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CHAPTEE VII. 



MANAGEMENT AND MATING OP THE BEBEDING 

 STOCK. 



T was the practice of old cockers (and they knew a hun- 

 dred times more of the art of breeding than we do at 

 present) to put a full-grown stag (or young cock) with six 

 full-blooded sisters of not less than two years old, strictly avoiding 

 pullets, unless they were to breed with an old cock of four or five 

 years. Almost all the prominent breeders of the present day 

 object also to breed from pullets, and unless they axe fully a year 

 old I would certainly not do so, as the chickens are never so strong as 

 from an adult hen. The male bird should be also quite nine or ten 

 months old, and in this case he should be mated to old hens 

 certainly not less than two years of age. The rule of the old 

 breeders in breeding from adult stock on both sides (and this was 

 usually held to produce the strongest birds) was one cock with 

 three hens, and if both birds are over two years old this number 

 should not be exceeded. Personally, I have always noticed the 

 best results from a cockerel with four hens or an old cock with 

 three, or, if not very vigorous, two hens. 



While we hear a great deal about the degeneracy caused by in- 

 breeding (that is, the breeding together of birds already closely 

 related), it is an undoubted fact that nearly all the best strains of 

 game in England were produced by a system of in-breeding, and 

 old breeders for the pit seldom crossed their stock. I know a case 

 of a gentleman who had some noted fighting birds, and seeing a 

 cock that caught his eye while fighting he bought him, and bred 

 irom him and his own hens. The produce proved far worse than 

 either parents, and were almost worthless. An old breeder who 

 crossed his fowls about twenty years ago, assured me he could go 

 on without fresh blood for another twenty years and the stock 

 would show no deterioration. And there is no doubt that where a 

 good many pens are bred of the same blood and a correct account 

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