296 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. t>OC. 



the hatching results were in essentially the same ratio ; that is to say, 

 pretty good percentage of hatching from the eggs kept only a few 

 days, while almost no results for those kept a considerable length of 

 time. 



A common notion is that we get vitality by crossing our fowls. We 

 wanted to tind out whether this is true or not, therefore we instituted 

 an experiment in which we crossed barred rock males with white leg- 

 horns hen and with leghorn males on barred rock hens and com- 

 pared them with the pure bred rocks and leghorns. The results J can 

 only brielly give to you. They are, that after three years' test in com- 

 paring the first crosses and the second crosses with the pure breds of 

 similar ages we find that they have gained absolutely nothing in egg 

 production by either of the crosses over the pure bred leghorn. W^e 

 have gained nothing in size, and meat (lualities of our cross bred 

 chickens over the pure bred rock ; but we have lost something by each 

 of the crosses. We have lost because we have neither one nor the 

 other. We have simjily undone, by mating these fowls together, what 

 it took some skillful breeders fifty years to accomplish, and we have 

 not increased the vigor or health of the chickens as compared with 

 the pure breds. The pure bred white leghorns of the third generation 

 laid us last year 182 eggs apiece, an average for every pullet in the 

 pen. The barred rocks averaged 129; the crosses averaged just aboul 

 13-3 to 150 apiece. We did get chickens in each of the crosses a little 

 larger than the leghorn by means of the barred rock infusion of 

 blood, but that is all we accomplished and that was not worth while 

 because we had a better individual for meat purposes in the barred 

 rock. Our exi)erience for these pure breds at least, is to not cross 

 them, but to keep the bred pure and get new life and vitality by gett- 

 iuj; new blood from somebodv that has something better than we have 

 ourselves, of the same variety. 



One of the ways in which we can economize in the handling of poul- 

 try is in rearing Ihe chickens in large numbers. I have here a slide 

 (Fig. 16 ) that shows the nursery where the chickens are started. This 

 is an excellent colony house 8 feet square. There is a big hover inside 

 the house that will cover 250 to 300 chickens in a single tlock. These 

 houses are kept close together early in the spring and after the houses 

 are all filled with the young chickens three or four weeks old, then 

 the houses, chickens and all are moved out on the farm into the corn 

 field or on the meadows where they can have free range. By this 

 method we can reduce at least three-fourths of the labor of rearing 

 chickens in large numbers. 



Fig. 17 shows four methods by which these houses are moved. If 

 we want to move the house only' a few rods in the same field we just 

 hitch the team to it and draw it along. If we are going to move it 

 across the fields we run it upon a skid. If however the houses must 

 be moved on the highway a mile or two, as we are obliged to do every 

 year with the 25 houses because we have not enough money to build 

 a double equipment on each farm, these houses are put upon wagous 

 and moved out to the farm. It costs about |1.50 apiece for moving the 

 houses so far. The reason why it is necessary to move these houses 

 back and forth to the farm is'largely because we use the houses all 

 winter for laying hens. These houses are big enough to hold 12 to 15 

 hens all winter. We find we can carry over 350 hens each winter more 



