3-5-1986
Dear
Bill,
Many
thanks for your supplement to Chicken
Bone Recoveries part 2. I find your research interesting, but I am afraid
I couldn’t become as absorbed with it as you are. I like to look forward to
see what could be done, but I do appreciate you do need to know where you are
going. However I can and do appreciate the painstaking work needed.
After
six months of almost continuous proof reading which just about exhausted me I
finally got Creative Poultry Breeding
book from the Printer and bookbinder on November 10th. I am
delighted that up to press at a cost of £ 20 sterling + postage I have just
recovered half of my printing costs to date (since I don’t pay for the final
lot of binding until they are done).
The
point that is most rewarding to me is that these sales have all come by
recommendation from one fancier to another since I am selling them privately,
having had them published privately in good quantity hardback to avoid
needling publishers.
Fred
P.Jeffrey helped by going it a good review in the ABA
Quarterly. I have also got another paper coming out in the British Poultry
Science in the new year. This is the one in which I show that the addition of
Columbian Co gene to the double
laced genotype produces a
single-laced (or laced) one. It is a parallel paper with the Db
one.
The
idea of our visiting NSW and South Australia has, I’m afraid fallen through.
The proposed show did not materialise.
On
your barred Pekin the method you have been given is basically sound but it
does not come the two important facts:
1
- To obtain quality barring you need relatively slow feathering, if not you
get cuckoo. So you must always select the best barreds to keep this.
2
- At the stage you are if you repeatedly use a dark barred male (B, b+) as
opposed to the light (B,B) you will have ½ black progeny, but ½ equal black
and white barred in both sexes. This is the way to breed darker cockerels as
we do in England.
I
could go on at great length about quality barring, and indeed did in my book.
I
return the photo which is a creditable start.
Best
wishes.