Management of Cochins. 213 



" Do not choose your cock bird too large. If you have all the good points you require, a bird 

 ten or eleven pounds at twelve months old is large enough, and I should not select one of two 

 years old over eleven pounds ; but I much prefer breeding from hens two years old and cock 

 one year old. 



" There exists much greater difficulty in breeding high-class birds than what there was years 

 ago. This is a great deal owing to the different fancies of our judges. Some fancy one colour 

 and some another ; and they have given such a decided preference to the pale lemon buff that 

 often lovely birds of very high-class merit are passed over in favour of very inferior specimens 

 as to quality in other points, solely on account of their very delicate clear colour. In the early 

 days of Cochins, when Sturgeon and Punchard, the earliest and greatest breeders of Buff Cochins, 

 used to show such thick, square, fluffy, grand birds, such birds that we do not see nowadays, 

 most of the hens had pencilled hackles ; now if a pencilled-hackled hen is shown, however good 

 in quality, she is passed over by the judges. In trying to obtain that delicate clear colour we have 

 greatly run out of the rich yellow buff, and the different breeders find now that they produce a 

 much larger proportion of inferior-coloured birds, which are mottled in colour, and the cocks with 

 mealy wings. I therefore strongly advise all who wish to breed Buff Cochins, to select their stock 

 birds of a good sound rich buff, but not to approach a dark cinnamon. 



" Even if you wish to breed the pale buff, you need not alter your selection in stock birds, for 

 you will be sure to breed them light enough. The greatest difficulty is how to produce the rich 

 yellow buff. 



" As to breeding the silver cinnamon, or silver buff, I do not think any of the true strain of this 

 colour exist. They used to be bred very true years ago. I bred them myself some ten years back, 

 and bred till I could not get one in twenty the correct colour. They are very handsome, but most 

 difficult to breed ; indeed, I believe it to be now a hopeless task, and, therefore, could not advise 

 the shade of stock birds to produce this colour. 



" The importation of Cochin China fowls into this country we have much to be thankful for, as 

 it has been the means of enabling those who never could keep fowls before to do so, and to make 

 their little hobbies remunerative. Cochins, I may say, will do anywhere. I have known 

 wonderful birds bred in very wonderful places, where no other fowls could exist. I once bought 

 some of the best pullets I ever saw that were bred and reared in a pig-sty, some fifteen years ago. 

 I was then living close to the town of Birmingham, and my accommodation for Cochins was 

 limited to a small garden at the back of my house. I bred many birds there, exhibited largely, and 

 most successfully. My pens were arranged in rows. Roost-houses, about six feet by five feet, by 

 five feet high ; yards about fourteen feet by five feet. My roost-house floors I made as follows : — ■ 

 Dig out about a foot of soil, fill up with ashes, well rammed down ; mix up some coarse gravel, well- 

 slacked lime, and sand, with water ; lay this mixture over the ashes, and it will soon forrn into a 

 hard surface, very far preferable to boards. Brick floors are very objectionable. The yards I 

 make the same, sloping them from the pen, so that after a shower of rain the water runs off and 

 cleanses the yards. They are easily swept out, and fresh rough sand riddled over gives them a 

 freshness everj' day. I had a grass-run, about twenty yards square, and each pen of birds had the 

 run of grass every alternate day. I was once paid a visit by a very noted Cochin breeder — one of 

 the oldest Cochin men — and when he saw my place, and the quantity of birds I kept, he appeared 

 to be very much astonished at my success, both in breeding and exhibiting. I noticed him 

 stepping my ground very carefully, and, upon my inquiring his object in doing so, he said he ' was 

 anxious to see the quantity of ground I had, and found, by his measurement, that I had only a 

 little over one square yard of ground for each bird, upon calculation of measurement and the 



