POULTRY FOR PROFIT 97 



for without health egg production must inevitably 

 cease. Your prolific layer is not the pale-combed 

 hen that mopes in a corner or seeks the roost an 

 hour before sundown. She is the first hen out in 

 the morning and the last one in at night. She is 

 first at the feeding trough and has no scruples about 

 snatching any choice morsel from the beaks of the 

 other hens. She is the hen with the bright, red 

 comb and alert eye, the hen that scratches her toe- 

 nails off. 



Before a hen can begin to produce eggs, she must 

 have consumed (1) all the food she needs to main- 

 tain bodily functions and repair waste, and (2) 

 enough more to put some surplus fat on her body. 

 It is quite plain, therefore, that she must be a good 

 eater. 



Experiments at Cornell, where a large number 

 of Barred Rocks were killed and examined, showed 

 that the fattest hens invariably had eggs nearly 

 ready to lay in their bodies, while the leanest hens 

 were dormant. "The best explanation of the fact 

 that the hen must have fat in her body to lay well," 

 says Professor Rice, "is that the egg is developed 

 in the ovary in the form of little ovules. There are 

 hundreds of these little ovules, so small that we 

 perhaps cannot see some of them with the naked 

 eye. These ovules form in follicles, and when ripe 

 these burst and let the yolk or ovule fall into the 

 oviduct and then pass down the oviduct where the 

 white of the egg is formed about the yolk. A chem- 

 ical analysis of these eggs shows that sixty-four per 

 cent of the dry matter of the yolk of the egg is fat, 

 and that it is the only fat in the egg, except a small 

 fraction, the white of the egg being practically pure 

 albumen, the shell being mineral matter. The very 

 first part of the egg to be developed, therefore, must 



