Cocking Science (History of Cockfighting Series)

By Old Family

COCKING SCIENCE by "OLD FAMILY" - Originally published in 1939 and never before reprinted. This edition is republished as part of Read Country Book's "History of Cockfighting" series. The book was written as a guide for the Game Fowl Beginner and its 88 pages cover, "The Breeding, Rearing, Conditioning and Fighting of Game Fowl From a Scientific Point of View." It shows the best methods for 'Pure-Line Breeding' as well as scientific formulae for developing strains. It is a fascinating and informative book, written in plain english, containing much advice that is still of practical use to poultry breeders today. A must for the cockfighting historian. Chapters are: Types, Selecting the Trio, Conformation, The Hen, Breeding Requirements, inbreeding, Culling, Dubbing, Walking, Care of Coop-walked Fowl, The Keep, Feed in Keep, Breeding Fundamentals, Mendel's Laws, Mendelian Methods, Hybridization, The 4-Way Cross, Diseases: Roup, Chicken Pox, White Diarrhea, Pullorum Disease, Salpingitis, Aspergillosis, Cholera.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Mar 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781446545034

Book preview

CHAPTER I.

TYPES

Two primitive types of Game fowl have been known from earliest times—the ground-running Malay, and the Bankiva fliers. Crossing of these two types has, in the course of time, developed strains which combine to a greater or less degree the characteristics of both. Scientific breeding notes these origins in order to estimate what foundation underlies modern fowl, and the sources to which it can turn for speed or endurance.

The commoner of the two is the flier—Gallus Bankiva (to give it its scientific name)—in the wild state a smallish fowl with high. serrated straight comb, large wattles, long, thick hackle, heavily feathered, strong winged, well equipped for flight. When threatened he flies into a tree, easily as a bird. In fighting he depends much on his great wing power to outfly his opponent, hits fast and furiously while in air, with a motion sometimes described as a shuffle but which, in reality, is a hook, the gaff being sunk not at the end of the stroke but at the beginning of the recoil. Its natural spurs are well suited to this style of fighting, being long and curved, the point set high.

Modern straightcombs (Bankivas) are nervous, active, high-strung fowl, comparatively small in size as one should expect in fliers, and having the hollow bones common to all birds of flight.

They have been developed from jungle fowl, still to be found in the wild state, south of the Himalayas, and in India and Siam. They form the foundation for the majority of European and American Game strains.

Bankivas are peculiarly adapted to steel-fighting because of their speed and aggressiveness, but in naked heels lack the size, endurance and mighty wallop of the Oriental cock.

Unlike the Bankivas, no wild forms of the Oriental are known, but it would seem that the Malay (Gallus Giganteus) might be the domesticated prototype from which other Oriental strains derive, for those with which we are most familiar—the Japs and As eels— show variations in size and feathering that indicates the same process has gone on in the Orient as here, i.e., the grading in of foreign blood, yet all show the Malay influence.

The Malay is not a flier. Its wings are as little developed as those of an ostrich, and of small use in fighting, but like the ostrich its legs are tremendously strong, the bones not hollow but filled with marrow. A true ground bird, its natural habitat is the reeds and grasses of marsh and plain, where frogs, lizards and even snakes furnish a diet much different than that of Bankivas, which thrive on seeds, fruits and insects—a menu too vegetarian to fully satisfy the carnivorous Malay.

When frightened he makes no effort to fly but runs swiftly to the nearest covert.

His head is broad and round; the beak, short, powerful and heavy; the comb, cushionlike, smooth and broad (the peacomb of other Orientals a variation caused by grading). He has neither the wattles nor the large ear lobes of the Bankiva, nor its flowing hackle, nor heavy feathering. His spurs are short, thick and straight, suitable for the hard direct blow he delivers. A determined, cool fighter, capable of giving and absorbing an astonishing amount of punishment; large in size—often two feet in height and weighing sometimes up to 14 pounds or more, he has no peer in naked heels, but ordinarily lacks the speed required in steel and has a tendency to use his powerful beak more than is fancied in steel fighting.

It is well to keep these two types in mind—the flier and the runner. Oriental blood is so powerful that when graded on Bankivoids it persists unbelievably long and makes itself known by the peacomb, round head, straight spur or fighting tactics of fowl that have had no infusion of this blood within memory of the living.

We might summarize by classifying Bankivas for speed in long heels and slashers, Orientals for naked heel fighting, and grades for short steels where strength and enough speed to beat the opponent to the punch are necessary.

Unfortunately the adaptation of the cocks of your choice to the heel used in your territory is something you must not overlook. I say unfortunately because, as conditions are now, the fowl must follow the heel to an extent that in some sections seems to threaten gameness. The variability of gaff length prevents standardization of the sport as a whole, whereby breeding methods of the South and Far West, for example, can be truly tested against other sections, or the forming of a common ideal toward which breeders everywhere might bend their respective skills. Cockers may see the light some day and adopt a single standard of length for the heel, but until that time the breeder must bias his fowl toward the steel he is forced to use.

With these fundamentals in mind, we will assume you are a beginner, just starting your quest for a trio of brood fowl. A few pointers may assist you in making a choice.

It is the worthy ambition of every novice who has the time, the place and the means, to wish to develop a strain that can hold its own among the best and carry his prestige as a cocker and breeder to the fair heights reached by the great names of the past and present. A high aim, whose achievement will depend as much on your own inherent aptitude as on those of your fowl, on instinctive right judgment, as well as acquired knowledge. You say you have the first two? Well, perhaps we can add a bit to the third and so start you off right in your search for the fourth great essential—sound brood stock.

Soundness, as I see it, is gameness, stamina and cutting ability thoroughly ingrained in a strain by intelligent breeding over a long period. Like faith, hope and charity, all are necessary to perfection, but the greatest of these is Gameness—so runs our creed. In theory all church members have the three virtues, and in theory, also, all game cocks are game—so to speak. But while putting the accent on gameness it may be well to call to your attention the fact that not a few of the modern school show up fairly well with fowl chiefly bred for the bloody heel. Some, indeed, go so far as to say, if they can cut they don’t need to be game! Eventually you will form your own conclusions, but I can assure you, winning or losing, you will never be ashamed of a dead-game cock. And that is something.

Be thorough. Canvass the field of cocking literature. Seek advice from old-timers in the sport. See events in which ace cocks are fought. From all these sources suggestions will come, and, in time, a pretty fair idea of the characteristics you want your birds to have. Do not believe that in this little work you have the full gospel of cocking. No, indeed! The field is much too broad to be fully covered by one man’s work or one man’s opinion. Besides, it is possible that the steady, hard-hitting cocks of my fancy might seem to you not half as impressive as the whirlwind flutterbirds whose spectacular antics so delight pit-side devotees. If so, by all means get them, for you can make no greater mistake than starting with a strain whose fighting tactics are not to your notion. Let no one tell you that that type is never game, that the desperate speed of their attack is inspired by fear, that they must win quickly or not at all, that they are poor finishers, etc. If some have those defects it is their breeder’s fault, for he has emphasized speed to the neglect of other essentials. Several strains of this type, raised by real breeders, are game beyond the ordinary test of steel, also very good finishers. My only objection to them is that the great amount of energy they expend in first pittings is apt to leave them more or less exhausted if they fail to make an early kill, and in the pittings that follow the slower, hard-hitting ground fighter comes into his own. This is especially noticeable in short heel territory.

JOHN HOY

For many years one of the best of the short heel

cockers.

CHAPTER II.

SELECTING THE TRIO

If you have the means to pay for the best you are likely to believe this makes getting the best a simple matter. It does help to have the wherewithal. No saying in cockerdom is truer than Tan Bark’s maxim, that for $15.00 you are likely to get a cock that is worth $15.00; for $100.00 you may get a sire that is worth $500.00. That is a pretty good generality, though and vice-versa might be appended to account for a few exceptions.

If your fancy turns to an advertised strain whose action you liked in the pit, first be sure that the cocks you saw fight are actually of that strain. Cases have been known where those pitting, say, Warhorses, have assured beginners eager