CHAPTER I 



CONSTITUTIONAL VIGOR 



WEAK FOWLS SHOULD NOT BE USED FOR BREEDING PURPOSES 

 VIGOR— SELECTION OF BREEDING STOCK— PRACTICAL NOTES 



p. T. WOODS, M. D. 



-BREEDING FOR HEALTH AND 

 ON THE CORNELL BULLETIN 



CONSTITUTIONAL Vigor— Active 

 strength in the make-up of, and in all 

 parts of the body. 



Vitality — The power to live. 

 We build today, not for ourselves 

 alone, but for future generations. Con- 

 sciously or unconsciously this must be 

 so whether we wish it or not. It is 

 the Law that may not be broken and 

 is as old as Time. Reader, are you 

 building well and wisely, or are you 

 building carelessly in your poultry 

 work? Through the breeding stock 

 we build either for strength or weak- 

 ness in the progeny, and in their 

 chicks for generations. Why not strive for Health and 

 Strength? 



In building up a strain of fowls there is something even 

 more important than breeding for Standard points, for prolific 

 egg production, for meat, and that something is breeding for 

 health and constitutional vigor. How many poultrymen do 

 this? Comparatively few; they are successful men, in the 

 business on a large scale most of them, who have learned bj' 

 experience that it pays to breed for vigor and vitality. 



The natural method of breeding is "the survival of the 

 fittest." In wild life only those possessed of an abundance of 

 vigor and vitality, and the ability to fight their way, live to 

 successfully reproduce their kind. The male must win his 

 mates through physical prowess and usually keeps them only 

 so long as he is able to whip all other aspirants for favor. 

 His sturdy mate or mates must possess sufficient constitu- 

 tional vigor to win through the breeding and laying season, 

 to hatch, brood, and care for the young, until they are able 

 to shift for themselves. The female must produce eggs 

 which will contain all the elements needed to develop, nourish 

 and perfect the embryo chick and insure the possession of 

 vitahty, the power to live. 



We need to take some of this "back to Nature" doctrine 

 into the poultry yard, and to begin now to breed for constitu- 

 tional vigor, not alone in this season's chicks, but season 

 after season for all future generations of chicks. Inherited 

 faults or weaknesses are often faithfully transmitted to the 

 offspring for several generations with the tendency to increase 

 the fault rather than to lessen it. Start with a foundation 

 of health and build on it making still better health, vigor 

 and vitality, and more of it. Every breeder knows that 

 inside values count in breeding. If it isn't in the blood it 

 cannot be depended upon to come out in the chick. Strong 

 blood lines are the fancier's foundation in breeding exhibi- 

 tion quality Standard-bred stock. In mating two birds 

 one i and the other J pure blood of the line he is almost sure 

 of what results will be in the progeny— as sure as we 

 can be of anything in this world where nothing is absolutely 

 certain but "death and taxes." 



Breed (or Inside Values 



He knows the inside values and he uses that knowledge 

 in, breeding. Why not apply the same knowledge to breed- 

 ing for health? It can be done! Breed only birds rich in 

 strong blood lines of robust health and constitutional vigor. 

 Select every specimen intended for the breeding pen, first for 

 health, vigor and vitality and then for desired qualifications 

 in other desired points. Choose only the best to breed from 

 and so mate them that similar physical defects will not be 

 found in both males and females. The defects are pretty 

 certain to be there for we are too many generations removed 

 from natural living to hope to find complete physical per- 

 fection. Try to offset defects in one parent by breeding to 

 it a specimen that is strong where the other shows weakness. 



When the choice is made and the fowls well mated, then 

 house, manage and feed them sensibly with a view to have 

 and hold the maximum constitutional vigor. When in doubt 

 study the fowl; often its natural instinct, given it for self- 

 preservation, will be a better guide to follow than some "ex- 

 pert's" wonderfully devised "system" or theoretical method. 



Elaborate houses, elaborate rations and "scientific" sys- 

 tems are often a delusion and a snare for the unwary. The 

 needs of the fowls are of the simplest; comfortable shelter 

 to use when needed, a fair variety of wholesome food, (min- 

 eral, animal, and vegetable) pure water to drink and an 

 abundance of pure, open-air to breathe at all times. The 

 more simple and less costly the buildings the better. 



It is not sufficient to exercise this care with the breeding 

 stock alone. The care and management of the eggs between 

 laying and hatching, during the hatch, and of the chicks to 

 maturity or breeding age is of equal importance. It is upon 

 the common sense application of these truths that the success 

 of poultry culture in the future depends. We should begin 

 now, before it is too late, to work for improvement in con- 

 stitutional vigor, for health and vitalitj' in the flocks, not 

 only for our own benefit but for the good of +>i'» future of 

 the great poultry industr}'. 



Year after year we have heard complaints of lowered 

 vitality in flocks, of greater difficulty in obtaining a good 

 percentage of fertile eggs, of poor hatches, and of chicks that, 

 though a fair percentage hatched, did not thrive. Isn't it 

 fair to asume that this diminished vitality (the power to 

 live and reproduce) is due in part, if not wholly to impaired 

 constitutional vigor, to breeding, housing, hatching, rearing 

 and feeding without due regard to reproducing inside values 

 in health, vigor and vitality? 



The Cornell BuUetln 



The recent bulletin of the New York State College of 

 Agriculture, Cornell University, by Prof. James E. Rice and 

 C. A. Rogers on the "Importance of Constitutional Vigor in 

 the Breeding of Poultry" has attracted wide spread atten- 

 tion and it should be read by all who are interested in the 

 future of poultry keeping for profit or pleasure. 



