54 Hubbard's poultry secrets. 



centage of good birds will be rather small. It is also too hard 

 for the amateur to follow. My ambition is to try and explain 

 a method of mating Buffs so that the amateur will have an 

 equal chance with the professional in producing Buffs for the 

 show room. 



One of the greatest faults I find that most Buff breeders 

 have, is the mating of cockerels and pullets together. Such a 

 mating is very unsatisfactory, and does not produce very many 

 high class show birds. The reason for this is that one cannot 

 tell the breeding value of a BufT bird until it is two years old, 

 or until it has shed out as a cock or a hen. 



I will try to explain why cockerel and pullet mating results 

 in so many poor Buff birds. We will say you breed from 

 twenty pullets. Of course, they look good to you as pullets 

 or you would not breed from them. When they take to molt- 

 ing and shedding out as hens you will find some of them with 

 dark hackles and light bodies. Some will be mealy in color, 

 some will come with white in the wings, and tail, and some will 

 lose the under color which they had when they were pullets. 

 You are lucky if you have five good hens out of the twenty 

 pullets which you used for breeding. Tlie other fifteen should 

 never have been bred from, as they could not breed birds that 

 would win in a pumpkin show. The lucky five that held their 

 color are a gold mine as breeders. The same thing also ap- 

 plies to cockerels. There is no one who can tell the breeding- 

 value of Buffs until they have shed out as cocks or hens. 



You can raise more high class show birds from a trio, two 

 hens and a cock, than from ten pullets and a cockerel. There 

 is a very wide difference in opinion between breeders of Buffs 

 as to the proper shade of golden Buff color, that is desired. 



I was asked by a certain Buff breeder to look at a Buflf cock- 

 erel that he was thinking of buying, to see if he would make 

 a good cockerel breeder. Mr. Buff Breeder said he had a 



