THE CALL OF THE HEN. 69 



While some breeders have good success in breeding for the desired type 

 of bird, whether for fancy, for eggs, or for flesh, others will have very 

 poor success. 



The purpose of this chapter is to explain to the breeder who has had 

 poor success a method that will enable him to breed with the full under- 

 standing as to what he is doing. It is a well-known fact among the 

 clothing trade that if a woolen manufacturer has a sample of cloth 

 presented to him, he can manufacture thousands of yards that will 

 be an exact duplicate of the sample. The same is true in other industries. 

 But suppose the reader gives an order to one of our well-known poultry 

 breeders for 1,000 pullets, to be delivered at four months old, these 

 pullets to be housed, fed, and cared for as the breeder designates, and 

 to approximately lay a certain number of eggs their first laying year; 

 how many breeders do you suppose could fill the order? Until a ma- 

 jority of them can do so the poultry industry will not be on a business 

 basis, but will be more or less of a gamble. 



I have said that seemingly like does not beget like in some cases. 

 We will take, for instance, a hen that is five fingers abdomen, in good 

 condition, J^-inch pelvic bones. She will scale up as a 205-egg type 

 hen. We will mate up a pen of these hens with a 205-egg type cockerel 

 or cock bird ; we raise 100 pullets from this mating and they may scale 

 175-egg type. We then say, "Like does not produce like." Here is 

 where we make a mistake. In one sense we are right, in another we 

 are wrong. Nature makes no mistakes. We have mated 205-egg- 

 type male and female, and we get as a result 175-egg type product. 

 That's as plain as the nose on one's face, and we throw up our hands 

 in despair and say, "It's all luck and chance." Another party mates 

 up the same type of birds and gets a lot of pullets that average 210 

 eggs their first laying year; still another party mates up the same type 

 of birds and does not get a chick. 



The reader may smile, but this is no dream. A number of such 

 cases have come under my observation. One case was that of a pro- 

 fessor in one of the Southern California public institutions. He had a 

 pen of twelve Black Minorcas, headed by a splendid-looking cock bird; 

 also a pen of twelve Andalusians. He said there was something peculiar 

 about these hens, and he wanted to know if I could detect it. I tested 

 all the Andalusians, and told him they should average 140 eggs their 

 first laying year, and I would expect twelve eggs out of every thirteen 

 to be fertile. After testing the Minorcas, I told him they would average 

 about 160-egg type, but if they were mine, I would not set any of their 

 eggs while they were mated to the present cock bird, because I would 

 not expect them to hatch, and if they did hatch, they would be degener- 

 ates. He said, "This is the second season I have bred from the birds; 

 I always get good hatches from the Andalusians; but, although I see 

 the rooster serve the hens, I have never been able to hatch a chicken 

 from the Minorca pen." I replied, "He serves the hens out of sym- 

 pathy." 



Another case was a Barred Rock hen, the only one a neighbor 

 had in a small flock of Hdudans. He called me one day, saying he had 

 a remarkable pullet at his place, and he wanted me to call and tell him, 

 how many eggs she would lay her first laying year. She had been laying 

 two months, and he was keeping her record. I went with him, tested 

 the hen, and told him she might lay 250 eggs, but I did not think that 



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