108 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



"How CAN I TELL A LAYING HEN?" 



I am asked this question very often, and in reply would say that 

 from a scientific point of view it is impossible to tell the laying hen 

 except with the X-ray. When I say this I do not mean that you cannot 

 tell in the vast majority of cases, but there are occasionally hens whose 

 formation is such that no known method will tell you whether she is a 

 laying hen or not. I give in the last chapter my original "System" 

 and the later supplement, which caused a great many questions to be 

 asked, which I trust have been satisfactorily answered in this book. 



I was at a place in San Francisco lately where this subject was 

 brought up. There was a small party present, all of whom had my 

 "System." One of the party worked in a large meat-market, where 

 they bought and dressed live poultry. He said that occasionally he 

 dressed a hen that showed no indication of being a laying hen, but 

 upon being opened an egg would be found in her. I told him the hens 

 that he had described were those that laid a very few eggs and laid them 

 only in the spring. Their pelvic bones expanded only while the hen 

 was being delivered of the egg. This hen has practically but one egg 

 under process of development at a time, consequently her abdomen 

 does not have to expand to make room for only one egg. Whereas the 

 hen that lays 150 eggs per year has a number of eggs developing at the 

 same time, and her abdomen expands in proportion to her needs. The 

 200-egg hen has a still larger number of eggs developing and she requires 

 more room for them, hence her abdomen expands in proportion. The 

 250-egg hen has a still larger number of eggs of all sizes developing and 

 her abdomen expands still wider than the 200-egg hen. When the hen's 

 abdomen expands, her pelvic bones, being literally a part of and con- 

 tinuation of her abdomen, must expand and contract with it. When 

 she is through laying for the season her abdomen contracts, and the 

 pelvic bones must come closer together, which they do, although there 

 are exceptions to this rule. We will take the 145-egg hen, for example 

 of the sanguine temperament. She will be four fingers abdomen and 

 */8-inch pelvic bone, when in normal condition, with pelvic bones of good 

 shape. We draw our hand along her breast-bone (keel) from front to 

 rear, and find her abdomen does not drop down the least bit below the 

 rear of the breast-bone. This hen we might call a "normal hen." Her 

 pelvic bones will, in all probability, expand and contract in conformance 

 with her condition of laying. If she is in the flush of laying, her pelvic 

 bones may be about 1% inches apart; later in the season, when she is 

 not laying so frequently, her pelvic bones may close to about 1J^ inches; 

 and when she stops laying for the season her pelvic bones may close to 

 about 1J4 inches. This will very likely be repeated each year. 



Now we will select a hen of the 250-egg type. We draw our hand 

 along her keel, as with the last hen; we find she is all right, closely built 

 and firm. We drop her and take another 250-egg type hen. The per- 

 formance of drawing the hand along the keel is for the purpose of picking 

 out the future breeders that may later bag down, indicating weak ovaries. 



