32 FIRST, LESSONS IN POULTRY KEEPING. 



Tlte special mutiny LU produce females mates with exhibition females cockerels of the 

 female line. These males are lighter colored than the females, sometimes very light in color, 

 but always must be distinctly barred. Males from such matings follow, as a rule, the color of 

 the sire ; females the color of the dam. 



The breeder of Barred Rocks who would follow this system of breeding should buy all his 

 stock from one breeder, and have him make the matings. The common practice of beginners 

 buying a pen or trio from one breeder, and a pen or trio from another breeder, and changing 

 the males to avoid inbreeding is responsible for a great deal of unsatisfactory results in all 

 varieties, but in none is the risk greater than in Barred Rocks. Until one knows his own stock 

 and knows how it is bred, it is better to rely on the breeder of his original stock for the first 

 mating, and, if possible, to get his advice and buy stock needed for future matings from him 

 until one has reason to taink he can go it alone. 



Undercolor. 



The Standard requires that the barring on the feathers of the Barred Rock extend the entire 

 length of the feather, right down to the skin. The underbarring need not be as distinct as on 

 the surface, but should be clearly discernible. Some advanced breeders get underbarriug so 

 strong that it makes a smutty surface, but the beginner errs oftener in the other direction. 



Mating Light Brahmas. 



In the Light Brahma, Light Brahma Bantam, and Columbian Wyandotte, we have a color 

 combination, perhaps best described as white with black points that is, the white greatly pre- 

 dominates in the surface color, the black appearing only in a few sections, i. e., in hackle, wings 

 and tiil. 



In the hackle the black is in the form of a heavy black stripe in the middle of the feather. 



In the tail the stiff main tail feathers should be solid black; the sickles and larger coverts 

 black, while the lesser coverts are black edged with white. The coverts are the soft somewhat 

 curling secondary feathers of the tail, larger next the main feathers, and gradually merging into 

 the plumage of the back and saddle. 



In the wings the largest primary or flight feathers are in the best specimens black with a 

 narrow edge of white at the lower edge of the feather. The secondary feathers should have 

 enough of the lower web of each white to make the folded wing white. 



The undercolor should be white or bluish white, and it is desirable that sections that are 

 white on the surface should be white or nearly white in undercolor except near their juncture 

 with a color section containing black in surface color, where a darker undercolor is not objec- 

 tionable. 



The problem in mating for this color combination is to keep the surface colors in their allotted 

 places as intense and as clean as possible. As in all color combinations, the tendency is for the 

 colors to run together. While no double mating system such as is used for Barred Plymouth 

 Rocks is employed, Light Brahma matings generally have to be compensation matings, a stand- 

 ard male with a female not so intense In black sections, and females very strong in color with 

 males a trifle weak. Two birds that are both rather dark in undercolor, if mated together, gen- 

 erally give chicks with much splashing, mottling, and ticking of black in surfaces that should 

 be white. 



Mating Silver Penciled Varieties. 



In all the varieties so far considered the male and female are as nearly identical in color and 

 markings in every section as the art of the breeder can make them. We now take up a number 

 of varieties in which the male and the female are not the same color: First, we consider the 

 silver penciled varieties the Dark Brahma and the Silver Penciled Wyandotte which are 

 practically the same in color. 



The males are black, or black slightly frosted with white, in plumage of breast an'd body, 

 white on the back and wing bows, white with black striping in hackle and saddle feathers, 

 while the stiff wing and tail feathers are the same as in the Light Brahma, except that the wing 

 coverts are black and make the black bar across the wing when folded. This gives us the 

 "black-white" color combination. 



