There are two sides to every account. If you charge the chickens with what they cost you, it is only fair to yourself and to them to credit them with the eggs and meat they furnish, as well as with increase of stock, etc.
Trap-nest open. The hen's weight shuts the door behind her
In every flock there are some idlers. They lay only a hundred or so eggs, they leave their eggs too long when sitting, or they never put on any weight. You want to be rid of all such. You can mark the bad sitters, and send them to the pot, as well as those whose habits are such as to make them a nuisance. But you need to know which fowls lay the biggest and best eggs and which lay the largest number. For market in our country where eggs are sold by the dozen it is numbers that count, but for breeding you want eggs of good size and shape. You also want to set the eggs of the good layers. These eggs taste no better in cake or omelet, but by careful selection you can breed a strain of extra good layers, right in your hen house. The device known as a trap-nest is the thing you will need if you go at it scientifically. You want it in winter, too, to prevent killing your best hens for potpie, while the idlers cheerfully eat your grain without recompense. The simpler the mechanism of the trap-nest the better. It must stand open until the hen enters, then close without frightening her. Most of them keep the hen a prisoner until you go and examine the nest, credit the hen by her leg-band number, and release her. By following the drawings in the bulletins of the New York and Maine Experiment Stations referred to in the list of bulletins on chickens you can construct your own trap-nests.
Trap-nest closed after hen has gone in
There are people who claim that "common chickens" or mixed breeds are hardier than pure bred fowls and better all around producers. How many can show records to make good that claim? American boys and girls who go into chicken raising will want to breed from good pure stock. Nothing is too good for them. Did you ever hear any one show any enthusiasm when passing a flock of mongrels? Contrast this with the delight you and all your friends take in the sight of a hundred fowls all white, all red, all spangled, all black, all piebald, all blue, or all speckled, as alike as peas in a pod! I vote for the pure stock every time. You can keep it pure and strong by exchanging cockerels with other breeders of the same variety and with similar ideals and practices.
Keeping chickens isn't mere child's play. There's lots to be done. You must be carpenter, gardener, breeder, merchant, and even doctor, all rolled into one. But there is fun in it and profit in it. Better than all, there is a satisfaction in doing a good job and doing it well, and it keeps a boy out of doors where he belongs if he's a healthy boy.
