CHAPTER VIII
A Great Laying Strain—The Selection of Breeders to Produce It
The first requisite is to breed from a mature animal, from a real yearling hen. The term “yearling hen” is a misnomer, for, when she is twelve months of age she has not as a rule developed into a true yearling hen. The female has five months of growth, ten months of laying, and then she moults, which process varies in duration from eight to ten weeks.
Eighteen Months Old
When she has completed the moult, her entire anatomy has undergone a change, and she is a mature animal, about eighteen months of age, a fit specimen to reproduce her kind, and her off-spring will be strong and vigorous youngsters.
The great mortality one reads of among chicks can be traced more to breeding from immature females than to any other cause.
The general method of selecting breeders for a great many years has been by the use of “trap nests.” Surely the use of a mechanical device is a poor method to determine what hens are proper for breeding purposes, and really the trap nest tells you nothing.
In every pen there are daily a number of eggs which are not laid in the nest at all. To what particular hen does the attendant credit eggs found in hollows scooped out in corners under the dropping boards? It is a peculiarity of “Biddy” that where she sees an egg she almost always decides it is a good and proper place for her to lay another. Thus, on some days, where trap nests are in use, it may be necessary to make a great number of guesses as to which hen did not lay in the traps, but on the floor.
Trap Nests a Failure
There is another reason why trap nests really tell you nothing. Take two females of a pen whose numbers are one and two. For the first few weeks No. 1 surpasses her sister No. 2 in the production of eggs. To this pen, clover has been the green food fed, and of this ingredient the farm has run short. The shipment has been expected daily but did not arrive, and, because of that failure, for four or five days no other green food was provided. Then cabbage was resorted to to take the place of the clover. The pen having been without green food for a number of days was fairly greedy for it, and good, crisp cabbage suits the palate of many hens exactly, and they are very apt to overdo the matter in eating it. A great layer must be a large eater, and so hen No. 1 gorged herself on the cabbage. Her digestive organs were upset, and for a number of weeks she ceased laying, while hen No. 2 continued to shell out a fair number of eggs. The owner of these birds, when it came time for the selection of the breeders, expressed his great disappointment over hen No. 1. She had started so well, and then had blown up entirely, and so she is passed up, and hen No. 2 is accepted as a breeder.
