POULTRY FOR PROFIT 23 



have clearly in mind at the start what he or she is 

 to aim at. 



The different branches of the poultry industry are 

 generally classified as (1) egg production, (2) meat 

 production, (3) the breeding of fancy stock, (4) 

 hatching baby chicks. But raising fowls exclusively 

 for meat production has proven a failure so many 

 times that it need not be considered as a separate 

 branch of the industry. Meat production is profit- 

 able as a side line subordinate to the production of 

 eggs, and has importance for the beginner only as it 

 relates to the disposition of surplus cockerels and old 

 hens. Any breed is more desirable if its cockerels 

 make satisfactory broilers, but the broiler business 

 as a business has rarely been anything but a failure. 



Breeding fancy stock and the artificial hatching of 

 chicks in large numbers, while they are both profit- 

 able branches of the industry, are what might be 

 called graduate courses, and to be entered into only 

 when the principles of breeding, mating, feeding and 

 incubation have been mastered. This narrows the 

 possible choice for the beginner to egg production 

 only, and egg production is the foundation on which 

 the industry rests. 



There always has been and there always will be a 

 demand for fresh, wholesome eggs, and this demand 

 is increasing as the virtues of the egg as an article 

 of diet become better known. High prices of feed 

 the past few years have made it increasingly difficult 

 to produce eggs at a profit, but this very difficulty is 

 forcing breeders and students alike to a study of the 

 principles of breeding which shall eliminate the 

 drones from our flocks. There is plenty of profit in 

 producing eggs with high-producing hens, and no 

 profit at all in keeping drones. The sooner this 

 becomes clear to all concerned, the better for the 



