POULTRY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2051, 15 June 1893, Page 4

POULTRY NOTES.

MATING BLACK KED-GAMES.

Black red-game are accounted a royal race, in beauty, in courage, and in antiquity of blood. Whether many of our present day accepted breeds are entitled to be regarded as thoroughbred may be open to dispute on certain grounds ; but the game is, and has been for centuries, _ thoroughbred beyond all question. All varieties of game except the black-red are modifications of the original type. This is proved by the fact that no other games but the black-red will breed always, and with absolute certainty, true to colour, and at the same time true to the characteristic game type. White games will breed true to colour, like almost- all white strains of fowls, but this variety is especially liable to deviate from the game type in form and carriage, thus strongly indicating a mongrel strain of blood in them. A fancier cannot successfully continue to breed brownbreasted, pile or duck-wing games •without recourse to the black-red blood, the original fountain head of the whole game family. In breeding games it is considered best to mate pullets with full-grown male birds, and mature hens with cockerels. To produce cocks with tho orange red hackle and saddle feathers favoured by the fashion of the present day, careful selection of the mating is necessary. To a cock of this shade of red should be mated well-grown pullets in colour like salmon shading off to ashen brown ; back and wings ashen brown, free from reddish tinge, pencilled with black, looking like dark brown pencillings ; primaries, dull black or dark brown ; tail, dull black, held neatly, venetianed with feathers close together, and carried at an angle of 45deg ; thighs, rather long and muscular and light ashen brown in colour ; willow legs, fairly long, but not stilty, body feeling compact and solid ; plumage close and hard. Such a pullet will moult into a lighter shade with lighter pencillings, and will then be suitable for mating with a cookerel showing a dark, rich red in colour. The mating of extremes is a bad general principle to follow, although now and then it may be necessary to do so, as the only way of utilising certain birds. The result is a good epecimen sometimes for show purposes.