POULTRY ON THE GENERAL FARM 
will pay to raise turkeys will depend upon your success 
with the little turks, and on the freedom of the community 
from the disease called Black-head. 
The kind of chicken you should keep should be picked from 
the three following breeds: Barred Plymouth Rock, White 
Wyandotte, Rhode Island Reds. If you go outside of these 
three breeds be sure you have a very good reason for doing 
so. 
Then get a start with a new breed, buy at least four sittings 
of eggs in a single season, paying not over $2.00 per sitting. 
Keep all the pullets and a half dozen of the best cockerels. 
The next spring pen these pullets up with the best cockerels, 
and use none but eggs from this pen for hatching. That fall 
sell all of the young cockerels and all the old scrub hens. 
The second spring the two old roosters from the original 
purchased eggs are used with the general flock. From this 
time on the entire flock is pure bred and should remain so. 
Each year when the chicks are about six or eight weeks 
old pick out the largest, most vigorous male chick from each 
brood. Mark these by clipping the web of the foot or putting 
on leg bands. From those so marked the breeding cockerels 
for the next season are later selected. When you pick the 
good cockerels pick out all runty looking pullets and cut off 
the last joint of the hind toe. These runts are later to be 
eaten or sold. The more surplus chicks raised, the more 
strictly can the selection be made. 
This system of picking the best cockerel from each brood 
and discarding the poorest pullets is the most practical 
method known of building up a vigorous, quick growing and 
early laying strain. 
When we allow the entire flock of many different ages to 
grow up before the selection is made it is impossible to select 
intelligently. 
Every third or fourth year an extra cock bird may be pur- 
chased provided you are sure you are getting a specimen 
from a better flock than your own. Swapping roosters or 
eggs every year is poor policy. If your neighbor has better 
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