The small-combed, slim-beaked pullets, with pinched abdominal 

 region, should be sent to market at six months of age. It is useless to 

 bother with them. At six months of age the combs should show red, 

 and the flock should be even in size, with long bodies, wide behind, 

 forming the ideal wedge shape heavy egg type. From six to eighteen 

 months constitutes the heaviest laying period and very little-culling 

 needs to be done during that period except for those that rupture 

 themselves laying or get indigestion. 



Culling from disease should never take place on the highest type 

 egg farm, for it is unnecessary to have any contagious disease if clean 

 open front houses are used with no outside runs. Worms, canker, roup, 

 and chicken pox cause unlimited culling where conditions are not ideal. 

 Get stock and conditions right and these four dread diseases need not 

 trouble the egg farmer. 



The first decided culling takes place at about six months of age. 

 The second culling begins at the end of the first laying year, or between 

 sixteen and eighteen months of age. At this time the culling should not 

 be too severe, for good hens might be sent to market that would pay 

 the second season. The very first hens to molt and cease laying at this 

 period are the poorest layers and can be either marketed or separated 

 in order not to breed from them. All crooked backs and bunty tails 

 and undersized hens should be marketed at this period, for they should 

 never be allowed in the breeding flock. These may make paying layers 

 the first year, but should never be tolerated the second season. 



The so-called systems are unreliable in selecting the heavy 

 layers, and cannot be depended upon. Thousands of good hens have 

 been thrown out by that test. There is only one thing that these 

 systems are absolutely sure of, and that is whether the hen is laying today 

 or not. This fact is easily determined by placing three fingers between 

 the two pelvic bones that protrude behind. If they are thin and pliable 

 and far apart, the hen is now laying. The point of the breast bone will 

 also be dropped lower, making more capacity between the pelvic bones 

 and point of breast. When the hen is not laying these pelvic bones lay 

 on fat and become stiff, and draw so close together that there is room 

 for only one finger. Also the abdominal capacity shrinks. A good 

 heavy laying hen will measure three fingers between the pelvic bones 

 and four to five fingers between the two pelvic bones and the point of 

 the breast bone below, during the laying period. The comb will be 

 bright red and large and full during this laying season. The heaviest 

 layers will be thin, with scarcely any fat whatever. 



As soon as the molting season begins the red comb begins to shrivel 

 and grow pale. This is the most significant way of telling the non- 

 layers without handling the hens. The best layers will keep on laying 

 till late in the fall, and even lay till almost naked, but must stop as 

 soon as the new feathers begin to grow, for then it takes all the nourish- 

 ment to build feathers. Also the hen begins to take on fat and increases 

 in weight during the molt. 



A very few of the earliest molters can be culled out at the end of the 

 first laying year, especially all those with small, straight combs. A 

 large, full comb is invariably a sign of heavy laying capacity. Once in 

 a while, however, a hen will be sterile and still have all the indications 

 of a heavy layer from general appearance, and it is only by a close 



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