Book Description

Excerpt from The Poultry Manual: A Guide to Successful Poultry Keeping in All Its Branches, Fancy and Practical This breed originated as the Barred Rock in New England and the best authorities give the honor of its production to a Mr. Spalding of Connecticut and claim that it was produced from a cross of a Dominique colored male and Black Cochin hens. Good authorities also claim that the Black Java was used in its production and there are many reasons to believe that that is true. They were first shown at Worcester, Mass., in 1869, by Mr. D. A. Upham, of Connecticut, and were then called Improved Plymouth Rocks. The name Barred was not given them until later. The early Plymouth Rocks were by no means free from feathers on their shanks or from white in their ear lobes, according to the testimony of the veteran I. K. Felch. At that time, which was before the advent of the Wyandottes, the Plymouth Rocks had the field clear as the general purpose breed. The conformation of the breed is such as would naturally be selected for a fowl intended to produce plenty of poultry meat and lay abundantly of eggs. This fact, together with their clean shanks and robust constitutions, gained them the title of the "farmers' fowl" and also the wide popularity that they attained in a comparatively short time. The comparatively heavy, though close-lying plumage and comparatively small combs, adapt them particularly to cold climates. The plumage of the Barred Rock, as it came to be called, is extremely difficult to breed and to produce exhibition color in both male and female it is necessary to resort to two matings. To produce the cockerel for the show room, an exhibition colored male is penned with females which are too dark for exhibition purposes but which have been produced from a mating of the same kind. Exactly the reverse of this is the method of producing exhibition females. The winners of the present at the larger shows are remarkably well barred from the tips of the feathers to the hide, and the best of them show that desirable ringy effect on the outside which adds to their attractiveness. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.