COLOR AND STRUCTURES OF PLUMAGE 81 



ground color in the neck plumage of the next generation. In the 

 latter case, to breed striping would not result in the desired darker 

 hackles but in the perpetuation of striped hackles which are, of course, 

 objectionable in a Rhode Island Red. 



The breeder must then come to the conclusion that he can only 

 depend upon producing a darker ground color by eliminating the 

 striped bird from the breeding pen and using birds for breeders that 

 are strongly pigmented with red with perhaps a bar of slate in the 

 undercolor to indicate strength of color. 



It is not an idle problem. The public will not accept the Rhode 

 Island Red if it is not red; and if it does accept an orange hackled 

 female, which breeds an orange topped male who in turn throws a 

 number of very light, whitish pullets, it is important that there 

 should be some one who has gained an understanding of how to 

 develop strength of color and maintain the breed to a standard of 

 excellence. 



Motley plumage makes no appeal to the eye and cannot persuade 

 a man to invest in better poultry. The color of the plumage is a 

 good indication of the purity of breeding and its condition is a good 

 index to the health and condition of the bird. 



Development of color depends not only upon breeding but also 

 upon proper conditions for growth. Lice, sickness, arrested devel- 

 opment, all show in the feather. A Black Wyandotte that has a 

 plumage full of purple bars instead of a bright, beetle green sheen, 

 may have been lousy as it grew; a Buff Rock that has some white 

 in wing and tail may have crowded and piled up as a chick; a Rhode 

 Island Red cockerel that along in September has wings so full of 

 white that the off-color shows from a distance, may have been chilled 

 as a chick, or. grown in a barren contaminated chicken yard, 

 or fed only hard grain and under-nourished while growing. There 

 may be three red cockerels that show white in wings in the same 

 brood, but if you go to the farm of the man who sold the sitting 

 of eggs from which these three off-colored chicks were hatched, you 

 may not find three cockerels like them in his three hundred. It is not 

 that he sold different eggs than he set. The grower is at fault. 



Care cannot transform a poorly bred chick into a prize winner but 

 the lack of care will ruin the finest chick ever bred. The successful 

 breeder realizes how dependent are color and shape upon normal 

 feather development, and he carefully handles his growing and molt- 

 ing birds, that they may possess a coat of plumage that represents 

 in full development all the good quality which he has bred into 

 his line. 



Utility of the plumage. Plumage has a very practical aspect. It 

 keeps the body warm and dry. Nature has not given better protec- 

 tion to any animal than she has given to birds in the form of plumage. 



These light feathers which a chicken carries on its body are an 

 effective insulator of body temperature. One of the difficulties of 



