R. I. REDS AS EXHIBITION FOWLS 



Island Beds is the matter of producing the right color. 

 Shape or type is more easily acquired, is better understood^ 

 and is less likely to be lost, than color. Not that color is 

 more important, but it is essential and cannot be ignored. 

 It is in a way unfortunate for the Rhode Island Reds 

 that they became popular so suddenly. The demand for 

 them is so great that many incompetent breeders, sacrificing 

 the purity of the breed for insignificant private gain, intro- 

 duce into their flocks, and put on the market, birds that are 

 wholly unfit to be used as breeders. The consequence is 

 that with so many undesirable and inferior birds in the 

 breeding yards, the difficulty of breeding Rhode Island Reds 

 true to type and color is thereby immeasurably increased. 

 The importance of good breeding in trying to produce 

 exhibition Rhode Island Reds can, therefore, not be too 

 strongly urged. A bird descended from ancestors having no 

 uniform type or color, without a doubt will produce a flock 

 as varied in color and type as the birds that constituted its 

 family line. "Like begets like," is a familiar rule, but it 

 should be remembered that in trying to reproduce a certain 

 bird, you have to contend with what precedes both male 

 and female. But good points are transmitted as well as 

 bad ones. If the ancestors were uniformly good, the off- 

 spring is certain to be as good, and, in the hands of a skilled 

 breeder, better. Typical and Standard birds are not pro- 

 1 duced by chance. They are the result of careful and scienti- 

 fic breeding, continued year after year, perfected by slowly 

 improving section after section. Characteristics acquired 

 in this way and transmitted from generation to generation, 

 become fixed in the breed and are easily transmissible. A 

 good wing marking, for instance, that exists in a marked 

 degree in a family for a long time is so fixed that it will con- 

 tinue to appear unless stopped by an indiscriminate cross. 

 The wisdom of looking into the family history of a bird in- 

 tended as a breeder of exhibition quality is then clearly 

 recognized. Always ask the question, "Whence copaest 

 thou?" The bird should possess blood transmitted by a 

 long line of ancestors that were free from undesirable traits. 

 The value of a bird as a breeder does not consist in what it 

 will score, but in what it is able to produce. 



Having decided that the bird is well bred, the next 

 thing to consider is its shape and color. The bird coming 

 nearest the Standard requirements is the one to select, and 

 this applies to color as well as it does to shape. I believe 

 there should be no difference between the color or type of a 

 breeder and that of a Standard or show bird. Standard 

 males and females mated together ought to produce exhibi- 

 tion birds. There would be no occasion for double mating 

 if matings were made up in this way. Double mating must 

 eventually be detrimental to the breed. We must never 

 lose sight of the relation existing between the exhibition 

 bird and its less handsome but productive kin. It is only 

 by reason of the popularity of a breed as a utility fowl that 

 the show bird has an existence. A breed first establishes a 

 reputation as a utility fowl, as a money maker and as a fowl 

 that may be easily bred by the beginner and the non-expert. 

 It is then possible for the breed to become popular as a show 

 fowl. This precisely has been the history and course of 

 development of the Rhode Island Reds. 



Now if the color of Standard Rhode Island Reds is to 

 be different from that of the bird used as a breeder, if the 

 farmer, the non-expert and the small chicken raiser, are 

 compelled to go to the trouble of keeping two or more mat- 

 ings of birds of various shades of color to produce a few right 

 colored birds, if the difficulty of breeding Rhode Island Reds 

 is increased by double mating, the value and popularity of 

 the breed must necessarily be diminished. And that is not 

 all. Double mating can never settle the color question. If 

 we must use as breeders birds that are not Standard, we can- 



41 



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not hope that a large per cent of their progeny will be Stand- 

 ard. Go and look over a flock of Rhode Island Reds, and 

 you will find that some of the birds are light in color and 

 others are dark. This is a fault that everybody notices. 

 Double mating perpetuates this fault, because from breeders 

 some of which are light and others dark, it is only possible 

 to get light and dark colored birds." 



On the other hand, if we mate Standard males to Stand- 

 ard fenjales and continue this method by judicious line breed- 

 ing for a number of years, until the color becomes reason- 

 ably fixed, why will we not get Standard birds? Why will 

 the flock not be more uniform in color and in type? Why 

 will not the quality of the color be infinitely improved? 

 The aim in mating Rhode Island Reds should be to produce 

 a flock uniform in color, whether the birds are intended for 

 exhibition or for utility purposes. To accomplish this it is 

 necessary to discard breeders that vary in shade of color, 

 birds that are too light or too dark. Get them as near 

 Standard color as possible. Judges and fanciers understand 

 color better every year. While there is still a difference of 

 opinion as to what constitutes Standard color, this difference 

 will adjust itself in time. It is not improbable that in the 

 future a color that is a shade darker than that considered 

 right in the' past will be adopted. Experience shows that a 

 rich, deep red color is not so likely to be lost by fading as 

 the lighter shades. An extreme dark color, however, such 

 as is now fancied in certain places, will never gain universal 

 favor, because of its damaging results in breeding and be- 

 cause it lacks the most significant quality of red color. It 

 is dull. It lacks brightness, richness, brilliancy. These 

 attributes red color must have. And, excepting the tail 



