THE BREEDING SEASON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20365, 20 September 1929, Page 20

THE BREEDING SEASON.

PROVISION FOR MATING.

PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED.

QUALITY OF THE EGGS.

UTILITY.

It seems a little late in tho season to be making preparations for mating, but several enquiries lately indicate that somo people are proparcd to risk a late hatch. Thoro is amplo time for " Inquirer," who has White Leghorns, for this is quite early enough for the light breeds, as the pullets will easily lay by March or April if tho eggs are set now. His only troublo is that' he has one male running with 24 females, and he is " afraid that in selecting tho required number of eggs some of thorn may not bo fertile." This is putting it rathor mildly, for satisfactory fertility cannot very well bo expected with such a proportion. Fifteen is about tho outside safety limit for one male, even with the light Mediterranean breeds, although expei iments have shown that with a larger flock fairly good fertility is obtained from the same ratio. Thus four males with 100 females havo been proved more fertile than one with 25, especially if on ""free range. Tho correspondent is therefore advised to confine eigbt or ten in a restricted run for a fow weeks, away from the male, and leave him with the rest on free range, while the eggs are being collected for setting. ... . , Another question from " Inquirer" can be answered much moro definitely : " Is there any means whereby infertile eggs can be detected, so as to ensure that all eggs set for hatching are fertile ?" A Negative Answer., Tho answer is decidedly in tho negative, • just as definitely as the answer to the enquiry as to whether tho sex can bo detected in an egg. The trouble is that overy egg has a lifo germ, just outside the yoke, but attached to it. This is absolutely invisible when the egg is whole although easily detected when tho egg is broKon, but tho difficulty is to know whether the gcnn is fertile or not. Somo experts doclaro that they can tell if it is fertile by tho presence of a clear outer ring or circle, with little : white dots in tho contre, whereas the infertile germ is whitish in appearance and lacks the clear outer ring.

This is an opportuno time to suggest that inability to detect fertility does not necessarily mean small broods, at any rate with hens. Frequently I havo raised up to tho maximum that a hen can cover by the, following scheme. Suppose hen Number 1 was set on 15. eggs on September 21. These are tested on September 28 by candling. In actual practice candling now means holding up the egg, botween tho thumb and first finger, before an electric light, with f.ne thin end outwards to tho tips of tho fingers The infertile aro perfectly clear, and can be usod for feeding the fowls, whereas the fertile; have • the" air-cell distinctly developed, and the rest of the egg is much darker. Probably these aro infertile, and are taken away. Now set hen nnm ber 2 the same evening (September 28), giving her 15 eggs, and putting three additional eggs under hen number 1, to bring hers up to 15 also On October 5 all these 18 can' be tested, all the infertile taken out, and hen number 3 set on 15 more, with sufficient extra eggs under numbers 1 and 2 to bring them both up to 15. This can be kept going the whole season, and with anything like reasonable luck there will be an average of about 14 chicks per clutch. Befit Way ol Mating. This is a better scheme than setting two hens on the same day, with the idea of giving both clutches to one of tho hens and letting the other hatch a fresh brood, for tho latter is too great a temptation to havo too many chicks nnder one hen. Unless it is late m the season, when it is much warmer, it is dangerous to put 20 or moro chicks under ono hen, for she cannot cover them propely when they are two or three weekß old. " Chicken, Okoroire" asks which is the best time to breed from a pullet, hejj first season's laying or second, or is there any difference? 1 am decidedly against breeding from pullets in their first year, for several reasons Of course it is possible, and probably everybody has done it, but it is only forced upon them through bad management, or through failure to look two years ahead. Improvident or impatient breeders will do it. Good birds have been bred that way, but still bettor aro bred from two-year hens, so tho moral seems to be to look ahead and plan for the breeding. for two seasons in advance.

Advantage ol Tests. The common advice is yearling females with two-year males, or else two-year females with yearling males, but give me tho latter every time. Ono obvious advantage is that it avoids keeping adult males over for another year, which is always a bother while they arc then worth less-for eating. But in these days of heavy egg production, presuming the question is from that point of view, and that it will bo of value to all farmers,, it seems quite a [ mistake to breed from pullets, before one knows whether as layers they are good, bad, or indifferent. Tho egg-laying competitions prove beyond all doubt that even the most expert breeders, with all the world's experience, cannot pick their best birds as pallets, and ono will lay 60 to 100 per cent more eggs than a Tull sister in the same pen. The obvious course is to try them out the first season and breed from only the best the next year. $\ Very few people will go to the extreme longth of trap-nesting for a whole year, but it is fairly easy to say next April which have laid well enough to bo selected for tho breeding pen next Juno I or July. ' Most likely it will be found during the flush of the season. If a heavy breed and one bird is always going broody and another keeps on laying reject the former. If yellow-legged, like Leghorn, Bock or Wyandotte,' and one keeps a beautiful colour through the 'summer and tho other loses all the pigment and becomes almost flesh colour, the latter is tho layer to save for breeding.