March, 1912.] 



225 



Live Stocle, 



yet absolute. To all appearances we 

 stand on the threshold of a powerful 

 revolution in the scientific combating of 

 this disease, against which we have 

 been more or less powerless up to now. 

 The speaker demonstrated his address 

 by excellent and instructive cinemato- 

 graph pictures, and the great applause 

 which greeted them showed their 

 excellence and the value and present 

 success of the work. — Berliner Mor gen- 

 post. 



BANTAMS. 



(From the Queensland AgriculturalJour- 

 nal, Vol. XXV1L, Pt. 3, September, 1911.) 



From an economic and commercial 

 point of view the beautiful little Ban- 

 tams may be said to be of little value, 

 but they are great pets of children, and 

 it has not inf requently occurred that a 

 Bantam has had the distinction of carry- 

 ing off the prize for " best bird in the 

 shotv." The Rev. T. W. Sturges, M.A., in 

 his excellent book on " Poultry," has a 

 very interesting chapter on Bantams, 

 from which we take the following ex- 

 tracts : — 



Bantams are, at the smaller shows, 

 usually divided into two classes for 

 " Game Bantams " and two for " Variety 

 Bantams " ; or two for clean-legged 

 varieties ; and two for feather-legged 

 varieties ; and sometimes into six classes, 

 in which the game have two for them- 

 selves, with two for other clean-legged 

 varieties, and two for the feather-legged. 



It is much less costly to exhibit Ban- 

 tams than the larger breeds. The entry- 

 fee and prize-money are usually the 

 same, but the cost of railway carriage 

 to and from a show is only about one- 

 fourth as much. Three or four Bantams, 

 and the hamper in which they are sent, 

 would not weigh more than one hamper 

 with a large bird. 



There is a great charm about these 

 little pets, and although some of the 

 varieties are notoriously bad layers, like 

 their larger ancestors, others give as 

 good a return in eggs, when the dimi- 

 nished cost of housing and feeding are 

 considered, as the bigger breeds, and 

 many a delicate invalid could be tempced 

 with a Bantam's egg who would turn 

 aside from an ordinary one. 



Three or four hens and a cock form a 

 decent breeding-pen, and the house to 

 hold them need not be above 3 ft. by 

 2 ft., while the run necessary to keep 

 them in health may be correspondingly 

 diminished. There is no trouble prepar- 

 ing hot food, since hard corn, (wheat 

 and barley) forms their staple diet, in 

 29 



order to keep down the size ; and, though 

 they need careful management, they are 

 not half the trouble of the bigger breeds, 

 except at hatching time, when the young 

 are more delicate. Some Bantam hens 

 will hatch and rear their own chickens 

 comfortably, and a bantamised hen of 

 a larger breed will do, but most expert 

 breeders employ the Silkie or a cros3 of 

 the Silkie and another breed for this 

 purpose, The eggs do not hatch well in 

 an incubator, though it is a common and 

 successful practice to remove the eggs 

 from the hen a tew days before hatching, 

 and then place them in an incubator to 

 hatch out — a practice successfully adopted 

 also with the larger fowl, as there is 

 then no danger of the chick being 

 crushed. 



One oj the chief points for the exhibitor 

 to aim at is, diminished size, the general 

 rule being that a Bantam should weigh 

 one-fifth the weight of the original breed, 

 so that when a cock weighs 6 lb. in a 

 large breed, the Bantam should weigh 

 18 to 20 oz. ; and if the hen weighs 5 lb., 

 the Bantam should be 16 oz. Some 

 allowance is made in the newer breeds 

 for extra size, as it usually takes years 

 to get type and size combined into 

 regulation order, 



This Lilliputian size is one of the chief 

 difficulties for the breeder, as the very 

 tiny specimens rarely lay fertile eggs, 

 and, indeed, there is considerable danger 

 in their laying eggs at all when the size 

 is diminished below the average, so that 

 many a champion in the show-pen leaves 

 no progeny behind. 



When they are kept as pets only, with 

 no intention of showing they usually 

 exceed the standard weights, but they 

 are more easily reared, unless the other 

 extreme is reached, and the birds are 

 over-fed and too fat. 



Most of the Bantams are simply a copy 

 in miniature of the larger breeds — one- 

 fifth, or thereabouts, of the size, and with 

 similar markings and characteristics. 



The scales of points, however, differ 

 materially, and, as the newer varieties 

 approach perfection the scale is amended 

 from time to time, and the way to be " up 

 to date " is either to join a poultry club 

 which fosters the variety, or, at least, 

 to secure the latest standard of perfec- 

 tion issued by the club, and which may 

 vary any year. The Poultry Club Stand- 

 ards ate only revised at much longer 

 intervals. In the case of the older and 

 better known varieties the standard 

 remains permanent. 



In all the Bantams it is desirable to 

 breed as small as possible ; but type, 

 symmetry, and colour should have the 



