Mating and selection of breeding stock 151 



and the closer you follow these principles, the fewer exceptions 

 you make, the better will be the results. 



To start with, if you save youngsters from inferior pairs, 

 naturally those youngsters will not be as good for breeding 

 purposes as the youngsters saved from your best pairs. What 

 I mean by best is breeders that are of good average size, good 

 type, and have produced a large number of fat, healthy squabs. 

 The parents must necessarily, therefore, besides other qualities, 

 be motherly, good feeders and domestic. Youngsters saved 

 from this class of breeders will, on an average, prove better 

 all aroimd birds and more dependable for squab producing 

 purposes than youngsters saved from birds which are too large, 

 too small, or out of breeders slow and lazy or poor feeders. By 

 the latter term I mean a bird that does not feed or take care of 

 its squabs well. 



If an old bird comes from a good strain, and is not quite up 

 to the standard itself, its youngsters are often superior to 

 youngsters produced by birds of an inferior strain, even though 

 they are of a fair size and type. This is a point w'orth considering. 

 The best time of the year to save youngsters for breeding pur- 

 poses is in the winter or spring, for the reason that they will 

 grow to maturity, pass through the moult, mate and start breed- 

 ing before cold weather, and then continue to breed all winter; 

 while birds that do not get old enough to mate before cold 

 weather are apt to sit around all winter and not start to work 

 until spring, but there is no set rule on this. 



I have found that youngsters will not produce many squabs 

 before they are eight or nine months old, and in the long run, 

 11 is about as well to mate them up at that age as it is to crowd 

 them. It is never a good plan to save every youngster for 

 breeding purposes even if you are in a hurry to increase your 

 flock. 



Care sliould be taken when selecting youngsters to save an 

 e((ual number of each sex. As the largest and best looking 

 sciuab is invariably the male, and the small, inferior looking 

 squab the female, you will find the majority of the birds saved 

 are males unless you guard against it. As a rule, there is a male 

 and female in each nest, so it is a fairly safe method to save 

 both birds or nest mates, instead of just the best looking ones. 

 Some breeders, in order to guard against saving more males 



