THE CALL OF THE HEN. 83 
reader too strongly. They should be as good or better if possible than 
No. 1, Fig. 35, and do not forget that the thumb nail on the left hand 
and the nail on the forefinger of the right hand (reverse the order if 
left-handed) must be somewhat longer than the flesh, if you expect to 
take correct measurements. 
CHAPTER XII. 
SELECTING THE COCKERELS AT BROILER AGE. 
I have tried to impress on the reader the importance of the careful 
selection of the male birds, and perhaps he is fully alive to the value 
of doing so. He starts out at the first opportunity and visits all the 
poultry plants far and near, with the determination to purchase the best 
male bird he can find. Before starting out, he decides he will have 
nothing less than 200-egg types Imagine his disappointment when, 
after handling perhaps fifty or more, he can find nothing that will come 
any way near the 200-egg type; while if he examines the same number of 
hens, he will very likely find at least one or perhaps more that will come 
somewhat near what he is looking for. Then he will say that there is 
no such bird as the chart describes as a 200-egg type cock bird. I wish 
to say here that I think I have at least fifty male birds at the present 
writing that will scale from 200 up, according to the charts. I have 
over a dozen that will scale from 250 to 265, and these have all been 
developed within six years from hens with three-finger abdomens and 
14-inch pelvic bones, mated to cockerels with 114-inch finger abdomens 
and !/i¢-inch pelvic bones. 
The first season in California we raised about 300 cockerels up to 
three months of age, which is within the broiler age for this section. 
We arranged our house and catching-coop as in Figs. 1 and 2, and we 
went through the same movements that we do when testing the hens, 
except that we do not have to use all the tests on each one of the cockerels 
that we use on the hens. We hold the cockerel as in Figs. 5 and 6 and 
lay our hand on his abdomen as in Fig. 7. As soon as we lay our hand 
on his abdomen we can feel instantly whether his pelvic bones are straight, 
like Fig. 34, or crooked, like Fig. 33. If his pelvic bones are like Fig. 33, 
we have no use for him as a breeder and put him in the shipping-crate 
for market; if his pelvic bones are straight, like Fig. 34, we measure the 
depth of his abdomen; if it is less than two fingers, we put him in the 
shipping-crate; if two fingers or over, we examine him for prepotency; 
and if the projection on the back of his head, as in No. 1, Fig. 35, is less 
than '/s of an inch behind a line drawn at right angles from the back 
of the ear (see Figs. 41, 42 and 43) we put him in the shipping-crate, 
no matter 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 maturity. 
Here in Petaluma, where there are over 600,000 cockerels raised 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 
