[28]Reproduced, by permission, from "Domesticated Animals and Plants," by E. Davenport.
[28]Reproduced, by permission, from "Domesticated Animals and Plants," by E. Davenport.
[28]Reproduced, by permission, from "Domesticated Animals and Plants," by E. Davenport.
Disqualifications.The practice of judging the relative merits of exhibition birds principally by a few striking characters tends to make breeders and exhibitors neglect many little things which affect the appearance of a bird. This is especially the case with exhibitors competing under judges who are partial to some conspicuous character. To prevent this, and to place the heaviest possible penalty upon serious faults that are easily overlooked, certain faults are made disqualifications; that is, a bird having any one of these faults is absolutely debarred from competition, no matter how good it may be in other respects.
There is general agreement as to the wisdom and justice of disqualifying for deformities or for mutilations of the feathersto conceal a fault. In regard to disqualifying for trivial faults, fanciers differ in opinion. Many hold that this has been carried to a ridiculous extreme in some cases. Thus, in all clean-legged fowls it is required that the shanks and toes shall be free from small feathers, stubs, or down. Most fanciers agree that conspicuous feathers and stubs should disqualify, but many consider that to disqualify for a minute bit of down, which can hardly be seen without the aid of a magnifying glass, is going too far.
Unless the judge has overlooked a disqualification (and this rarely happens), none will be found on a bird that has been awarded a prize. If in any class there is a bird which is not given a place, though apparently superior to any of the prize winners in the characters most distinctive of its variety, that bird usually has some disqualification. The list of disqualifications is too long to be given here. It is not the same throughout for all varieties. Exhibitors and breeders do not attempt to keep track of the disqualifications (which are changed occasionally) for any but the varieties in which they are especially interested.
Methods of judging.When exhibitions of domestic birds were first held, the awards were usually made by committees of two or three judges. The object in doing this was to insure impartiality and to make connivance between a judge and an exhibitor more difficult. It was found that this plan did not work well. Often the opinions of one man dominated, or, if the man could not have his way, the committee wrangled and took too long to make its decisions. So by degrees the committee plan was abandoned and a single judge made the awards in accordance with standards and rules agreed upon by associations of exhibitors and judges.
At first all judging was done by comparison of the specimens of each class entered in competition. That is the method still in general use in Europe and widely used in America. But to many exhibitors comparison judging seemed unsatisfactory, because by it only the winning birds were indicated, and exhibitorswhose birds did not win usually wanted to know how their birds compared with the winners. To meet this demand score-card judging was adopted. In this method of judging, the characters to be considered are divided into sections, which are named in order on a card having corresponding blank spaces in which to mark numerical cuts for faults in each section. The score cards used at poultry shows where judging is done by that method do not indicate to which of several possible faults a cut applies, except that, having one column for shape cuts and another for color cuts, they show in which class the fault appears. In many educational and private score cards the names of the common faults in each section are printed in the space allotted that section, in order that the fault may be accurately checked. The use of cards with so much detail is not practical in ordinary competition.
The score of a bird judged by the score-card method is the difference between 100 (taken as the symbol of the perfect bird of any variety) and the sum of all the cuts made for faults. The common cuts for faults are ½ for a slight fault, 1 for a pronounced fault, and 1½ for a very bad fault. Occasionally larger cuts are made for serious faults. Theoretically the score is supposed to represent accurately the relation of a specimen to a perfect specimen, but really scores only represent in a general way the judges' opinions of the relative values of the birds in a class, and indicate to the exhibitor where the judge found faults in his bird.
Exhibition quality and value.The winning of a prize at an important show gives a breeder of fancy birds a standing that he could not otherwise acquire. The greater part of the sales of poultry of this class are made by mail to persons who do not know the breeder personally and do not see his stock until after purchasing. No matter how good his stock may be, those who want to buy will not pay much attention to his claims for its superior quality until they have such confirmation of those claims as is given by the winning of prizes in competition. Then the prices which a breeder can get for his stock will beregulated largely by the prices obtained by other successful exhibitors at shows of the same class.
There is a wide range of prices from those that can be secured for stock of the quality that wins at the greatest shows, to those that can be obtained for the kind that wins at ordinary small shows. High prices are paid for noted winners and for other stock of the same breeding, as much for the advertising value of ownership of fine stock as for the actual value of the birds to breed from or to exhibit again. A breeder who wins at some very small show may find it hard to sell either stock or eggs for hatching except at a slight advance over market prices. Some breeders who have made remarkable records in winning at the best shows can get very high prices for their prize-winning stock and for the eggs from it. Fowls sometimes sell as high as $500 each, and eggs at $2 each. Pigeons also bring very high prices at times, although fewer people are interested in them and sales are not so numerous. The ordinary prices for good stock are quite reasonable, considering how few really fine specimens are produced. The average novice finds that fowls at from $10 to $25 a trio and pigeons at from $5 to $15 a pair have all the quality that he can appreciate.
In the early days of modern fancy poultry culture those breeders who had great reputations could get relatively high prices for almost any bird that would pass as a breeding specimen of its kind. This is still true of breeders who successfully introduce new varieties or who suddenly attain prominence with stock of their own breeding. But as the stock of a leading breeder becomes widely distributed among smaller breeders, the competition of his customers reduces his sales, and especially the sales of the cheaper grades of stock. The most troublesome problem that the best breeders have is to get rid of the lower grades of their stock at a fair profit.
Why good breeders have much low-priced stock.Novices in the breeding of fine stock commonly suppose that all pure-bredstock of any variety is of uniform quality. When they learn that, as a rule, only a small part of the young birds hatched from good stock is considered of superior quality, they often conclude that the ideas and the standards of fanciers must be wrong. Even professional and scientific men who become interested in fancy poultry and pigeons often take this view and, after considering the question carefully from their standpoint, try to explain to fanciers how, by changing a standard, they might secure a much larger proportion of specimens approximately perfect according to the standard used. In the case of varieties in which the finest specimens of the different sexes are secured from different matings, many novices waste a great deal of time trying to convince old fanciers that their standards and methods are illogical and unnatural.
To those who do not understand the philosophy of the interest in breeding to highly specialized types the arguments for standards that are adjusted to common results and are easy to attain appear to be unanswerable. Upon the fancier who does understand this philosophy they make no impression at all. The breeding and exhibiting of fancy stock of any kind is primarily a game. The rules of the game are in a measure arbitrary, like the rules in baseball or football or any other game. At the same time they must be framed in the interests of the development of the game as a sport and also as a spectacle. They must be reasonable and must be suited to players of all degrees of skill.
Standards and rules for judging fancy stock develop just as the rules of athletic games develop. A generation ago such games as baseball and football were comparatively simple games in which boys and men might take very creditable parts without devoting a great deal of attention to practice. These games still afford recreation to many who use them for that purpose only, but they have also been developed so that players of exceptional skill play competition games for the interest of a public which studies the fine points of these games and compares the abilitiesof the players. People who take an interest in and patronize professional or high-class amateur ball games do so because in them skillful and well-trained players do difficult things. It is the same in the breeding of fancy live stock to a high standard of excellence. When a breed or a variety is first made, the interest of the breeders centers in a few characters, precisely as the interest of a novice in any line centers in a few prominent features. As breeders grow in experience and in skill, and as the characters to which they first give special attention become fixed, they demand better quality in these and also turn their attention to the development of other characters. The more difficult a combination of characters is to produce, the greater interest the fancier takes in trying to produce it. When a standard calls for a high degree of excellence in many characters, the proportion of specimens of high excellence, as measured by that standard, will almost always be small. It is because this is the case that the rare specimens are considered so valuable.
Fancy and utility types in the same variety.The great majority of American breeders of fancy poultry seek to secure a high degree of practical value in combination with fancy quality in their stock. There are some fanciers who breed only for fancy points, and some market poultry growers who pay no attention at all to them, but as a rule those who give market poultry special attention want well-bred stock of good ordinary quality, and those who keep poultry for pleasure want the flock kept for this purpose to supply at least their own tables with eggs and meat. The breeder who wishes to combine fancy and utility properties in any kind of live stock must breed only from specimens that are meritorious in both directions, selecting much more carefully than when breeding for one class of properties.
The value of a knowledge of domestic birds is not limited to the use which may be made of it in keeping them for profit or for pleasure. Any occupation in which a great many people are interested affords opportunities to combine the knowledge relating to it with special knowledge or skill in other lines, to the advantage of those who are able to do so. Just as the large market or fancy poultry business may develop from a small flock kept to supply the owner's table or to give him a little recreation, many special occupations grow out of particular interests of aviculturists. Some of these have been mentioned incidentally in preceding chapters. In this chapter the principal occupations associated with aviculture will be discussed both in their relation to that subject and with respect to their possible interest for those who plan to devote themselves to lines of work which would qualify them for special service in aviculture.
Judging fancy poultry and pigeons.There is the same difference between selecting one's own birds according to quality and judging the birds of others in competition that there is between performing well in a friendly game and performing well in a competition where the stakes are important and feeling runs high. Many fanciers who are good breeders and also good judges under other conditions make poor judges in competitions. In judging at shows decisions must be made quickly, there is little opportunity to rectify mistakes, and if a judge makes serious blunders he is severely criticized. A person who deliberates a long time before coming to a decision, and who is very sensitive to criticisms of his errors, even though he knowsthat some errors are sure to be made by every one and that unprejudiced exhibitors make allowance for this, will not make a successful judge of poultry and pigeons. Judges as a class are not the men who know the most about standard-bred birds or who are the most skillful in breeding them, although some of the best breeders are among the best judges. Almost all fanciers get opportunities to act as judges. If their work is satisfactory, the demand for their services increases until in time their income from this source may be large enough to make it worth while to adjust their other affairs to their engagements at poultry shows.
Journalism.There were a few books on poultry and pigeons written in the first half of the last century, and a larger number immediately following the "hen-fever" period. These and the articles on poultry and pigeons in agricultural papers constituted the literature of the subject until about 1870. Then there appeared a number of poultry journals, most of which gave some attention to other domestic birds. The demand for special journals arose because many people who were interested in poultry were living in cities and were not interested in general agriculture; they wanted more information about poultry matters than the agricultural papers could give. Advertisers of poultry and pigeons, and of goods bought by aviculturists, also wished advertising mediums through which they could reach buyers at less cost than they could through the agricultural papers. The rates for advertising are based upon circulation, and if only a small class of the readers of a publication are buyers of a particular class of goods advertised in it, the cost of reaching them may be too great. Whenever any interest becomes of sufficient importance, journals especially devoted to it are issued, for the convenience of buyers and sellers as well as for the information they contain. Until about 1890 nearly all poultry journals were small publications which the owners looked after in their spare time. Then they began to increase in number andimportance, and before long there were a great many that gave regular employment to editors, advertising solicitors, and subscription solicitors, who were employed for their knowledge of poultry and their acquaintance with poultrymen as well as for special qualifications for their respective departments.
Art.The illustrating of poultry journals and books, and of the catalogues of fanciers and other advertisers in poultry literature, gives employment to a constantly increasing number of artists. In order to successfully portray birds for critical fanciers, an artist must be something of a fancier. It is not enough that he should draw or paint them as he sees them; he must know how to pose birds of different kinds, types, and breeds so that his pictures will show the proper characteristic poses and show the most important characters to their best advantage. Since the half-tone process of making illustrations was perfected, the greatest demand is for photographic work, but unless an artist is able to work over and complete a defective photograph with brush or pencil, he cannot make this line of work profitable. Most birds are difficult subjects to photograph, and only a small proportion of the photographs that are taken can be used without retouching. A photographer may work for an hour to get a bird posed to suit him, and then, just as he presses the bulb, the bird, by a slight movement of the head or foot, may spoil one feature in a photograph that is otherwise all that could be desired. An artist who can draw birds can remedy such defects; the ordinary commercial artist cannot.
Invention.The most important invention used in aviculture is the artificial incubator. Methods of hatching eggs by artificial heat were developed independently by the Egyptians and by the Chinese thousands of years ago, and are still used in Egypt and China. The arrangements used in these old hatcheries are crude, and the success of the operation depends upon exceptional skill and judgment on the part of the operator. Operating incubators is a business continued in the same families for centuries. Each hatchery does the hatching for a community.
In the early part of the eighteenth century a French scientist named Réaumur, who was much interested in poultry, began to make experiments in artificial hatching and brooding. In 1750 he published a very full account of these and other experiments which he had made with poultry. His idea was to devise a modification of the Egyptian practice of hatching in ovens, suited to the conditions of a more advanced civilization. He succeeded in hatching eggs by utilizing the waste heat from a baker's oven, and also hatched eggs in hotbeds heated with decomposing manure. He applied the hotbed principle to the brooding of chickens with some success. But the methods that he devised were not adapted to general use.
After Réaumur many others experimented with artificial hatching. Some of the ideas were obviously more impractical than those of Réaumur, but the experimenters tried them out and sometimes succeeded in hatching chickens by very peculiar and laborious processes. One man in England, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, hatched some chickens from eggs placed in cotton batting in a sieve adjusted over a charcoal fire in a small fireplace. The fire was watched constantly for three weeks, either by himself or by some member of his family. He demonstrated that eggs could be hatched in this way, but not that it could be done profitably. Practical incubators were not produced until about forty years ago.
Although incubators and brooders have been brought to a relatively high state of efficiency, they are far from perfect. Inventors of the best machines are still studying ways to improve them. In this and many other fields there are opportunities for inventive genius.
Education and investigation.Lectures on poultry have been given occasionally at agricultural institutes in the United States since about 1860. After 1890 the demand for such lectures, and the number given, constantly increased, and ability to speak in public became valuable to one versed in aviculture. Then thestudy of poultry culture was introduced into agricultural colleges, and a new field was opened to poultry keepers with a faculty for teaching, and for trained teachers with special knowledge of domestic birds. The teaching of poultry culture impressed upon those engaged in it the need of scientific investigation of many problems not clearly understood even by the best-informed poultrymen.
The agricultural experiment stations had been giving little attention to some of these problems except in a desultory way and without important results. As the demands for more accurate information on many topics increased, many of the experiment stations began to make important poultry investigations. For this work men specially trained in various sciences were required. As a rule the men that were secured for such work knew very little about poultry when they began their investigations, but it was much easier for them to acquire a knowledge of poultry sufficient for their needs than for persons who had poultry knowledge and no scientific training to qualify for positions as investigators. The field of investigation of matters relating to poultry is constantly being extended. Proficiency in physics, chemistry, biology, surgery, and medicine, and in higher mathematics as far as it relates to the problems of any of the sciences mentioned, will always be in demand for scientific work in aviculture. In the future the most efficient teachers and investigators will be those whose early familiarity with domestic birds has given a greater insight into the subject than is usually possessed by those who take up the study of the subject comparatively late in life.
Manufacturing and commerce.It is very much easier to build up a large business in the manufacture or the sale of articles used by poultry and pigeon keepers than to build up a large business as a breeder of domestic birds of any kind. As has been stated in connection with nearly every kind of bird mentioned in this book, a poultry keeper's operations are limited by the difficulty of keeping large numbers of birds continuously onthe same land, and also by the exacting nature of the work of caring for them under such conditions. In manufacturing and commercial operations there are no such limitations. The possibilities of development depend upon the extent of the demand for the articles that are manufactured or sold, and only a small proportion of the employees need to be persons versed in aviculture. But in competition with other manufacturers or merchants those who understand domestic birds and know all the different phases of interest in them have a very great advantage over those who do not.
Legislation and litigation.The rise of new industries creates new problems for legislators, executive departments, courts, and lawyers. An industry in which many people are interested eventually reaches a stage where it is profitable for lawyers to specialize to some extent in laws affecting it, and politic for legislators and administrators to do what is in their power to protect the interests of those engaged in it, and to advance those interests for the benefit of the whole community. A special field is opening for lawyers familiar with aviculture and with its relations to other matters, just as within a few years the field has opened to teachers and investigators.
The possible uses of a knowledge of aviculture to young people who are naturally inclined toward intellectual professions, art, invention, manufacturing, or trading have not been given for the sake of urging students to direct their course especially toward work connected with aviculture. The object is only to show those who take an interest in the subject that it is worth while to cultivate that interest for other reasons, as well as for the profit or the pleasure that may be immediately derived from it.