Dunnicliff: Fecundity and Stamina 
ridicule the idea that the hen that has 
the stamina to sustain laying at the 
200-egg rate is constitutionally unfit 
to efficiently perform her reproductive 
functions. Logically the same reason- 
ing applies to the 250-egg hen, which 
is no more a rara avis nowadays than 
was the 200-egg hen in the early years 
of these competitions. And why stop 
at the 250-egg layer? Why, indeed, 
since the actual breeding results show 
that the danger of decadence does not 
lie even in the 288-egg hen. Rather 
is there more reason to argue from the 
opposite standpoint, that sustained 
heavy laying is proof of a  corre- 
spondingly high standard of constitu- 
tional soundness. 
LOW DEATH RATE 
In the second and third year competi- 
tions we have had opportunities of 
observing how the heavy producers of 
the first year have carried through 
their second and third seasons. The 
facts are plain and convincing that 
there has been no abnormal “cracking 
up’’ consequent upon high first-year 
production. On the contrary, the per- 
centage of deaths is below the average 
among such hens. For instance, if we 
analyse the three-years’ competition 
figures and take the ten pens that made 
the best scores in the first year (all 
over 1,300 eggs), we find that the per- 
centage of deaths from all causes in 
the subsequent two years was 11.6, 
while if we take the ten pens with the 
lowest first-year records it is seen that 
the two following years gave 16.6% 
of deaths. The hens that have broken 
down constitutionally after exceptional 
laying in the first year have been few 
and far between. 
Warnings have been sounded that 
continual breeding for higher egg re- 
turns would inevitably produce ovarian 
disorders and weakness, but it can be 
definitely stated that the competitions 
of the past few years supply no evidence 
whatever of any such signs of an in- 
crease in constitutional deterioration. 
This is not to say that hens do not break 
down under the strain of heavy laying; 
but their first vear will almost invariably 
445 
find out their weakness in this respect. 
It is only in accord with scientific 
expectation that hens which have main- 
tained uniformly high laying throughout 
the first-year competition stage, have 
sustained their vitality, moulted well, 
and have entered their second season 
in vigorous condition, fit to fulfil 
all the requirements of the breeder. 
This of itself is a strong argument in 
favour of breeding from second-year or 
older hens that have proved their 
vitality and productive capacity. 
POINTS FOR SELECTION 
The object of this paper is not only 
to oppose a misleading line of reason- 
ing, but to impress upon breeders one 
of the obvious guiding lessons of these 
competitions. This is that the hen of 
high fecundity is not only a safe, but 
an eminently desirable unit in the 
breeding-pen, provided other rational 
and practical considerations in selection 
and mating are observed.. It is not 
enough that the breeding hen should be 
a good layer or the descendant of a line 
of high producers; physique is essential. 
Therefore, first regard must be paid to 
the outward and physical signs of 
vigor and constitution, and to reason- 
able conformity to the standard size 
and type of the breed. The doctrine 
that selection of vigorous and well- 
developed birds is the first principle 
in breeding has been preached since 
the earliest days of which literature 
has record of poultry culture. There 
is no rule more widely known and less 
practiced. On the majority of farms 
there are to be seen weedy, narrow- 
chested specimens with no depth of 
body and little pretension to type in- 
cluded in the breeding pens, simply on 
account of their ancestry, or because 
’ they are so-and-so’s strain, or that they 
have some supposed external mark 
of the layer. It is all too common, too, 
to see pullets of this class being tested 
out in their first year, with a view to 
being used later as breeders—pullets 
which, no matter what their trial per- 
formance, could never be worth a 
place in a well-balanced pen of breeders. 
