18 



Success with poultry 



Black Langshan is no child's play. It is plain enough 

 thg-t the breeder of solid colored fowls who wishes to 

 reach the very top has his mountain to climb and need 

 not sit down early, dn the .contest to weep for more 

 worlds to conquer. 



BUST OOCHINS. 



COPYRIGHTED 





standard-bred Black l^angshans. 



poultry are prone to make the mistake of believing that 

 solid colored , varieties, Black Langshans, Buff Cochins, 

 White 'Vfeandottes, and so on, are much easier to 

 breed than' the parti-colored varieties like Barred 

 Plymouth Bocks, Partridge Cochins and Silver 

 Laced Wyandottes. This is no doubt partly cor- 

 rect, but ninety-nine out of a hundred breeders 

 of solid colored fowls will dispute this belief in 

 toto and insist that it is substantially as hard to 

 breed solid colored fowls close to standard re- 

 quirements as it is the parti-colored fowls; This 

 is an extreme view for theiji to take, but the 

 fact remains that the breeders of solid colored 

 fowls are less than two points ahead of the 

 breeders of parti-colored fowls, which is evi- 

 denced by the fact that a handicap of only one 

 to one and a half poiflts is placed on solid colored 

 fowls at the poultry exhibitions when they are 

 to compete with parti-colored fowls for special 

 prizes. A-nother way for arriving at the compar- 

 ative difficulty of breeding solid colored and 

 parti-colored fowls to standard requirements is 

 to be found in the fact that the best scores giv- 

 en to parti-colored fowls by our best judges 

 range from 93 to 94 points, while the best scores 

 given by the same judges to the beat solid col- 

 ored fowls produced during the past three or 

 four seasons have ranged from 94 to 96 points. 

 This -shows the matter up pretty clearly. The 

 fact is that black feathers will creep into the 

 plumage of white birds, and a. creamy shade ia 

 very often evident in the white plumage. In Buff breeds 

 both black and white cause trouble, and haste in breeding 

 out one of these defects is apt to result in the creation of 

 the other. Keeping the white out of the plumage of a 



In tile Buff Cochin we have a beautiful aad fairly 

 popular fowl. When well bred they are considered to 

 be the most artistically beautiful fowl in existence. 

 Bred to standard requirements their "plumage is of a 

 soft, uniform, golden buff, the feathers, standing out 

 well from the body, and, being loose and fluffy, they 

 give the bird a round and graceful' form- thdt is not 

 duplicated in any other breed of standard fowls. It 

 is no doubt true that the best Cochii^s have been bred 

 to. such an extreme in length and fluffiness of feather 

 that they are not well suited for ' practical purposes, 

 in fact, the beautiful has transgressed more or less on 

 the useful, although to what extent we are unable to 

 say. It is not part of the object of this book to go 

 into a lengthy diseussionn of questions of this kind, 

 but breeders who propose to go into the poultry busi- 

 ness for practical purposes can find in the list of 

 standard fowls varieties that excel the Cochins as 

 table fowl, as layers anil as broilers. -This is likewise 

 true of the Light Brahmas and Black Langshans. 



On the other hand, where a moderate sized flock' 

 of beautiful fowls is wanted for the city lawn or 

 village lot, nothing more beautiful, more docile' or more satis- 

 factory, .taken all in all, can be found than the Cochins, the 



. standard-bred Buff Cochins. 



Brahmas or Langshans. It should be remembered, however, 

 that these Asiatics are more sluggish, are poorer layers and 

 therefore less productive than the medium sized and small 

 varieties belonging to the American and Meddterranean 



