THE BREED IN POULTRY, 



AND PURE BREEDING' 



Case in Which a Standard Bred and Supposedly Pure Bred Family Carries Fac- 

 tors Normal to Other Breeds and Without Being Suspected. 



William A. Lippincott 



IN ATTEMPTING to give a broad 

 answer to the question, "What is a 

 breed of live stock?" in the Journal 

 OF Heredity- some time ago, Lloyd- 

 Jones fell into a slight error of detail 

 concerning poultry when he remarked, 

 "Of Wyandottes I believe there are 

 about a dozen varieties differing from 

 each other in color, pattern, feathering, 

 or comb shape." As a matter of fact, 

 the varieties of Wyandottes do not dif- 

 fer in either feathering or comb shape. 

 The comb is always rose and the feath- 

 ering is uniform throughout the breed. 



Poultry breeders appear to have been 

 rather more fortunate in arriving at a 

 definite conclusion concerning what con- 

 stitutes a breed, than have the breeders 

 of some of the larger farm animals. 

 They have defined it as a group of do- 

 mestic birds closely approaching a cer- 

 tain specific shape. The breed name is 

 the one which identifies any well-defined 

 and recognized type, such as Plymouth 

 Rock, Wyandotte, Leghorn, Brahma, 

 etc., and the birds conforming closely 

 to those shapes are said to be members 

 of those respective breeds. Some va- 

 rieties within certain breeds apparently 

 have no immediate genetic relationship. 



As feathering has very much to do 

 with a bird's shape, it is manifestly 

 impossible for different members of a 

 given breed to differ in feathering be- 

 yond a certain quite well-defined limit 

 of variation. These limits are pre- 

 scribed in "The Standard of Perfec- 

 tion," a book published by The Ameri- 

 ican Poultry Association and recog- 



nized generally as the official guide by 

 which poultry is bred and judged. The 

 Wyandotte is, for instance, described 

 as having featherless shanks and toes. 

 A member of this breed carrying so 

 much as one small feather on the 

 shanks or toes is barred from competi- 

 tion in the show-room, and is said to 

 be "disqualified." 



The breeds, which are in reality the 

 basis of pouhry classification, are, for 

 convenience, both subdivided and 

 grouped. The subdivisions are termed 

 varieties, while the groups are referred 

 to as classes. There are two varietal 

 distinctions, namely, comb shape and 

 color of plumage; either one or both 

 may be present. Thus the Rose Comb 

 Rhode Island Red differs from the Sin- 

 gle Comb Rhode Island Red only in 

 comb shape. The White Wyandotte 

 differs from the Buff Wyandotte only 

 in color, while the Single Comb White 

 Leghorn differs from the Rose Comb 

 Brown Leghorn in both comb and 

 color. They are members of the same 

 breed, however, because they approach 

 very closely the same type or shape. 



For the more common breeds the 

 class grouping is based on similar gen- 

 eral characteristics and place of origin. 

 The Brahma, Cochin, and Langshan. to- 

 gether, comprise the Asiatic class. They 

 have all come to us from or through 

 Asia and are birds of large size, having 

 feathered shanks, frequently becoming 

 broody and laying a dark-brown egg. 

 The Leghorns, Minorcas, Anconas, An- 

 dalusians. and Spanish, which comprise 



1 Contribution from the Department of Poultry Husbandry, Kansas Agricuhural Ex- 

 periment Station. 



2Vol. vi. No. 12, p. 531. 



71 



