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Island Reds, and have cockerels in that same hatch, would it 

 be detrimental to inbreed for one year? 



Professor Lewis. No; if they were extra good birds I 

 certainly should not object to inbreeding for one year. In- 

 breeding does this, — it intensifies any characteristic the 

 birds possess by eliminating any foreign characteristic that any 

 other strain of birds might possess. If those birds are good 

 birds and have a good color pattern, good body shape and good 

 egg production, and are free from serious defects, — crooked 

 breasts or legs or undesirable features, — it is certainly de- 

 sirable to breed them together; but if they are low in vitality, 

 if they have knock-knees and things of that kind and you 

 inbreed them, you are going to intensify the bad characteristics. 

 Inbreeding intensifies good as well as bad characteristics, and 

 we can inbreed for a number of years provided we use, in our 

 inbreeding, only selected birds which measure up to a certain 

 standard. We practiced a lot of inbreeding at the New Jersey 

 station and got very desirable birds from it. 



Question. Is not early fall laying a sign of a good layer? 



Professor Lewis. Within certain limits, yes. I would not 

 want a bird that came to maturity so early that it was 

 dwarfed. When a bird comes to maturity — I mean by that, 

 when it starts laying — it stops growing, and if it comes to 

 maturity too early, it will always lay small eggs and will be 

 more or less of a bantam style; but I would say that with 

 Leghorns, five months, and with Rocks, six and a half months, 

 is about the right time. It is true that birds that start laying 

 in from five to six months are better than birds that don't 

 start laying till they are eight or nine or ten months; it is an 

 indication of continued high production for a bird to start 

 laying about the time it should. April-hatched birds ought 

 to be well along in production before cold weather commences 

 in the fall. 



