100 THE AMERICAN BREEDS OF POULTRY 



hen yard of some careless poultrykeeper and see the underfed chickens 

 there. Then picture the full feeder who knows that growing plumage 

 requires food, and that weakened vitality of a check in growth will 

 show in the feather. 



In fact, a famous winning male or female chicken one year is not 

 so sure to return and repeat the triumph the following year as is a 

 purebred horse, or bull, or boar, because there is not the same cer- 

 tainty of a fowl returning to its best quality of plumage. 



Easily digested food, containing some sulphur, saccarated car- 

 bonate of iron, and linseed meal are often fed, except to white birds, 

 during the molt, and also to growing chickens after they are fourteen 

 weeks of age. The story has been told of the Hamburg breeders of 

 the west of England not being able to compete with those of York- 

 shire, and it was found that the growing birds in Yorkshire drank 

 water which sprang from the iron rock. Thereupon, after their chicks 

 reached fourteen weeks of age they began to color-feed by adding iron. 



The color of this plumage with which we work probably is due 

 both to pigment and structure. The sheen probably is superficial 

 and due to refraction of light. Oil probably helps the blood supply 

 in the nutritional processes, and it has been suggested that the sheen 

 which is especially important in a black feather and hardly less so in 

 a red one, since it bestows life to the whole plumage is due to the 

 oil hardening into minute crystals and refracting the light. 



Color of lobes, eyes and shanks. In a chapter in which is dis- 

 cussed color of plumage, perhaps we may mention additional features 

 whose colors give distinctiveness to our fowls. 



The color of the skin of all American breeds is yellow, and this 

 leads to a yellow shank in all save the Black Wyandotte and the 

 Black Java, the bottoms of whose feet should be yellow. Effort is 

 being made to breed Black Wyandottes with yellow shank, as will be 

 outlined in the chapter on this variety. Dusky yellow shanks are 

 particularly common in the Partridge varieties. 



The color of the ear lobe should be red, and as is characteristic of 

 red-lobed breeds, the American breeds lay brown eggs. Of course, 

 the eggs are not of a uniform brown. It seems easy enough to get 

 a uniform white-shelled egg but here there is an absence of color 

 pigment. When it comes to depositing color, scarcely no two hens 

 deposit the same amount, and the tints of brown eggs vary. 



The ear lobes should be red. Positive enamel white disqualifies a 

 Plymouth Rock, Java or Dominique, male or female, no matter how 

 small the spot of unquestionable white may be. In Wyandottes, 

 Rhode Island Reds and Buckeyes, ear lobes more than one-quarter 

 positive enamel white disqualify. Enamel white should not be con- 

 fused with paleness. The latter may be due to worms, especially if 

 redness is frequently followed by paleness. In judging, a bird should 

 be given the benefit of the doubt, and it is recommended that he be 



