You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
i8 cocker's manual.<br />
is shown many good breeds have been ruined by so doing, although<br />
they were once very successful. To avoid this American breeders<br />
breed twice in and once out, while it is said the English breeder's rule<br />
is once in and once out. Our advice is, if you have a good winning<br />
strain take good care of them and breed from them the best shape and<br />
most active and healthiest, and do not destroy their good properties<br />
by constantly crossing and changing them.<br />
SELECTION OF BREEDERS.<br />
As the selection and mating of our breeding stock is not attended<br />
without some difficulty much care and patience will be required to be<br />
successful. Fanciers who select their cocks from one yard and hens<br />
from another mast not expect to raise fowls that are reliable, although<br />
their chicks will not be related. As the hens give us size and shape<br />
too much care cannot be taken in selecting them. Each fancier has<br />
his own ideas as to what his breeding stock should be, yet we often<br />
see some very poor fowls on such breeders' yards. Some fanciers prefer<br />
small birds, others medium size, and again others extra large ones,<br />
and each one will show his own individual preference for one over the<br />
other. Perhaps there are some grounds on this point for question,<br />
but for us we have no hesitation in giving our judgment for the larger<br />
bird, as we can then get all the smaller ones we want without breeding<br />
especially for them, as we contend that a good large one is better than<br />
a good small one, and one of extra size with all the other good qualities<br />
should not be disposed of but be highly prized as one of our<br />
breeders. Another wrong is also done by some fanciers in letting<br />
their old and well tried stock run out and breeding some new breeds<br />
they know nothing of when, perhaps, they find they do not equal<br />
their old favorites and then lament for not breeding from them. They<br />
are too apt to be taken up with some new breed and each season trying<br />
something new, and for this reason the breeder should understand<br />
his stock thoroughly. It is a well known fact that good qualities in<br />
parents will become fixed in the offspring if care is shown in the selection<br />
of the breeders. The age of the breeding stock is an important<br />
consideration. Some fanciers claim no hen should be selected as
Change language