Breeds and Breeding

Commercial poultry farmers and household poultry keepers depend largely on crossbred pullets for egg production, White Leghorns, Australorps, and Rhode Island Reds being used as the basic pure breeds from which to produce first-cross laying birds. The mass mating of breeding birds to produce laying pullets is the system commonly practised. Modern methods of poultry breeding based on present day knowledge of poultry genetics have been adopted by a few poultry breeders, including some of the largest breeders in the country, who are trying to raise the economic qualities of their pure breeds and to find high-producing crossbred birds for distribution to commercial egg producers. One group of breeders is employing a geneticist to evaluate the results of the breeding work.