6o8 Reading-Course for Farmers. 



we are expecting from any other class of domestic animals. As a natural 

 consequence of the heavy strain of production, fowls frequently break 

 down or show the effects of it in the lack of vigor in their offspring. We 

 have good reason to suspect that much of the infertility and low hatch- 

 ing power of eggs, weakness of chickens, and mortality in mature stock, 

 where such conditions occur, may be traceable, in large measure, to a 

 breaking down of the constitution of the fowl under the exacting con- 

 ditions of modern intensive methods and large egg yield. 



The effort to hatch, rear and handle fowls in large numbers with the 

 least expenditure for feed and labor, and also to produce eggs at a season 

 of the year when hens ordinarily, in nature, do not lay, undoubtedly 

 has contributed in many flocks toward lowering their vitality. 



WJmf we are demanding of tJie modern hen 



A good hen is expected to lay in a year about five times her weight 

 in eggs. This means a reproductive process, on an average, at least every 

 third day during the year, or perhaps, in rare instances, every other day. 



To emphasize the tremendous digestive and reproductive power of 

 the modern domestic fowl, we quote from Dr. W. H. Jordan, of the 

 New York State Experiment Station at Geneva, who, for illustration, 

 has compared a Leghorn fowl that weighs three and one-half pounds 

 and lays 200 eggs, weighing twenty-five pounds, with a Jersey cow that 

 weighs 1,000 pounds and gives in a year 7,000 pounds of milk contain- 

 ing 14% of solids. Ke states that " if you take the dry matter of the 

 hen and compare it with the dry matter in the eggs she lays in a year, 

 there will be five and one-half times as much dry matter in the eggs as 

 in her whole body. The weight of the dry matter in the cow's body 

 to the weight of the dry matter in the milk will be as i to 2.9. In other 

 words, based upon the dry matter, the hen does twice as well as the cow. 

 I suspect the hen is the most efficient transformer of raw material into 

 a finished product that there is on the farm. Her physiological activity 

 is something remarkable. So in that particular the hen stands in a 

 class by herself." 



Fowls differ in their constitutional vigor 



Whatever the contributory causes may be, the fact remains that we 

 have strong fowls and weak fowls in nearly all flocks, and strong strains 

 and weak strains in all varieties of poultry. The truth of this is so well 

 recognized that it is unsafe to pass judgment on the merits of any 

 particular variety of poultry without first knowing the way it has been 

 bred and handled. Moreover, variation in the constitutional vigor of 



