36 



RHODE ISLAND REDS 



any other variety. I personally know this to be true of 

 several flocks. As a final word, let me again caution liberal 

 feed, range and good care, as many a white feather is due to 

 injury or lack of vitality. Be sure also to have the roosts 

 so arranged that the growing tails do not touch the walls. 



Mrs. F. W. Mclntyre, Iowa 



The Rhode Island Reds have a host of friends wiio ad- 

 mire them for various reasons. The time has been, but is 

 passing, when the farmer could see in them only vigorous 

 market birds of a size conducive to activity and of a shape 

 adapted to productiveness and the fancier could see only the 

 rich colors and the beauty lines. Poultry shows and judging 

 schools are making fanciers and practical poultry breeders 

 of us all. 



There are two ways of breeding the Reds — outcrossing 

 for size, shape, vigor and productiveness and line breeding 

 which adds proper color and makes of the utility bird a prize 

 winner. Line breeding does not take away any of the 

 superior qualities of the util- 

 ity fowl until some novice 

 runs it into inbreeding. 



Exhibition color derived 

 by an outcross is usually 

 an accident. I do not mean 

 to say that color alone is ben- 

 efited, but the entire bird is 

 improved. No one can es- 

 tablish a strain who bought 

 his males from Tom last 

 year, from Dick this year 

 and who will patronize Harry 

 next year. 



When I wish to intro- 

 duce fresh blood into my 

 flock, I purchase as good a 

 male as I can find from a 

 well-established strain for- 

 eign to my own and mate 

 him to a pen of hens calcula- 

 ted to give the best results. 

 The following year I choose 

 the best offspring from this 

 pen, both male and female, 

 and mate them to birds of my 

 own strain. I may get good 

 results from this outcross, 

 but I am sure to reap a big 

 reward the second year. 



Instead of buying a male 

 I may purchase several fe- 

 males, sisters preferred, and 

 mate them to one of my 

 male birds. I believe I get the best 

 male, owing to the fact that breeders 

 their best females. 



There is a tendency to cater to the beginners' demand 

 for dark colored birds by mating to produce browns and 

 mahoganies, for unless it is extremely dark in color the 

 novice fears the bird is a buff. From striving for lengthy 

 bodies many strains incline to game shape and Leghorn tails. 



The color craze has given us many small sized bird.-, 

 brought about by late summer hatching and inbreeding. 

 One aid to establish a non-fading strain is to use matured 

 birds which faded little or none with their first moult. It 

 will then not be necessary to say as so many do, "Oh, you 

 would not want my old hens, they are so faded, but having 

 had such fine color as pullets, they are invaluable to me as 

 breeders." 



The faded hen may produce good colored chicks, but 

 if they fade as she has, how are you going to establish that 

 non-fading strain for which we are all striving? 



AWred G. Clark, Ohio 



For the past eight years we have been breeding Rose 

 Comb Rhode Island Reds on Ridge View Farm. Appreciat- 

 ing the usefulness of this breed in its ability to produce eggs 

 and at the same time make a pot roast at the end of its active 

 existence, we have paid particular attention to the practical 

 end of the breed and it has been our endeavor to produce full 

 bodied birds with an increased egg capacity and at the same 

 time retain strength and hardiness by avoiding inbreeding 

 as much as possible. 



First of all we must have type. Without type we have 

 nothing. The great mistake in the past has been that both 

 in the show room and in the breeding pen more attention has 

 been paid to color than to the proper type. The amateur 

 breeder has been led astray by seeing blue ribbons hung up 



on so-called Rhode Island 



results from the new 

 are loth to part with 



Reds of good color, but with 

 the type and shape of either 

 a Wyandotte or a Rock. In 

 fact, so much has been said 

 about color that a good col- 

 ored bird sells for a large sum, 

 even though the only thing to 

 distinguish it as a Rhode 

 Island Red is the fact that 

 it is red. 



In the beginning, to 

 get type we were careful to 

 take long, square bodied fe- 

 males, mating them to males 

 of square, blocky shape; and 

 to do away with what is 

 known as smut or barring we 

 first bred birds of clear un- 

 der-color but of what pos- 

 sibly might be called too Ught 

 surface color. These pro- 

 duced chickens that were, 

 darker in surface color and 

 retained the clear under-col- 

 or. We then mated to fe- 

 males of this type a male of 

 deeper color of great even- 

 ness, both surface and under. 

 This produced for us an 

 average amount of both 

 good colored males and fe- 

 males. There was a tend- 

 ency of course to throw back 

 to the light colored birds, but we have been able, by mat- 

 ing moderate colors every year, to get what might be 

 called an even colored flock. All this time we have been 

 giving particular care to the comb, eyes, wing and tail 

 markings, however, always retaining type. We have found 

 that no matter how good a bird is, if she has a weak eye, 

 she is likely to reproduce this fault and therefore particular 

 care should be used in breeding birds with good red eyes. 

 Nothing so mars a Rhode Island Red as to have it yellow 

 eyed or to have what is known as fish eyes. The wing and 

 tail markings are the last perfection to look for. 



Another thing which we have found to be of advantage 

 now that we have established a good even type and color, 

 is to try some what we call "chancy" matings— that is, using 

 females that are barred, and by barred I do not mean smut, 

 but I mean dark bars across the feathers in the un.dercolor, 



WINNER FIRST PRIZE KANSAS QTi 3H0W N0V-)5I0. : 

 Bred&0^^nedBj'MrJ;FW-PIclNTmE:REb.OAK IOWA. ; 



