294 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



loo early in the summer, in hot weather. They then go through 

 a moult and are caught by the cold weather of the fall with their 

 overcoats off, so to speak, and then they do not lay well during the 

 early winter. If on the other hand they are hatched too late, 

 they then are not fully plumed when the cold weather comes and 

 as a result they, too suiler from the cold and do not lay well. The 

 ideal conditions in New York State with Leghorns is to hatch the 

 birds so that they will be ready to lay just before cold weather 

 comes. The exact time that is best will vary a little one year 

 with another. One cannot tell in advance, but we find that hatching 

 in May — never as late as June, if we can help it, and never as early 

 as March, but somewhere during April and May, and probably the 

 very best about the first of May, in the long run gives us our best 

 results, and yet when we come to consider the record of these 

 three flocks of birds all reared the same way, hatched from the same 

 kind of stock and given the same kind of care, the 22 hens hatched 

 May 2nd, the 21 hatched May 20th, only three weeks later, and 

 the 20 hatched on the 31st, which is only 11 days later — we find 

 considerable difl'erence in their production, 



Now let us notice that, of the first hatch, they laid 110 eggs; 

 the second hatch laid 112 and the third hatch laid 118 eggs the 

 first year; the second year, the first flock laid 120 eggs, the second 

 laid 133, the third laid 112. The third year the first flock laid 106 

 eggs, the second laid 124, the third flock laid 104; so that those 

 birds that were hatched the 31st day of May, practically the first 

 day of June, apparently were hatched just a little too late to get 

 ready to lay when the early fall cold weather struck them, and they 

 did not get under motion early enough in the fall and they never 

 got over the handicap. All the way through the three years' 

 time they were the last in the race. Now taking the 3 years' pro- 

 duction as represented by all these plotted curves for each month of 

 the three years, we find that the birds that were hatched on May 

 2nd, laid 363 eggs; those that were hatched May 20th, laid 400 

 eggs; those that were hatched May 31st, laid 336 eggs. If you 

 will study the curves, you will see that point brought out clearly, 

 namely: That as the hens get older, they lay just about the same 

 number of eggs, same height of production in the months of April 

 and May. Now notice that this curve of percentage of production 

 is higher in the second and third years, even during April and May, 

 than it was in the first. Why is that? Simply because in the first 

 year they laid so heavily in these early fall months that it reduced 

 their production a little in the early summer; whereas in the second 

 year and the third year, they began later and later to begin to 

 lay in the fall; consequently, when they began to lay, they gave a 

 heavy production in those two particularly favorable months of 

 April and May. When you come to plot the fourth and fifth years, 

 as we are doing at the College, we find that they still maintain high 

 yields in April and May; but they begin later and later to lay in 

 the fall and quit earlier and earlier the following summer. I pre- 

 dict that when* we keep those birds, as we hope to do, as long as 

 they live, we will find that they will only lay eggs eventually, if 

 they lay at all, in the months of April and May, the most favorable 

 season of the year. 



