Read Ebook: Our Domestic Birds: Elementary Lessons in Aviculture by Robinson John H John Henry

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After leaving the funnel the egg passes into a narrow part of the oviduct, called the isthmus, where it receives the membranous coverings which are found just inside the shell. From the isthmus it goes into the lowest part of the oviduct--the uterus. Here the shell is formed, and at the same time a thin albumen enters through the pores of the shell and the shell membranes and dilutes the thick albumen first deposited. After this process is completed the egg may be retained in the oviduct for some time. It is, however, usually laid within a few hours.

It is, and has been for ages, the common opinion that the wild birds and poultry, when first domesticated, were capable of laying only a small number of eggs each season, and that laying capacity has been enormously increased in domestication; but the oldest reports that we have of the amount of egg production indicate that the laying capacity of fowls was as great centuries ago as it is at the present time. Recent observations on wild birds in captivity show that even birds which pair and usually lay only a few eggs each season have a laying capacity at least equal to the ordinary production of hens. Quails in captivity have been known to lay about one hundred eggs in a season, and an English sparrow from which the eggs were taken as laid produced over sixty.

The constitutional capacity to produce ovules is now known to be far greater than the power of any bird to supply the material for the nourishment of germs through the embryonic stage. The principal factors in large egg production are abundance of food and great capacity for digesting and assimilating it.

If the birds are left to themselves and the eggs are not molested, an a?rial bird will usually lay a number of eggs equal to the number of young the parents can feed as long as they require this attention, while a terrestrial or aquatic bird will usually lay as many eggs as she can cover. The desired number of eggs having been laid, the process of incubation by the parents begins.

The incubation of their eggs by birds is one of the most remarkable things in nature. We say that "instinct" leads birds to build their nests and to keep their eggs warm for a period varying from two weeks for small birds, to six weeks for the ostrich; but "instinct" is only a term to describe the apparently intelligent actions of the lower animals, which we say have not intelligence enough to know the reasons for the things that they do.

The mother of a young mammal knows that it came from herself, and she can see that it is like her and others of her kind. It at once seeks her care and responds to her attentions. The egg which a bird lays is as lifeless--to all appearances--as the stones which it often so closely resembles. Only after many days or weeks of tiresomely close attention does it produce a creature which can respond to the care lavished upon it. The birds incubating eggs not only give them the most unremitting attention, but those that fill their nests with eggs before beginning to incubate methodically turn the eggs and change their position in the nest, this being necessary because otherwise the eggs at the center of the nest would get too much heat and those at the outside would not get enough. A bird appears to know that if she begins to sit before she has finished laying, some of the eggs would be spoiled or would hatch before the others; and, as noted above, a?rial birds seem to know better than to hatch more young than they can rear. But no bird seems to have any idea of the time required to hatch its eggs, or to notice the lapse of time, or to care whether the eggs upon which it sits are of its own kind or of some other kind, or to know whether the young when hatched are like or unlike itself. If eggs fail to hatch, domestic birds will, as a rule, remain on the nest until the eggs are taken away or until sheer exhaustion compels them to abandon the hopeless task. In domestication, however, those birds which continue laying most freely when their eggs are removed as laid, tend to lose the habit of incubation. Turkeys and geese will often begin to incubate after having laid about the number of eggs that they could cover. Many fowls will do the same, but most fowls lay for several months before attempting to incubate, and in many races not more than two or three per cent of the hens ever incubate.

Photographs from Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture.

The first stages of the development of life in the egg of a bird may be observed by holding the eggs before a strong light in a darkened room. White-shelled eggs are the best for this purpose. In about thirty-six hours from the beginning of incubation it will be found that the germ has turned red, and little red veins radiate from it somewhat like the legs of a spider. For several days the egg is quite translucent and the yolk shows plainly. As the germ grows, the contents of the egg become clouded and dense, and the air space at the large end of the egg is clearly defined, the density being greatest near it. From the time that the egg becomes dense, observations of development must be made by breaking one or more eggs daily or every few days, according to the number available for observation.

The embryo grows until it fills the egg. The mere application of heat to the egg has gradually transformed that little germ and the yellow and white of egg into bones, flesh, skin , and all the organs of a living creature. When the embryo has filled the shell, it lies curled up, usually with the head at the large end of the egg and the beak almost touching the shell, at about one third of the distance from the large to the small end of the egg. At the point of the beak of the young bird on the curved tip of the upper mandible is a small horny scale. Without this scale it would be hard for the embryo to break the shell because it cannot, as it lies, strike it a direct blow with the point of its beak. This scale is a remarkable character. Its only use is to help the bird out of the shell. A few days after exclusion it disappears.

If you take a hen's egg about the eighteenth or the nineteenth day of incubation and hold it closely in your hand, you may be able to feel the chick move. If your hand is a little bit cold, the chick is much more likely to squirm in the egg and may utter a peep. If, with the egg in a warm hand, you hold it to your ear, you will about this time hear an occasional tap, tap, caused by the chicken striking its beak against the shell. The tapping is kept up more or less steadily until the shell cracks where the point of the beak strikes it and a little piece is broken out. The chick usually rests awhile now,--perhaps for some hours,--then resumes the attack on the shell. It turns in the shell, breaking out little pieces as it turns, until there is a crack nearly all the way around, when, by pushing with its head and feet, it forces the shell apart and sprawls out of it.

The process is the same for all birds, except that those that take longest to develop in the shell take a longer rest after first breaking it. The young of a?rial birds, which are naked when hatched, are ugly little things. Young poultry, too, are almost repulsive with their sprawling forms and the wet down plastered to the skin, but in a few hours they grow strong, the down dries and becomes fluffy, the bright little eyes seem to take in everything, and they are the most attractive of all baby animals.

SPECIES AND THEIR DIVISIONS IN DOMESTIC BIRDS

The three general classes of domestic birds include few species but many varieties, and, outside of the distinct varieties, an indefinite number of individual types. Where varieties are as numerous as in the fowl, which has about three hundred, and the pigeon, which has a much greater number, the differences between them are often very slight. Sometimes the form of a single small character is the only distinguishing feature. But, if this is a fixed character, the variety is distinct. Where there are so many varieties it is hard to make short, appropriate descriptive names for all, if considered simply as varieties. For such diversity there must be a more extended classification. Such a classification, growing gradually with the increase in the number of varieties, will not be consistent throughout. Hence to understand clearly the relations of the artificial divisions of species in domestication we must know what a species is and how these divisions arise.

The self-isolation of species is well illustrated when similar plants grow together, as grasses in the same field and practically on the same spot; yet year after year all the old kinds are found and no new ones such as might come from a mixture of two kinds, if they would mix. In the higher animals, where the parent forms are of different sexes, they choose mates of their own kind, and so each species remains distinct; but if in a species there are many different types, such as we find in domestic fowls, the members of the species, when free to do so, mate as readily with types quite different from their own as with individuals exactly like them, and produce offspring of intermediate types with all the essential characters of the species. In domestication individuals of distinct yet similar species are sometimes mated and produce offspring called hybrids, but these are sterile. The mule, which is a hybrid between the ass and the mare, is the most familiar animal of this kind. Hybrid, or mule, cage birds are produced by crossing the canary with several allied species. Among other domestic birds hybrids are almost unknown.

The theory of evolution is that partly through their own inherent tendency to vary and partly through the influence of external things which affect them, all organisms change slowly; that things of the same kind, separated and living under different conditions, may in time so change that they become separate species; and that this process may be repeated indefinitely, the number of species constantly increasing and becoming more diversified and more highly developed.

Such a theory would not be entitled to serious consideration unless it was known that the earth was millions of years old, because we know that races of fowls separated for over three thousand years and developed into quite different varieties will breed together as readily as those of the same variety. But when it is certain that the earth is so old that there has been ample time for changes in living forms that would require periods of time beyond our comprehension, some of the relations of varieties and species of birds have an important bearing on the theory of evolution.

As in the case of fowls just noted, we find that domestic ducks of the same species, after a separation of several thousand years, breed freely together. But our domestic ducks are not, like the fowls, all of the same species, and if individuals of different species are paired they produce only a few weak hybrids. Our domestic geese are probably descended from two wild varieties, but races that were not brought together for thousands of years after they were domesticated are perfectly fertile together, while when mated with the American Wild Goose, which is not domesticated but will breed in captivity, they produce only hybrids. The general resemblance between geese and ducks is very striking, yet they will not breed together at all.

A comparison of these facts indicates that while three thousand, or even five or six thousand, years of separation may not be enough to break down the natural affinity of varieties of the same species, separation and difference of development will eventually make of varieties distinct species, a union of which will produce only hybrids, while a longer separation and further increase of differences makes the break between the species absolute and they will not breed together at all.

Different colors would also appear in the flocks of fowls, because the birds of unusual colors would be protected and preserved, instead of being destroyed as they usually are in the wild state. Other peculiarities, too, such as large combs, crests, and feathered legs, would be developed in some lands and neglected in others. This is how it happened that after thousands of years in domestication the races of fowls in different parts of the world were quite different in size and form, but alike in being of many colors.

From a species in this condition modern poultry breeders have made hundreds of distinct varieties. The easiest method of making a variety in domestication is to select specimens for breeding as near the desired type as possible, and to breed only from a few individuals in each generation which come nearest to the ideal type. In this way a variety that breeds quite true to the type may be established in from three or four to eight or ten years, according to the number of characters to be established as distinctive of the variety. Varieties are also made by crossing unlike individuals. This process is longer than the other, and sometimes requires a series of crosses to produce specimens approximating the ideal sought. After such specimens have been obtained the method is the same as in the first case. A variety is commonly considered to be well established when the greater part of the specimens produced are easily identified as of that variety. But no domestic variety is ever established in the sense that a species is. All are artificial, produced by compulsory separation and preserved only as long as it is continued.

When people first began to be interested in the improvement of live stock, the popular idea of a breed was that it was a domestic species, and there are still many people who hold this view. This popular misconception of the nature of a breed is responsible for much of the inconsistency and confusion in the ordinary classifications of domestic varieties. To it also is due the use of the term "variety" to apply especially to color-varieties, which are the principal divisions of breeds.

A great deal of misapprehension and confusion in the use of these terms has been caused by the attitude of those who maintain that the term "thoroughbred," having been used as a name for highly bred running horses, cannot properly apply to any other kind of live stock, and that "pure-bred" should apply to all thoroughly bred races. The noun "Thoroughbred" is the name of a breed of horses. The adjective "thoroughbred" is common property. Writers on aviculture who wish to be accurate prefer it in many instances to "pure-bred" because absolute purity of blood is rare and is not of the importance in breeding that novices usually suppose. Not only are many new varieties made by crossing, but in long-established breeds outcrosses are regularly made to restore or intensify characters.

To illustrate the use of the three terms in application to a single breed: A stock of Light Brahmas might be kept pure for half a century, yet at the end of that period might have changed its type entirely. It might be so deteriorated that it was worth less than common mongrels; yet it is pure-bred stock. Another stock of the same variety might be bred for table qualities, egg-production, and the same principal color-characteristics of the variety, but without attention to the fine points of fancy breeding. Such a stock is thoroughbred but not standard-bred.

FOWLS

The most useful of all birds is the common fowl, seen on almost every farm and in the back yards of many city and village homes. The fowl takes to the conditions of domestic life better than any other land bird. It is more cleanly in its habits, more productive, more intelligent, and more interesting than the duck, which ranks next in usefulness. Fowls supply nearly all the eggs and the greater part of the poultry meat that we use. Their feathers are of less value than those of ducks, geese, and turkeys. In the days when feather beds were common they were made usually of the body feathers of fowls. Now the feathers of fowls are used mostly for the cheaper grades of pillows and cushions, and in the making of feather boas and like articles. The wing and tail feathers have been much used for decorating ladies' hats, and since the use of small wild birds in millinery decorations has been prohibited, the hackle feathers of cocks are quite extensively used in trimming hats.

Photograph from Lester Tompkins, Concord, Massachusetts.

In adult fowls the male and female are readily distinguished by differences in appearance as well as by the voice. The comb and wattles of the male are larger, and after he has completed his growth are always of the same size and a bright red in color. In the female the comb is much smaller than that of a male of the same family, and both size and color vary periodically, the comb and wattles being larger and the whole head brighter in color when the female is laying. The tail of the male is also much larger than that of the female and has long plumelike coverts. The feathers of his back and neck are long, narrow, and flowing, and in many varieties are much brighter in color than the corresponding feathers on the female. The male has a short, sharp spur on the inside of each leg, a little above the hind toe. Occasionally a female has spurs, but they are usually very small. With so many differences between male and female the sex of an adult fowl is apparent at a glance. In the young of breeds which have large combs the males begin to grow combs when quite small, and so the sex may be known when they are only a few weeks old. In other breeds the sex may not be distinguished with certainty until the birds are several months old, or, in some cases, until they are nearly full-grown.

Throughout all times and in all lands the common domestic birds have usually been the special charge of the women and children of a household. In some countries long-established custom makes the poultry the personal property of the wife. A traveler in Nubia about seventy years ago states that there the henhouse, as well as the hens, belonged to the wife, and if a man divorced his wife, as the custom permitted, she took all away with her.

The flocks of fowls were usually small in old times. It was only in areas adjacent to large cities that a surplus of poultry or eggs could be disposed of profitably, and as the fowls were almost always allowed the run of the dooryard, the barnyard, and the outbuildings, the number that could be tolerated, even on a large farm, was limited. As a rule the fowls were expected to get their living as they could, but in this they were not so much worse off than other live stock, or than their owners. But, while this was the ordinary state of the family flock of fowls, there were frequent exceptions. The housewife who is thrifty always manages affairs about the house better than the majority of her neighbors, and in older poultry literature there are occasional statements of the methods of those who were most successful with their fowls, which we may well suppose were methods that had been used for centuries.

Nearly all farmers now keep quite large flocks of fowls. Many farmers make the most of their living from poultry, and in some places nearly every farm is devoted primarily to the production of eggs and of poultry for the table. Fowls receive most attention, although, as we shall see, some of the largest and most profitable farms are engaged in producing ducks. In the suburbs of cities and in villages all over the land many people keep more fowls now than the average farmer did in old times. These city poultry keepers often give a great deal of time to their fowls and still either lose money on them or make very small wages for the time given to this work, because they try to keep too many in a small space, or to keep more than they have time to care for properly.

The breeding of fancy fowls is also an important pursuit. Those who engage in this line on a large scale locate on farms, but many of the smaller breeders live in towns, and the greater number of the amateur fanciers who breed fine fowls for pleasure are city people.

On large poultry farms the work is usually done by men. There are many small plants operated by women. The ordinary farm and family flocks are cared for by women and children much oftener than by men, because, even when the men are interested in poultry, other work takes the farmer away from the vicinity of the house, and the city man away from home, so much that they cannot look after poultry as closely as is necessary to get the best results. Many women like to have the care of a small flock of fowls, because it takes them outdoors for a few minutes at intervals every day, and the eggs and poultry sold may bring in a considerable amount of pin money. Many boys, while attending the grammar and high schools, earn money by keeping a flock of fowls. Some have saved enough in this way to pay expenses at college for a year or more, or to give them a start in a small business. When there are both boys and girls in a family, such outdoor work usually falls to the lot of a boy. A girl can do just as well if she has the opportunity and takes an interest in the work.

When we speak of native fowls in America we mean fowls derived from the stocks brought here by the early settlers. The fowl was not known in the Western Hemisphere until it was brought here by Europeans. Britain, France, Spain, Holland, and Sweden all sent colonists to America, and from each of these countries came, no doubt, some of the ordinary fowls of that country. Perhaps improved varieties came from some of these lands in early colonial times, but the only breeds that retained their identity sufficiently to have distinctive names were the Game Fowls, which came mostly from England, and the Dominiques .

The Game Fowls, being prized for the sport of cockfighting, were often bred with great care, but the Dominique fowls were mixed with other stock, and the name was commonly given to any fowl of that color, until after the improvement of fowls began. Then some people collected flocks of fowls of this color and bred them for uniformity in other characters. Well-bred fowls, however, were comparatively rare. Most of the stock all through the country was of the little mongrel type until about the middle of the last century. Then that type began to disappear from New England, New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania. It remained longer in the Northern states west of the Allegheny Mountains and a generation ago was still the most common type in the upper Mississippi Valley. It is now unknown outside of the Southern states, and within ten or twenty years it will disappear entirely.

Photograph from Dr. J. S. Wolfe, Bloomfield, New Jersey.

Photograph from Charles L. Seely, Afton, New York.

The Black Minorca is supposed to have been brought to England direct from Spain about a century ago. There it was bred to much greater size, with the comb often so large that it was a burden to the fowl. Blue Andalusians, at first called Blue Spanish and Blue Minorcas, were first known in England about 1850.

Photograph from Tienken and Case, Rochester, Michigan.

Such an event created a great sensation. Newspaper reports of it reached all parts of the country. The Chinese fowls, so large when compared with others, were most noticed. At once a great demand for these fowls and for their eggs arose, and prices for fancy poultry, which previously had been but little higher than prices for common poultry, rose so high that those who paid such prices for fowls were commonly regarded as monomaniacs. While the interest was not as great in other kinds of fowls as in the Shanghais, Cochin Chinas, and "Brahmaputras," as they were then called, all shared in the boom, and within a few years there was hardly a community in the northeastern part of the United States where there was not some one keeping highly bred fowls. When the interest became general, the famous showman, P. T. Barnum, promoted a show of poultry in the American Museum in New York City. Many celebrated men became interested in fine poultry. Daniel Webster had been one of the exhibitors at the first show in 1849. The noted temperance lecturer, John B. Gough, was a very enthusiastic fancier.

After a few years the excitement began to subside, and most people supposed that it was about to die, never to revive. A Mr. Burnham, who had been one of the most energetic promoters of Asiatic fowls, and had made a small fortune while the boom lasted, had so little confidence in the permanence of the poultry fancy that he published a book called "The History of the Hen Fever," which presented the whole movement as a humbug skillfully engineered by himself. This book was very widely read, and the phrase "the hen fever," applying to enthusiastic amateur poultry keepers, came into common use.

Subsequent developments showed that those who had supposed that the interest in fine poultry was only a passing fad were wrong. The true reason for its decline at that time was that the nation was approaching a crisis in its history and a civil war. When the war was over, the interest in poultry revived at once, and has steadily increased ever since. The prices for fine specimens, which were considered absurd in the days of the hen fever, are now ordinary prices for stock of high quality.

To every foreign breed these practical poultry keepers found some objection. The Dorking was too delicate, and its five-toed feet made it clumsy. The Hamburgs, too, were delicate, and the most skillful breeding was required to preserve their beautiful color markings. The superfluous feathers on the heads of the crested breeds and on the feet of the Asiatics were equally objectionable. All the European races except the Leghorns had white skin and flesh-colored or slate-colored feet, while in America there was a very decided popular preference for fowls with yellow skin and legs. The Leghorns and the Asiatics met this requirement, but the former were too small and their combs were unnecessarily large, while the latter were larger fowls than were desired for general use, and their foot feathering was a handicap in barnyards and on heavy, wet soils.

So, while fanciers and those who were willing to give their poultry special attention, or who kept fowls for some special purpose which one of the foreign breeds suited, took these breeds up eagerly, farmers and other poultry keepers usually became interested in them only to the extent of using male birds of different breeds to cross with flocks of native and grade hens. In consequence of this promiscuous crossing, the stock in the country rapidly changed, a new type of mongrel replacing the old native stock.

While the masses of poultry keepers were thus crossing new and old stock at random, many breeders were trying systematically to produce a new breed that would meet all the popular requirements. Even before the days of the hen fever two local breeds had arisen, probably by accident. These were the Jersey Blue and the Bucks County Fowl, both of which continued down to our own time but never became popular. At the first exhibition in Boston a class had been provided for crossbred fowls, and in this was shown a new variety called the Plymouth Rock. From the descriptions of these birds now in existence it appears that they looked much like the modern Partridge Plymouth Rock. Those who brought them out hoped that they would meet the popular demand, and for a short time it seemed that this hope might be realized, but interest in them soon waned, and in a few years they were almost forgotten.

In the light of the history of American breeds which did afterwards become popular we can see now that the ideas of the masses of American poultry keepers were not as strictly practical as their objections to the various foreign breeds appeared to show. The three varieties that have just been mentioned, and many others arising from time to time, met all the expressed requirements of the practical poultry keeper quite as well as those which subsequently caught his fancy. Indeed, as will be shown farther on, some of the productions of this period, after being neglected for a long time, finally became very popular. Usually this happened when their color became fashionable.

This new breed caught the popular fancy at once, for it had the color which throughout this country was supposed always to be associated with exceptional vigor and productiveness, and it had greater size than the Dominique. The fame of the new breed spread rapidly. It was impossible to supply the demand from the original stock, and, as there is usually more than one way of producing a type by crossing, good imitations of the original were soon abundant. Farmers and market poultrymen by thousands took up the Plymouth Rock, while all over the land fanciers were trying to perfect the color which their critical taste found very poor.

Both black and white specimens came often in the early flocks of Barred Plymouth Rocks. The black ones were developed as a distinct breed, called the Black Java. The white ones, after going for a while under various names, and after strong opposition from those who claimed that the name "Plymouth Rock" belonged exclusively to birds of the color with which the name had become identified, finally secured recognition as White Plymouth Rocks. Almost immediately Buff Plymouth Rocks appeared. For reasons which will appear later, the origin of these will be given in another connection. Then came in rapid succession the Silver-Penciled, the Partridge, or Golden-Penciled , and the Columbian, or Ermine, Plymouth Rock. These were all of the general type of the Barred variety, but because in most cases they were made by different combinations, and because fanciers are much more particular to breed for color than to breed for typical form, the several varieties of the Plymouth Rock are slightly different in form.

Strange as it seems in the case of an event so recent, no one knows where the first Wyandottes came from. It is supposed that they were one of the many varieties developed either by chance or in an effort to meet the demand for a general-purpose fowl. They appear to have come into the hands of those who first exploited them in some way that left no trace of their source. They went under several different names until 1883, when the name "Wyandotte" was given them as an appropriate and euphonious name for an American breed.

Next appeared a Golden-Laced Wyandotte, marked like the Silver-Laced variety but having golden bay where that had white. This variety was developed from an earlier variety of unknown origin, known in Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois under the name of "Winnebago."

The Silver-Laced Wyandottes, like the Barred Plymouth Rocks, produced some black and some white specimens. From these were made the Black Wyandottes and the White Wyandottes. Then came the Buff Wyandottes , and after them Partridge Wyandottes, Silver-Penciled Wyandottes, and Columbian, or Ermine, Wyandottes. From the three last-named varieties came the Plymouth Rock varieties of the corresponding colors, the first stocks of these being the single-combed specimens from the flocks of breeders of these varieties of Wyandottes.

Although the formation of this race began about 1850 , it was fifty years before it became known outside of the limited area in which it was almost the only type to be seen. Indeed, the first birds of this race to attract the attention of the public were exhibited about 1890 as Buff Plymouth Rocks and Buff Wyandottes. At that time very few of the Rhode Island Reds were as dark in color as the average specimen now seen in the showroom, and buff specimens were numerous. Birds with rose combs, birds with single combs, birds with pea combs, and birds with intermediate types of comb could often be found in the same flock. So it was not a very difficult matter, among many thousands of birds, to pick out some that would pass for Buff Plymouth Rocks and some that would pass for Buff Wyandottes. These varieties were also made in other ways, mostly by various crosses with the Buff Cochin, but for some years breeders continued to draw on the Rhode Island supply.

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