Topic : THE DAM OF THE STRAIN OF BIRDS IS IMPORTANT.
By : Glenda L. Heywood of the NPN
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When you settle on a strain of birds what ever breed it is be sure and know what strain of birds your Dam (hen) comes from. When reading up on this subject I came across an article in Poultry Cluture by : K.Felch that is interesting to read.
The Dam's (hen) constitution is prolific laying, size and color, are important and are to be preferred in the order named. A good egg record of blood and egg production merit in her ancestry, are to be considered in setting a dam in any breed. A sound constitution and perfect health while breeding has much to do with producing laying stock, also with luster brilliancy of self colors. The dam produces the material for the chicken structure, the sire, life of that structure. The egg is to the chicken what the endosperm is to plant life, a store house containing the prerequisites to produce a perfect chicken structure. The life germ that is to absorb all this being there by built up into independent life, is imported by the sire.
The hen performs her work as independently and completely without the mate, as by copulation with him. The egg passage, running from the egg sac to the vent, is a receptacle, a work house. In which the secretions of both dam and sire are made up into packages called eggs. In this work room impregnation takes place. The ovary when grown to a certain size burst their sacks and are expelled into the oviduct. There to receive the spermatozoa of the male and in their passage through become incased in the albumen, the lining and shell in turn, and expelled at the vent, perfect eggs.
There are in this passage, while a hen is in a healthy laying condition, from 4-6 eggs in their different stages of development, the last 2 nearest the vent being beyond the influence of the male. If the hen has not been previously exposed. All the secretions deposited in the egg passage must find an escape at the vent, for nothing goes back from it into the dam's organism by absorption, as is asserted by some writers.
Some cases where by means of a cartilaginous circle about the vent, fowls have been prevented from laying their eggs. And in such cases the eggs in the egg passage will form one over the other till death is caused by inward pressure and we have before now taken from the carcass a mass as large as a six lb cannon shot, cooked solid by the fever heat. We have taken from the egg passage of a turkey five eggs, completely cooked by inflammation. Some experiments that seem to prove that the spermatozoa will live, doing its work of impregnation,
in the egg passage only about 10 days and we may say that the dam is pregnant for that length of time.
Mr. Felch states: We placed a hen that had hatched and reared a brood of chicks, without exposure, with the cock for 3 hours, then isolated her in a coop by herself. the first 2 eggs she laid in the next 48 hours were not fertile, 8 out of 9 laid in the 10 days thereafter were fertile. Those laid after that time were not fertile.
We placed a hen by herself that had been exposed while rearing her brood, and 7 out of the 8 eggs laid during the 10 days afterward were fertile but all eggs laid after that were not.
We took a hen that had just finished her litter, wanting to incubate and exposed her to the male for 3 days, then cooped her by herself. None of her eggs were fertile. In this case we take it for granted the incubating fever had not abated so as to admit of an effective copulation.
These experiments, which we can vouch for, seem to indicate that if females are cooped 10 days before saving the eggs, it will protect the breeder in the purity of the blood of the chickens. But as some believe that the whole litter of eggs is affected it is the better plan, in changing hens from 1 male to another, to do it at the close of a litter of eggs.
But we are satisfied that after the 5th egg, after the change is made, the chicks would be 19 cases in 20 to be the progeny of the associate sire. We believe the longer the spermatozoon remains in the egg passage without being appropriated the more sluggish it becomes and that the fresh semen, being more active in its animalcule life, secures the impregnation of the eggs.
Size in the dam is all important if great weight in the progeny is the desideratum, for the dam furnishes the structure and large in bone. For these qualities become toned down by in breeding. The larger the bone structure the longer it will take to mature the specimen. The smaller the bone and offal (entrails) in comparison to weight. The quicker will they mature. They lay earlier in life and are always the most prolific layers through life. These early maturing, compact, close feathered birds generally win in early exhibitions, while those of larger bone and more fluffy plumage, requiring more time to mature them, more successful in show pen in the winter
months.
For more information on this subject and others see my web site at
http://www.webcom.com/777/npn.html. Email me at
frizzlebird@yahoo.com also check out the site for other options to raising poultry. Click on NPN and see our books site also. G&K has great supplies for poultry & animals and all kinds of fowl at this site.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GLH
