Newspapers / The Carolina Union Farmer … / Jan. 18, 1912, edition 1 / Page 6
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m t-lf' j - (■i-: !?*■: . . ... . ( - THE CAROLINA UNION FARMER Thursday, January i8,19^^' THE POULTRY YARD Scrubs vs. Pure Breeds- Selecting Breeders. prof. H. C. Pierce, Philadelphia, Pa., U. S. Dept, of Agriculture. There are certain things that hold good in any stock you select, whether pure-breds, cross-breds or grades. The two things that I wish you would not get away from are (i) constitution, and, (2) good health, I have raised a great many prize birds and I attribute my suc cess largely to the fact that I never would let pretty feathers pull me away from a good strong constitu tion. I mean by constitution, a bird that has good form, room for good lungs,' good heart and good diges tive organs, and they must have good health. Selection of birds is very important. What do you want a bird for? What is the object of breeding? Select the bird that has the qualities you wish. What do we mean by, breed and variety? Breed is a race of fowls, members of which maintain distinct charac teristics which they possess in com mon. I am going to talk about two classes of poultry, (i) General Breeds, and, (2) Egg Breeds. General Purpose Breeds —■ Ply mouth Rocks, Wyandottes, Rhode Island Reds and Orpingtons. Egg Breeds—Leghorns, Minorcas, An- conas, Spanish and Hamburgs. Breed is a broader term than variety and includes variety, Ply mouth Rocks, for instance, have "the breed name Plymouth Rocks, There arc several varieties of Ply- the exception of Rhode Island Reds. The comb determines the variety of Rhode Island Reds, one being rose comb and the other sin gle comb. The following story is a good one in regard to color: “Uncle Sam, wdiat is the best chicken ?” Scratch ing his head he said: “De white ’uns is de easiest to see on the roost, but the black ’uns is de easiest to hide when you catch ’em.” Some people in the country ob ject to the very white chickens on the account of hawks and owls and thieves. Nearly all wild animals, or those that have survived, are those adapting themselves to the color surrounding them. The white chickens are the easiest to breed, yet this offers an objection to them in some sections. The Brown Leg horn is preferred to the white on that account. Most of the egg farmers i^ the north and east use White Leghorn females. The large meat breeds. Brahmas, Cochins and Langshans, are good chickens, but are not adapted to General Purpose Breeds. The question may arise, “Shall we keep pure-breds, mongrels, or common stuff?” I am prelty well acquainted with the poultry condi tions in the country, especially in the Southern States, and I do not know of a single instance in my knowledge where a man has made a success of the poultry business to any great degree where he has used common stuff or mongrels. I would just as soon try to go bear hunting wnth a bird dog as to go into the poultry business with common. bred, lay about as large eggs as the general purpose breeds. All of the general purpose breeds lay brown- shelled eggs. It is some shade of brown and the egg breeds lay white eggs, so if your market calls for a white egg you will perhaps need an egg breed to get it. If your market calls for a brown egg, you will need the general purpose breeds. Some say that this is all foolishness, and that eggs are all alike, but if you are in the poultry business instead of fooling away time trying to con vince your customers as to what they .should have or want, you had better just give them what they ask for. The pure-breds, as compared to the cross-breds and grades, have a chief advantage in uniformity. To get highest price for anything on the market you should have uni formity. They are uniform in size, shape and color. I have been told that it makes no difference what color the eggs were. By putting white eggs in cases by themselves and brown eggs in cases by them selves, we got two cents more on the dozen just because they looked better, and it is the same way with the chickens, either dressed or in a crate. If they are uniform in size and shape and have the same color of skin, they will bring a better price per pound than the mixed product. With the pure-bred you can count on what you are going to get, but in breeding common stock you really don’t know what to ex pect, except that you don’t expect go od to get very high grade or quality. In regard to the raising of breds, we are sometimes told that wc may have .to sell our pure-breds at market price, and it is a fact that you will sell high class stuff at th^ market price,, but if you are breed- If not ing mongrel stock there is one cer tainty—you will never get th.an the market price for them you have common stock it is wise to throw it away, but it ma) be utilized. I made a little experiment breeding common stock and gra and I was able to find a commoa hen that did not seem to have any im.proved blood in her at all- With weighed about four pounds, her I found one of these little roos ters that is a nuisance around place. He weighed a little less t ^ the hen, but we got more eggs her and we mated her with a ar^ pure-bred Barred Plymouth male, and these eggs were ^ hatched at the same time, an have a slide of three of that Little one represents pure mong ^ strain and the other represents cross of the Plymouth Rock aia^^ on the common hen. The point HENS LAY AND BY THE PHILO STSlB?, edition of the PhlloSyjtero te* j,iy^ or .11 three book. ♦»■** e ulne. Poultry Review, on Y J. E. R. PHILO, U7 view* W—- - . North Ave., n;outh Rocks, the White, Barred and Blue. All of these Plymouth dung-hill stock. Rocks possess the same qualities in In addition to furnishing produce common, same size, shape, style of for a Baltimore house, we were comb, color of eye, color of skin, furnishing fresh eggs daily, paying but differ in plumage. Size and us 10 cents above market price, but shape determine breed, the color | the demand grew so great on us determines variety. All of the Gen- during the hatching season, that we •10' oral Purpose Breeds are similar in make up and are the farmers’ fa vorite, and if you wish to get a breed that will hatch and raise its young, from its own eggs, you will select one of these breeds. For egg production you take one of the egg producing breeds above mentioned. Egg breeds are not adapted to general purpose. Their business is to lay eggs and do not invest in these birds expecting them to hatch and raise their own young. A Leg horn hen’s business is to lay and she is so busy laying eggs that she is not expected to keep house and take care of the family. Color is a matter of taste. Take the breed possessing the quality you want and then.take the variety suit ing you best. You can get most of these in any color you wish, with w'ere compelled to put in some com mon eggs to help supply this egg tiade, but we found a very small per cent of the eggs from common fowls were fit to sell as first class eggs. We did not get the same value for our feed. We only tried that once and then abandoned the mongrel hens, and the next year we closed out the grade hens because we got better results from pure- bieds. There is no mongrel or com mon chicken that will compare with egg-producing breeds, because these breeds have been bred for centuries for egg production, and you can get more eggs from them. Compare the size of the eggs of the egg breeds and general purpose breeds. The Minorcas and the Spanish lay the largest eggs of any Write Now Fop Free Book —and learn eTerjrtbini^abont this time, labor and money-sarlner Incubator—The X-ltay | it is the wonderful artificial hatchlug raachino In the world. Just takes one gallon oC oil to a batch—one fllllnit o( the lamp. The X-llay 1»a new Invention. Old stylo machines uso S to 5 gallons of oil to hatch and lamp has to bo filled every The X-Ray Incubator is built on an entirely new and dllfereiit prlnolpio from the old style, wasteful machines. It has lamp underneath, sdharo in the center where it ought to be—and not on the side where no iwrfect tomiy ‘ ature could possibly be maintained. With lamp underneath X-Ray e ^ rhaiuber is always at even heat—always at a perfect hatching temperatu X-Ray’s lid has tioo double-glas. panels—thermometer can bo seen every without raising top and obllllng eggs. RAY INCUBATOR ted ** Built Different From All Other Machines” has only proven perfect heat re-rulator. Our aniomatio trip—an exclusive feature—cut. down flame at burner when egg-chaiuber gets too hut—“f.eti to —a saving of lots of oil and vionept No excess heat escapes—every bit la good advantage! To nse the X-Ray means less egg-handling, less oil. generated, axiiolntely no ioasf«, no fl'.llng of lamp during hatch, no lumeB, - -' ■ ■ - .-.—I.,* ......n ........ hA.. You don V SiWlUbdJ uvr WUOIVa Utility V* iniup UUlid^ U»bVvU» uaw 1 danger of “cooking'’ eggs—o/iraus oven heat over egg-chamber. You o" bare to take the eggs out of the X-Ray. The X-Ray Incubator is Guaranteed to Please You! It win ma’A-e big money for you—It Is the only one gool enough for you. Order shlri>ed the same day rooelvcd. lly all means wrlto for new 1913 book No. 92 —It's FliEEl We Pay tho Freight X-RAY INCUBATOR COMPANY. of the breeds. The Leghorns, well- •Nir-’r k; * til I |!“MI
The Carolina Union Farmer (Charlotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Jan. 18, 1912, edition 1
6
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