CONTROLLING THE SEXES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1920, 4 December 1890, Page 5

CONTROLLING THE SEXES.

The Progres Agricole de la Somme publishes a letter from one of its correspondents relating to a question which has for a long time been more or leas studied by the breeders of live stock. The writer, having seen an account of an experiment by an American fowl-breeder, decided to make a similar one, and the result he has just published. The process recommended for producing either cockerels or pullets at will is to take a cockerel four or five re on the old and perform partial castration by removing the right testicle, The bird is allowed to rest quietly for about 15 days until it has recovered from the operation. Then it is turned amongst hens or pullets which have not been near any other male bird for at least 24 days, and if the operation has been properly carried out the eggs afterwards laid will all hatch out pullets, To obtain cockerels it is sufficient to reverse the process. The correspondent of the Progreß Agricole was desirous to have all pullets, and he carried out the above instructions as laid down by the American " inventor." Several broods of chickens " came off " about May 15 last, and when he wrote th 9 birds were more than two months old, bo be was able to distinguish the sexes. He then found that the 64 chickena comprised 59 pullets and five cockerels. From this he concludes that the American paragraph was not a hoax, as some persons were inclined to rpgard it, but that it was thoroughly genuine. The large number of pullets to cockerels in the experiment he made could not, he maintains, have been the result of acoident or chance, or of a fortunate but doubtful selection of eggs by the poultry keeper. The experimenter aska the question whether the same process cannot be applied to other animals, and suggests that any person who may have tried this method, on the strength of the Yankee paragraph, should give the publio the benefit of any knowledge they may have gained in the direotion of controlling the sexes at will.

Testing Eggs.— Egg-testing is not profitable alone to the poultryman who uses incubators for hatohing eggs, In fact, it is often quite valuable to the breeder in a small way, ena>

I ling him to make the most of the incubating) capaoity of a few hens. By setting two orji more hens at the same time, the eggs may be' tested accurately the fifth day ; and by throw- « ing out all the infertile and dead eggs (often a considerable number), the remaining eggs may be covered by a less number of hens, and freßh eggs given to the hens thus relieved of their charge. There are various methods of testing eggs ; and numbers of testers are offered for sale, varying in excellenoe aooording to convenience and strength of light. Perhaps the best tester of all is sunlight. By cutting a hole a little smaller and the shape of the egg, whpn held with the large end up, in the Bide of the' barn or other outhouse, and darkening the space back of it, a good tester is obtained. A large drapery box may be utilised for this purpose, or a shingle inserted in a north window and the rest of the window darkened. The light in front of the hole may be greatly intensified by reflection from a mirror or other bright object. It is advisable to test the eggs two or three times during incubation, for the purpose of removing any dead eggs, whose *' perfume " and, the poisonous gases which they generate are (anything but pleasant and healthful to the remaining occupants of the nest.