CHAPTER XXVIII 

 BREEDING PRINCIPLES 



In the minds of many who raise chickens and other fowls there 

 is but one idea and one kind of breeding — that of mating males 

 and females, regardless of type, strain, variety, prolificness or 

 relationship. Needless to add, that such matings sooner or 

 later — usually sooner — prove of little value to their owner, and 

 are finally completely dissipated. It is Nature's way of eliminat- 

 ing the unfit. 



Definitions of Breeding Methods. — To be precise, there are the 

 following methods: In-breeding, line-breeding, out-breeding, and 

 cross-breeding; and — shall we say — no breeding at all, meaning 

 rank mongrelism. 



Line-Breeding. — Primarily, it is not advisable to make a 

 practice of mating birds more closely related than first cousins, 

 and the m.ore distant this relationship can be drawn apart, the 

 better the chances for success. In making a start with a flock 

 of fowls, however, where one wishes to preserve the sam.e strain 

 of blood, or in creating a new breed, it is usually necessary to 

 breed pretty close for a number of years, or until certain quali- 

 fications becom.e intensified and fixed. If this breeding of re- 

 lated birds is done intelligently, with the view of fixing superiority 

 in color, shape and so on, it is called line-breeding. If the breed- 

 ing of related stock is done indiscrim.inately, and brothers and 

 sisters are bred together for generations for no particular purpcse, 

 it is called in-breeding. 



In other words, line-breeding, or breeding in line, is keeping 

 to the same ancestry^ — the same blood lines, without the disas- 

 trous effects of in-breeding. It is carefully selected, systematic 

 in-breeding. 



372 



