96 THE CALL OP THE HEN. 



and 43), we put him in the shipping crate no m|atter how good 

 he is in other points. We take no chances with him because 

 if we have made no mistake in measuring his head lines, 

 abdomen and pelvic bones, it will be a waste of time to breed 

 from him ; but if his head measures up good, we keep him as a 

 prospective breeder. We say as a prospective breeder, as it is 

 very evident it will not pay to raise all the cockerels to matur- 

 ity. 



Here in Petaluma where there are over 600,000 cockerels 

 laised to broiler age in a season, it would be impossible to 

 raise them all and test their breeding qualities. Neither is it 

 necessary. If a person has a delicate touch the comparative 

 value of chicks for prepotency can be judged as well when they 

 are three days old as at any time later. Then again we are 

 obliged to keep our chicks until we can distinguish the males 

 from the females, and as a rule we will lose nothing if we keep 

 them until they are at least ten weeks old, when if they have 

 had the right care and feed they will be old enough to test. If 

 their pelvic bones are thick at this age it indicates they are 

 more or less of the meat type. If their pelvic bones are crooked 

 it indicates that they never will be straight, and if they lack 

 prepotency it indicates that they will always lack it, for they 

 come out of the shell with this organ relatively large or small, 

 just as a baby is born with a nose on its face. 



I want to impress on the reader the importance of using 

 the utmost care in measuring the head for prepotency, as it is 

 very easy for a person to think he has measured the head right, 

 when he has not done so. Especially if he has self esteem large 

 he then thinks everything he does must be right. It would be 

 impossible for him to do anything otherwise, than the right 

 way. In my classes I have found workers in the machinist 

 trade to make the most correct measurements, especially if 

 they had the faculty of human nature large. While I have 

 found professional men who had human nature small, to make 

 the poorest measurements. This was owing to prejudice and 

 not to the absence of the combination of the necessary mental 

 faculties. I suppose there will always be found those who will 

 discredit the most obvious fact, if it puts them at a disadvan- 

 tage from a mental, moral, or financial point of view, but in this 

 case it would be cutting off your nose to spite your face to be 

 careless in anv of these tests. 



