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.-, CHAPTER XI. 



MATING STOCK FOR BREEDING PRIZE BIRDS. 



Having in our last treated more of the principles on which the amateur commencing a strain ought 

 to proceed, we pass on now to explain more in detail the practical operations of a fancier's yard. 

 Many such have already been entered into in the earlier chapters of this work, being common to all 

 poultry-keepers and breeders ; we now, therefore, have only to consider those cares which belong 

 specially to the "fancier" as such, and to the production of chickens fit for exhibition; the 

 possession of a competent knowledge of the varieties themselves, stipulated for and acquired as in 

 our last chapter, being now taken for granted. 



Considered either in order of time or of practical importance, the first care of the skilful 

 breeder is the judicious mating of his birds for next season. It will be found by experience that in 

 the case of fully mature pullets or of hens which have got well over the moult in good time, 

 laying generally commences within three weeks to a month of pairing with the cock ; and therefore 

 in all cases where early chickens are desired, the breeding-yards should be made up as soon after 

 the end of November as possible. Weeks or even months before that, more or less thought will 

 have been given to this important matter, and the experienced amateur will have begun to consider 

 in his own mind "what he shall do." His chickens will have been carefully scanned as they grow 

 up, and he will have determined betimes whether he has all he requires among his own stock, or 

 whether he is deficient in any department and must buy to supply the want. He will have half 

 made up his mind that he will put certain birds together, and selected those he will not part with, 

 unless perhaps tempted by the twenty guineas which — except in very rare cases — is now the 

 orthodox " top price" of the poultry fancy ; but all these resolutions will be liable to revision at the 

 Birmingham, London, or other great winter show, which in his case represents the result or record of 

 the year. Nothing is certain till then. He may have been somewhat disappointed with his own 

 stock — no one can be best akvays, and some one must come to the front — so he visits the show 

 intending to buy a better cockerel than the best he can pick from his own ; when he possibly finds 

 that the falling back that season is general, and that his own despised best bird is as good or better 

 than that of any one else. From some mysterious cause, a season not seldom does show such a 

 general deterioration in some particular breed. Or the contrary may be the case, and he finds the 

 bird on which his hopes rested so hopelessly and clearly beaten, that if he be pretty well oft' 

 pecuniarily he determines to acquire the victor at any price ; or his best birds, which he had trusted 

 to breed from, may be claimed ; and in many other ways all his plans are held in abeyance until he 

 has seen for himself the chickens from his brother fanciers' yards. All these he strives to appreciate 

 fairly, even for his own sake ; for the man who can only see the " twist in the tail " of his own 

 little porker, and who is alike blind to the real merits of other people's fowls and the faults of his 

 own, will never really succeed in the poultry fancy. 



Now comes the all-important business, and no study and pains are too great- to devote to it ; 

 for the successful production of high-class birds may be said to depend exclusively on two things : 



