BREED TYPE 65 



an egg, it comes out the vent passing between the pelvic arch. The 

 thin bone that is pliable indicates easy passage of egg, enabling the 

 lien to lay her egg quickly. She is thus released to scratch and gather 

 the food nutrients that are required to form an egg for the next day. 

 Such a hen is an easy layer, soon off the nest and busy scratching, 

 wearing down her toenails. 



In the hen has curved pelvic bones, curved together like a pair of 

 cow's horns, and they are rigid, not pliable, we would cull her out, 

 even though she had fair capacity. Hens with thick bones put on fat 

 easily. The thin bone is an indication of the egg type or temperament 

 which readily converts the feed consumed into eggs. J. W. Parks' 

 325 egg hen, Miss Smarty, has laybones y 2 inch thick. The feature, 

 however, is counterbalanced by an enormous crop, 7 finger abdomen 

 and large body. 



Internal organs. It cannot be said that body measurements and 

 the laybone test are an infallible guide. The trapnest is the sure guide, 

 just as the milk test rather than the capacious barrel and roomy udder 

 is the sure test in judging dairy cows. The correlation is not a unity, 

 but the value of body formation is so great that it deserves equal recog- 

 nition with other points of conformation. After all, we cannot judge 

 the whole bird. The viscera is entirely hidden from our view, and yet 

 if those internal organs fail to perform their function, if because of 

 faulty heart tissue the circulatory system fails in the assimilation and 

 distribution of the digested food constituents, the bodily organism must 

 fail and the bird die. Our judgment is limited to the somatic features 

 and any part of the body which we can examine and which may have 

 a relationship with the internal functioning of the animal should not 

 be dismissed as unworthy of our attention. 



The heart, gizzard and intestines are hidden from view, yet we 

 know that we want large vital organs, for if birds are to grow fast and 

 lay with intensity, they must be equipped to digest large amounts of 

 food quickly. Of course, we do not want a heart in a chicken as strong 

 as the heart of a lion, for the single beat of such an organ would send 

 blood rushing through the valves with such a pressure that it woulr; 

 burst the arteries; but we do want internal strength proportionate with 

 the life, necessary activity and designated purpose of the species. 



Selecting breeders for shape to produce heavy laying offspring. 

 There is much that is invisible, particularly that which is carried in the 

 invisible cells of the reproductive organs. Mendelism and the segrega- 

 tion of characters have shown that birds are impure in some respects, 

 even though we consider them as coming from a pure breeding strain 

 and look upon the chickens of a single purebred flock as identical in 

 composition. If the body and laybone tests are rejected, extensive 

 breeding experiments must be carried on to determine which male 

 carries the factor for high egg production and if a prepotent trans- 

 mitter of that factor. Dr. Charles H. Woods, director of the Maine 



