instinct. Cockerel A is from a 200-egg hen — individually teted, his father from a 60-egg bird, , his grandfather from 100 and 150----egg bird respectively. He is mated to a pullet of similar lineage. Theoretically, the progeny coming from 200-ogg birds on both sides should be 200-egg birds. But are thoy? Never! : The blood of the parents comes in time after time, and it will take generations of selection by ordinary mejthoils to build up from this matiug a (lock of 200-egg average. Yet some I people expect to get to that -.'tage ii; about t welve months. Line breeding is successful nol fi„m the fact that related birds are used. 'but because the parentage is established aippl it-- tendencies known. Also y.jn will find all the adherents of linebreeding laying down, in the first in shin..', something like Ihis: (let th.best pair of birds that money can bnv , — a. near perfection as possible. The :' novice naturally thinks that, under [these conditions, one couldn't help I breeding good stuff, and he (naturally, also) falls into the error of misplacing , his trust. ;_a tho ..-__l_,<_ n f ,>._> st om° | not the birds. Well, take this apparently ideal mating, birds absolutely unrelated, but approximating perfection—perhaps chance birds of decided doubtful parentage. For the purposes of argument, presume they I are. The direct progeny is a heterogeneous collection, partaking of the nature ot parents, grandparents and ancestors to the third and fourth generation Mate these promiscuously and .You I get a sorry lot. But what is tho advice? Mate tho sire to the pulJets mort like the mother, .the mother to the sou most like ho father and so on and so forth. What is the consequence? Yoti start with approximately perfect birds. You breed only from those which show a strong likeness to the parents, and the whole tendency is to raise a flock in which the blood, appearance, and charactertics of these parents are so strouglv impressed that the wayward tendencies of former ancestors aro completely overcome. And if— and mind you, only if the same care is continued right along and new blood so gradually and carefully added that it is ! practically brought right up to the same standard before being freely intermingled with the rest of the flock, success will continue to accumulate. So far, we have dwelt principally on the show side, and without doubi ftn tho utility consideration. So many factors come into play that are absent ' in he utility consideration So many I little details require attention; so' many slight faults mean di.-qualificn- • •tion and must be eliminated. Tho ' utility man is much better off, and he nlso has the added advantage of being able to -secure fresh blood and where fresh blood of the right' sort is to be had it certainly should be had. The utility man can follow along the same lines as the above if he desires, selecting two birds, both the progeny of proved heavy layers, and the hen herself a decided ' egg-pro-ducer. He can, in the. same way, .... breeil n the lay ng qualities that his flock will be gradually improved until the great proportion of the flock is equal to the original parents. j But this system calls for such elosp culling and such rigid selection thit the probability is if he is to depend , on market eggs he'll die of starvation during the proci-.s of evolution. ' lbi tin' other hand, he can fix a standard as the lowest upon which he ' can make a profit at the average prico of eggs and consumption and cost of feed. fciay, for argument sake, he says every hen that la.vs 120 eggs pays her feed and a profit. Wtli, there'll be reversion, and he will have to select as breeders hens averaging 150 or more per annum to have a prospect of rearing only 120-egg hens or better. This can be dove in a hundred different ways, without trapnests or single testing pens, by the man who is in the game for keeps. We presume he is not using hired labour, for hired labour is blind most times, except in its own interests. Tt is comparatively easy, then, for the enthusiast to locate the hundred or couple of hundred best hens of his flock, and to get again tho best, of these for breeding purposes. His original male or males must be above reproach ot as near so as it is possible to get them. But the process wil] be slow It is impossible to build up a a 200-egg strain (i.e., a strain, every bird of which will lay 200 eggs per year) in one year or ten, just as it is impossible to breed show stock as a regular thing from good chance birds mated haphazard. Three to four generations of lino)-breeding (or mating with

-1birds of similar tendency firmly established for the same term) will generally fix any desired characteristic, external or internal, but only if there is rigid exclusion of every bird that betrays any undesirable hereditary trait, until such time as only the desired features remain. It looks difficult, insurmountable, but it can bo accomplished, and it is only because it is so hard to perform that prize birds of known, prepotency and layers with the habit of stamping their qualities on their offspring are scarce and at a premium, and sell at such advances over ordinary prices. But the man with grit and determination can get there if he tries".' Get .the blood lines fixed. Get the desirable features, and those only, firmly impressed into the flock by breeding only from practically, perfect birds, the progeny of practicajiy perfect birds, year after year. '.-Eitroduce no new blood that is notj proved to be equal in quality and' equally permanent in quality. Pro-! gress will be comparatively slow at I first, but gradually and swrely you' will overhaul the haphazard breeder, and finally vanquish him altogether. — 'Australian Hen."