In this issue we find the secret of productiveness is reproductiveness, how good or bad wheat bran is for poultry, potential issues with barred rock chicks that take their time with feathering, inbreeding and 'swapping roosters', the question of feeding white com or yellow corn and a novel way to prevent chicks crowding at night.

1. Poultry Enthusiast
“Bits and Pieces” vol. 1
Compiled by Harold F. Barber
www.PoultryEnthusiast.com
An English writer, Joseph I Shakespeare, says that after many years of
breeding domestic fowl, he is firmly convinced that the secret of
productiveness is reproductiveness. That it is the number of germs (each
surrounded by the albumen, yolk and shell which make an egg) which is
the determining factor, rather than the amount of properly balanced feed
which form the materials of the egg.
“As far as the hen is concerned, egg production is not dependent upon
any internal anatomical factor, but upon a genetical (inborn) reproductive
factor. Birds similar in type produce a dissimilar number of eggs even
when all are fed alike. Every egg laid by a hen contains a life germ, and
no life germs, no eggs. Production (eggs) follows as a natural sequence
on reproduction.”
Mr. Shakespeare says further, that the number of life germs set free by
the hen in producing eggs, compares with the setting free of life germs by
the male bird in fertilizing the eggs. And that the male which shows a
high per cent of fertile eggs from his pen females, is showing on his part,
just the same quality as a hen is showing when she lays a lot of eggs.
Therefore, if you are breeding for eggs, keep those males which give a
high percentage of fertility - for other things being equal, they are the
ones whose daughters will be the heavy layers.
Pretty interesting theory, that. It may well be so, and it does seem to
explain discrepancies in the records of so-called “egg-type” birds. It
would certainly explain the difficulty of trying to ascertain what is the
real body type of a bird which will lay heavily. Every member of the
animal kingdom by some means or other, lays eggs; and it is only in the
case of the domestic fowl that we have come to regard the substance of
the egg, rather than the life principle. Think of the theory this way, and it
looks better and better.
Of course, the practical result of all this, is nothing more than we know
already - that he who breeds for egg-production, must go by the trapnest
for real results. Nothing else will give the same results. We know that
already, but maybe this explains the why of that truth.

2. *****
Dr. B. F. Kaupp tells a lot about wheat bran, and how good and how bad
it is for poultry. Boiled down the information is to the effect that bran and
oats contain the same amount of fibre, but that the oats are more digested
than bran, (60 per cent as against only 38 per cent). Wheat middlings is a
much better poultry food than is bran, being not only more digestible, but
being richer in valuable elements. So if there are middlings in the mash,
do not add bran to the biddies’ bill-of-fare. Many people think oats not
good food, but middlings are not nearly as good as oats, and bran is a lot
worse yet. Anyway, that’s what I get out of Dr. Kaupp’s presentation,
based on hundreds and thousands of experiments.
*****
Both the authorities at Purdue University, and the proprietor of Ferguson
Farms down in Tennessee, agree that early feathering of Barred Rock
chicks is greatly to be desired. The head of the Extension Service at
Purdue says. “Pullets do not lay until about through growing feathers.
Barred Rock females of the slow feathering kind require eight to ten
months to mature and start to lay. That is the biggest handicap to the
variety in the hands of the average farmer.” Says Mr. Hamburger, of
Ferguson Farms, “The feathering of a pullet is as essential to her welfare
and her future productiveness as feed. A pullet that does not feather
quickly will never make a great layer. Our cockerels are well feathered
early. We have always culled out the slow feathering birds as we believe
it is a sign of low vitality." Reading this reminds me that recently I saw
chicks nearly half grown into very fine exhibition birds, which had about
two primary feathers started on each wing. This was all the clothes they
wore.
Frank Platt spent two days at Purdue, which he says were the two most
profitable days he ever spent in talking chickens. They told him
something about poor fertility. The male is too much blamed. If the male
is active at all, the trouble is not with him. On the other hand, a hen which
mated eleven times in three days, showed no more fertility than those
which mated once in three days. Males mate on the average twenty-one
times a day, whether Rocks or Leghorns.
Real dope on leg-weakness in chicks, as found at Purdue, is that not only
are the legs weak, but the bones of the entire body are soft and weak. The
cause seems to be lack of some vitamin, probably fat soluble A. At any

3. rate, egg yolk, whole milk, or cod liver oil cures bad cases quickly. Direct
sunlight onto the chicks outdoors (not through glass) allows the chick to
make its own vitamins, but if that cannot be arranged, as early in a cold
season, add two per cent of cod liver oil to the ration. Chicks grew much
better fed a raw egg to thirty week-old chicks, than did others of the
same age without the egg. “Infertile eggs from the incubator are the
cheapest and best source of vitamins. Next are low-priced market eggs, or
cod liver oil - one-half pint to one pint, mixed in bran, for 500 chicks"
The point of view of the utility man is pretty well expressed by the
situation as the college at Purdue sees it. “The world lets everything
perish which does not represent a service, a benefit for the human race.
The future holds little reward for those who select and propagate four-leaf
clovers; but, in future, the pay will be handsome for those who develop
stocks of clover that gives a heavy yield, is thick on the ground, grows
rapidly, and is generally productive."
*****
“The Bugbear of Inbreeding” scares thousands of poultry breeders who
haven’t anything good enough to be afraid of losing, anyhow. In fact,
those who “swap roosters" or buy a cockerel from a different breeder
each year, never will have anything which they can tell what it is. (That's
a mixed-up sentence, but so are their fowls.) Judge Card, of Connecticut,
originated the White Laced Red Cornish more than twenty-five years ago,
and there has been nowhere, any other flock to which he could go for new
blood. Inbred for over twenty-five years! Further, he has bred some
Polish fowl for thirty-six years, going outside for new blood but once in
those thirty-six years—about ten years ago. He tells of some husky
cockerels he has, “the most vigorous and active males anywhere about
this section” which are sons, grandsons and great-grandsons, all at the
same time, of their father, grandfather and great-grandfather. The old bird
could introduce each one as three generations of his children.
No breeder should go “outside” to buy a cockerel except for the purpose
of definitely improving his flock in a definite way. Judge Card, of course,
says that ignorance and in-breeding will do a lot of harm, but if you are a
student, and study the laws of breeding and heredity, applying them to
your own flock, don't let “inbreeding” scare you.
*****

4. Judge D. E. Hale takes up pretty thoroughly the question of feeding white
com or yellow corn to white-plumaged fowl. Tests at the Wisconsin
Agricultural College have shown that there seems to be more feeding
value in yellow corn than in white—or at least if not feed value, then
growing value for chicks, probably on account of a greater content of
vitamins. This theory is supported by the well-known fact that green feed
is the great source of vitamins, and produces the same yellow color in the
body of the fowl as does yellow corn. It also seems probable that this is
so, because we know that egg-yolks are rich in at least one vitamin, and
they are yellower, the more yellow corn and the more green food is fed.
So this yellow color is most likely to indicate an abundance of vitamin
content, which tends to health and strength. But, says Judge Hale, the
yellow color of feathers is a different thing, and is a matter of breeding.
Fowls bred for whiteness of "feather will not turn creamy or brassy from
yellow com. Further, lie tells how to breed for whiteness of feather; breed
from those birds which show a bluish-white or pinkish- white color in the
quill of the new feather. Thus you will develop a strain carrying a bluish-
white quill, and you can feed all the yellow corn you like without
yellowing the plumage.
*****
A novel way to prevent chicks crowding at night, and to produce rapid
growth at the same time, is put forward, in the installation of a gentle
light in the brooder house. A ten-watt bulb, or a lantern, is light enough to
let the chicks see where the hover is at any hour of the night, and still not
sufficient to induce much wide awakeness. Furthermore, they can visit
the mash hopper at will; and the more mash, the more chick at any given
age.
End of
Poultry Enthusiast
“Bits and Pieces” vol. 1
Compiled by Harold F. Barber
www.PoultryEnthusiast.com