Hamburgs. 
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description unless absolutely necessary, and if one is sick I treat it the same as one would an infant. 
However, I have had but one death of an adult bird in the past two years. I dig up the run for the chickens 
every year, and sow barley, together with rye grass, clover or lucerne ; this answers a double purpose, viz., 
cleansing the ground, and providing abundance of green food for both adults and chicks, which both devour 
greedily when cut up fine like chaff, or a trifle coarser, and have found that they will not eat lettuce when 
they can get fresh green cut barley. Hamburg eggs are, as a rule, very fertile, hatch out well, and the 
chickens are very hardy if not pampered or over-fed. I find that dry feed suits them best, and I never give 
them sloppy food ; crushed wheat suits them very well for the first few weeks, afterwards whole wheat. The 
eggs do not hatch well in incubators, but if successfully hatched they are easily reared in a suitable foster- 
mother. I use hens for incubation, and keep the hens penned in a cockerel's house the first week, after 
which I place hen and chickens in a coop, allowing the chickens to run about ; a box, with laths or 
wire in front, answers the purpose. This should have a sliding door at back or side to allow of 
attending to the hen, removing the coop to fresh ground daily, feeding the chickens sparingly early and late. 
By the way, I am not an early riser, so it would always be late were it not that I leave a feed ready for them 
the night previously, so that they can get their first meal before I am up. I leave the chickens and hen in 
the coop all night, and for that reason prefer a wooden bottom to the coop to keep them from the damp 
ground at night. 
'•There is a great improvement in the Hamburgs as shown in Australia compared with those exhibited 
12 years back, thanks to a few enthusiastic admirers who have spent time and money towards this end. 
Among these may be mentioned Messrs. J. E. Scantlebury, Thos. Croudace, J. Mcintosh, W. H. Webb, 
C. Brown and many others. I well remember attending one of our big shows some years since, when a 
certain judge (a self-constituted authority on Hamburgs) was carefully explaining the points of a Silver- 
pencilled cock, he stating that a Silver-pencilled cock should have a marbled or bronze tail, pencilled well on 
wing-bars with dark red or bay, which, he remarked, he knew was very difficult to produce in Silvers; black, 
in his opinion, was very bad, and by all means should be avoided. But, thank goodness, we have got away 
from that now, and I have seen a few specimens in the Colonies quite equal to those exhibited in England. 
" I now proceed to give a description of the varieties, and the standards for judging. I prefer to breed 
my exhibition birds from cockerel and pullet breeding-pens respectively, but will also give my readers an idea 
how they can produce fair specimens of either sex from the one pen. 
Silver-Spangles. 
" In starting to breed Silver-spangles, or, in fact, any of the varieties, it is almost useless purchasing 
birds without knowing their pedigree, as an inferior bird from a good strain is of far higher value for breeding 
than one much better m appearance carelessly or loosely bred, so that in starting, a breeder of the variety 
should be approached, and his recommendation followed, which will, in the end, prove the best course. 
" To breed Silver-spangled cockerels, the first plan is to select a bird with a neat, close-fitting comb, 
nice and full in front, and tapering to the back with plenty of work, or points, and a good, well-carried 
spike or leader behind ; a perfectly red face, white round ear-lobes, free as possible from tinge of red, 
fairly thick and as smooth as possible, with wattles as free from wrinkles as can be procured; the plumage 
from head to tail pure white in the ground colour ; neck hackle, ticked with black evenly from top to 
bottom ; the back and saddle feathers white, with a black elongated diamond-shaped spangle on the tip, and 
extending up the feather about one inch ; the feathers covering the wing-bow and shoulders, narrow and 
tapering, being marked like a dagger in shape ; the wing-bars should be well spangled, quite separate from 
each other, and spreading out towards the bottom of the wing, the secondaries pure white ; the steppings or 
spangling on the ends of the wings should be clear and distinct; the whole of the breast, thighs and 
under-parts should be well covered with solid spangling, the whole ground colour setting the spangles off to 
great advantage ; the true tail, side-coverts, and sickles should be pure white, with a well-defined spangle on 
the tip of each feather. A bird such as described will be the description of cock to head the breeding pen 
