The Book of the Hamburgs

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Baum Lyman Frank. The Book of the Hamburgs

EARLY HISTORY

CHARACTERISTICS OF HAMBURGS

BLACK HAMBURGS

THE SILVER-SPANGLED HAMBURG

GOLDEN-SPANGLED HAMBURGS

SILVER-PENCILED HAMBURGS

GOLDEN-PENCILED HAMBURGS

WHITE HAMBURGS

CARE OF YOUNG CHICKS

PREPARING HAMBURGS FOR EXHIBITION

HINTS TO JUDGES

Отрывок из книги

Mr. Wright, who has traced these fowls back still further, inclines to the belief that at some period whereof we have no knowledge the Penciled varieties formed a part of the Hamburg family, although our earliest positive knowledge traces them to direct importations from Holland, where they were brought in great numbers, and were originally known under the names of “Dutch Everyday Layers” or “Dutch Everlasting Layers.”

As such a thing as a black or spangled variety of this fowl was utterly unknown in Holland, it is presumable that at some period the penciled varieties were exported to Holland and there bred and cherished, while they were allowed to run out or sink into insignificance in England. We cling to this belief so tenaciously on account of the wonderful similitude which marks the characteristics of the Hamburg family, in spite of the fact that one branch came from Holland and the other is emphatically English. These two branches, namely, the Penciled and the Spangles and Blacks, resemble no other varieties of fowls in the slightest degree, while their common characteristics are the absence of the incubating instinct, clean, slender legs, neat rose combs, small, round and white ear-lobes, and the light, but sweeping and graceful, lines of form which are wholly their own and unapproachable by any other breed of fowls, no matter how fine their symmetry. If this were not enough to stamp them with certainty of having one origin, we mark the fact that spangled chickens are frequently penciled in their first feathers; while, as they mature, the black spangles or moons are often surmounted by a light tip beyond them, thus again approaching the penciled character, while conversely it will be found that if penciled birds be bred too dark the last bar has a strong tendency to become too wide, thus approaching a spangled character.

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Many breeders who have no knowledge of the deliberations at Birmingham have been puzzled to guess why the name Hamburg should have been chosen to designate a family which was mainly English, but these “fathers of the fraternity” had too much business to transact to allow them to inquire very carefully into the early history of this fowl. The Rev. E. S. Dixon proposed “that as the penciled varieties were then imported by the Levant merchants from the port of Hamburg they should all take the general name of Hamburgs,” and, indeed, this term is as euphonious and convenient as any other could be.

Though Mr. Beldon may have found this the case, our own experience has been that no small breeds of fowls will stand the tedium of a long and severe winter in close quarters better than the Hamburgs. In fact, all you need is to keep them busy, and they will seem happy and contented. Still, the larger the grass run they have in summer the greater their productiveness and the better they will do. They are very small eaters, and when at liberty are excellent foragers, being up at break of day and away rummaging the fields and pastures in search of food. Their quick eye at once espies their prey, and “woe to the poor worm that happens on that particular morning to have got up a little too early.” Every corner is searched with indefatigable zeal, and by the time the man gets around in the morning to feed them they have made a good breakfast and are ready for the business of the day. Perfect liberty or a large grass run are valuable adjuncts to health and egg production. Give it them if you possibly can.

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