THE CALL OF THE HEN. 87 



Ukiah State Hospital, Mendocino County, California, and at other 

 State hospitals and poultry plants. We do not have to stop to figure 

 out the percentage of loss of each bird. You can take any combination 

 of figures you wish, as J^-inch, 3 / 8 -inch, J/^-inch, 5 /g-inch, forsixteen- 

 months-old birds; Vie-mch, */ 16 -inch, 5 /i6-mch, 7 / 16 -inch, for twenty- 

 eight-months-old-birds. You can figure out the percentage of loss each 

 year and take a combination of figures that will suit your purpose. You 

 have only to carry four figures in your mind. The percentage of loss 

 each year is computed by good poultrymen to be from 10 to 20 per 

 cent in egg-production on plants that are run for hatching eggs. If you 

 force your hens with an excess of meat and condiments, the loss will be 

 according to how you feed them, and no one can tell what it may be 

 but yourself. Some poultrymen will get practically all there is in a 

 hen out of her the first season, then sell her. 



CHAPTER XL 







THE MALE BIRD. 



This is not a treatise on cattle or horses, but we have to use them 

 very often to illustrate the matter in hand. Stock-raising has been 

 brought to more of a science than poultry-raising, and is well understood 

 by thousands of our progressive farmers. I have met hundreds of them 

 who could describe to me the points I would have to consider in selecting 

 a good-paying butter-fat, beef or milk proposition, both in dam and 

 sire; and while there may be as many poultrymen. who understand the 

 selection of poultry, both male and female, for egg- and meat-production, 

 I have failed to meet them, and while I was made the butt of ridicule 

 by the poultrymen when I issued my first pamphlet, entitled the "Walter 

 Hogan System," in March, 1905, the stock-raisers who were interested 

 in poultry stood by me to a man. The reason was, that the cattlemen 

 had been studying along the utility lines in both sire and dam in order 

 to develop the milk, butter-fat, and beef-producing capacities of their 

 cattle. It was a comparatively easy proposition for them. The form 

 of the animals was plainly to be seen. They were not covered with a 

 coat of fluff and feathers that hid the shape and form of the subject. 

 It was easy to distinguish between the cat ham of the butter-fat type 

 and the full, deep ham of the beef type. It was no trouble to compare 

 the udders, milk-veins, and wedge-shape type of the Jersey with the 

 full, rounded build of the Hereford or Polled Angus. 



On the other hand, the poultrymen, to some extent, were deceived 

 by the appearance of their hens. Take, for instance, the Cochin and 

 the Bantam; they would hold about the same relation to each other as 

 the lordly Durham would to the fine-bred Devon, yet I have found 

 Bantam hens with as deep abdomen as a great Cochin hen; and it is 

 my opinion that if poultry were as bare of feathers as cattle are, the 

 poultry industry would be as far advanced at present as is the cattle 

 business. 



The greatest impediment to the successful breeder of poultry has 

 been the inability to select the male bird of the required type. The 

 custom in vogue at the present writing with most poultrymen is to trap- 

 nest their hens and raise cockerels from the best layers as indicated by 



