CHAPTER VIII. 



The Breeding of Fancy Poultry. 



The breeding of fancy poultry is a business which requires for its successful 

 management a thorough knowledge of the laws which control animal reproduc- 

 tion; and even the non-professional poulterer will find such a knowledge 

 essential to the most economical management of his flock. The complete dis- 

 cussion of these laws cannot, of course, be entered upon in such a work as this, 

 but a few of the facts most fully established will be referred to. 



Thus it has been conclusively proven that the first cormecHon of the female 

 with the male exercises so powerful an influence over the former that its effects 

 are never wholly eradicated, hence it is essential to the maintenance of perfect 

 purity in the various breeds of our poultry-yard that they be never allowed to 

 intermingle. 



In Prof. Miles excellent work on "Stock Breeding," this subject is exhaustively 

 discussed. From it we make the following extracts : 



"Mr. W. H. Smith, of Lexingtbn, Kentucky, makes the following statement: 

 On or about the first day of February, 1873, I loaned a prime Dark Brahma 

 cock, that was a good, vigorous bird, to Mr. James Fought, of this city. He 

 put him with a lot of Light Brahma hens, with which a Houdan cook had been 

 running previously. The hens laid, set, hatched and raised their chhsks, laid 

 and hatched again, and the secoQd litter of chicks stUl had the Houdan marks. 

 There was no Houdan blood in the Light Brahma hens, neither was there any 

 other cook with the hens from the time he got the Dark Brahma cock." 



"Mr. A. W. Frizzell, of Baltimore county, Maryland, makes the following state- 

 ment: 'I once purchased a trio of pure-bred Dark Brahma fowls from a breeder 

 of no small note, aiid a trustworthy man (I speak from experience, for I was 

 once employed by this gentleman, and do know him to be trustworthy), which 

 fowls had taken the premium at the Carroll county (Kentucky) fair in 1871. I 

 brought those fowls home, arid in the yard was also a Light Brahma cock, which 

 I did not dispose of for some time, and in the mean-time he was mating with 

 these dark hens ; any effects of this I thought would soon run out. After a 

 while I disposed of the light cock, and kept none but the dark one, nor had 

 none nearer than a mile. Nevertheless, three years afterward, I see light, or 

 half light, chicks coming from those two hens.' 



"A Mr. Payne, in England, had two Spanish puUets running with both a Span- 

 ish and Cochin pock. After they began to lay the Cochin was removed, and 

 «& weeks later the eggs were saved and set ; bnt-the chickens were feather legged, 

 though in all other'points resembling the Spanish. 



"On another occasion the same gentleman allowed a Black-red Game hen 

 which laid while with chickens, to run a few hours with a' Brown-red cock and 

 nine eggs produced chickens which all resembled the father, or Brown-red. ' 



