POULTRY BREEDING. 273 



PEN RECORDS. 



For some purposes it is desirable in breeding work to have 

 records which will enable one to tell at once just what birds are 

 in a given mating pen. In the work here such records have 

 been kept on ordinary horizontally ruled loose leaf sheets of 

 the same size as the other record sheets. It may be said in this 

 connection that separate pen records of this kind are of rela- 

 tively little use in such a system of keeping breeding records 

 as that here outlined. In making out one's mating numbers 

 at the beginning of the breeding season it is not only easy but 

 it is the natural thing to have the mating numbers within a given 

 pen run consecutively. The result of this is that by going 

 through the book containing the mating sheets one gets with 

 great ease the pen records directly from the mating sheets. For 

 the matter of completeness, however, it is probably desirable 

 in all cases to have separate pen records. 



ADVANTAGES OE THE MATING NUMBER SYSTEM OE PEDIGREE 



RECORDS. 



In closing some of the more important advantages of the 

 mating number system of keeping pedigree records may be sum- 

 marized as follows : 



1. The parents and all offspring related to any given mating 

 are all brought together in the record books. Brothers and 

 sisters appear on the same sheet and with their parents. 



2. Starting at any point it is equally easy to go forward or 

 backward on a pedigree or to go into collateral branches. This 

 facility depends on two fundamental facts; viz., (a) that the 

 individual mating is the natural unit in breeding operations, 

 and (b) that on the same sheet on which the record of any 

 individual appears there appears also the number of the mating 

 from which this individual originated on the one hand, and the 

 numbers of the matings in which it takes part on the other hand. 

 In other words, whether on mating sheet or in the descriptive 

 catalogue, the connection of the individual both with what is 

 behind and what is beyond in the pedigree is always maintained. 



3. Owing to the fact that designating numbers of individuals 

 do not in this system attempt to carry the pedigree within them- 



