THE CALL OF THE HEN. 107 



CHAPTER XII. 



SELECTING THE COCKERELS AT BROILER AGE. 



I have tried to impress on the reader the importance of 

 the careful selection of the male birds, and perhaps he is fully 

 alive to the value of doing so. He starts out at the first op- 

 portunity and visits all the poultry plants far and near, with 

 the determination to purchase the best male bird he can find. 

 Before starting out, he decides he will have nothing less than 

 200-egg types. Imagine his disappointment when, after han- 

 dling perhaps fifty or more, he can find nothing that will come 

 any way near the 200-egg type; while if he examines the same 

 number of hens, he will very likely find at least one or perhaps 

 more that will come somewhat near what he is looking for. 

 Then he will say that there is no such bird as the chart de- 

 scribes as a 200-egg type cock bird. I wish to say here that I 

 think I have at least fifty male birds at the present writing 

 that will scale from 200 up, according to the charts. I have 

 over a dozen that will scale from 250 to 265, and these have 

 all been developed within six years from hens with three- 

 finger abdomens and J^-inch pelvic bones, mated to cockerels 

 with IJ^-inch finger abdomens and Yie-mch pelvic bones. 



The first season in California we raised about 300 cock- 

 erels up to three months of age, which is within the broiler age 

 for this section. We arranged our house and catching-coop 

 as in Figs. 1 and 2, and we went through the same movements 

 that we do when testing the hens, except that we do not have 

 to use all the tests on each one of the cockerels that we use 

 on the hens. We hold the cockerel as in Figs. 5 and 6 and lay 

 our hand on his abdomen as in Fig. 7. As soon as we lay our 

 hand on his abdomen we can feel instantly whether his pelvic 

 bones are straight, like Fig. 34, or crooked, like Fig. 33. If 

 his pelvic bones are like Fig. 33, we have no use for him as a 

 breeder and put him in the shipping-crate for market; if his 

 pelvic bones are straight, like Fig. 34, we measure the depth 

 of his abdomen; if it is less than two fingers, we put him in the 

 shipping-crate; if two fingers or over, we examine him for 



