138 HOW I MADE $10,000 IN ONE YEAR 



the hens once they are mated. We never separate them 

 if the male birds are to be used in the breeding yaras 

 again. We double them up when the hatching season is 

 over, keeping in one yard all the males that will be car- 

 ried over. The males are dusted for lice when the change 

 is made and again when the yards are made up for the 

 following season. The male birds are inclined to neglect 

 the dust bath. 



The hens are not selected we mate the flock as it 

 stands. A hen that has passed through her first laying 

 season, escaping our culling sickle, and that goes through 

 the moult in good shape, again escaping being culled, is 

 considered a fit mother to our next year's pullets. This 

 may not be the correct method, but it is the method em- 

 ployed here; and it is the method employed in gaining 

 warrant for the title of this book. 



Selling the Old Hens 



We carry the layers through two laying seasons and 

 sell them when they reach the non-profit stage at the end 

 of the second season. Pullets raised in the spring of 1919 

 will be sold in the fall of 1921. When the egg yield de- 

 creases to a questionable point we make a rough calcu- 

 lation of the daily cost of feeding the lot of hens to be 

 sold ; and when the value of the eggs laid in any one day 

 does not show a profit over the feed cost the birds are 

 sold in one lot. 



It is possible to pick out the birds that are still laying, 

 either by their appearance (if one has the experience nec- 

 essary to judge), or by taking them off the nests day by 

 day for four or five days ; we have done this several times 



