502 



POULTRY CULTURE 



In selecting birds for breeding, the 

 touch as well as by the eye. He should 



Fig. 499. Young White Wyandotte 



cockerel. (Photograph from owner, 



A. G. Duston, South Framingham, 



Massachusetts) 



In ducks, geese, and turkeys there is 

 comnmon faults are lack of breadth and 



poultry breeder should judge shape by 

 handle the birds, lifting them with the 

 keel across his palm so that his fin- 

 gers on one side and thumb on the 

 other give him at once the measure 

 of development of meat on the body. 

 With a little practice the sense of 

 touch becomes much more reliable for 

 this than the eye. The bird that, when 

 balanced on his hand, fills it and 

 spreads it until it is well opened, will 

 hardly fail to be well meated all over. 

 Quality of meat depends primarily 

 on fineness of fiber, secondarily on 

 conditions under which the bird is 

 grown. Coarse-fibered meat may be 

 soft if the bird is so grown as to 

 keep it soft, but a bird of fine fiber 

 grown under similar conditions will 

 be far superior. Identification of this 

 quality in the living bird can be made 

 with sufficient accuracy by observa- 

 tion of the texture of comb and wat- 

 tles, and of the general structure of 

 head and feet. If these appear strong 

 without coarseness, the structure of 

 the muscular fiber will usually be fine, 

 usually ample length of body, and the 

 depth of body, and, in the waterfowl, 



Fig. 500. Pekin Ducks at Connecticut Agricultural College. (Photograph from 



the college) 



