Part II.] FOWLS FOR EGG PRODUCTION. 31 



improvement of the quality of the eggs. This is not a new 

 thing to us at all. One year our extension men selected 29,000 

 hens for breeders. ^Ye have case after case in our State of men 

 who will vouch for the fact that our men have gone into their 

 flocks and picked out 200 or 300 hens, and they never got a 

 laying hen out of the bunch, and these were sent off to market 

 or put in other pens and kept there for a while. We have a 

 case near by where Mr. Krum went up and picked some 200 

 or 300 birds out of about 700 or 800, and the man kept the 

 balance, about 500 in all, the next year, and also carried over 

 about 700 pullets, and that man tells us that he got a higher 

 production the next year from those choice 500 hens that Mr. 

 Krum picked out than he had gotten from the total population 

 during the first year, and more than he got from his pullets. 

 That means that by picking the hens out according to these 

 tests, as I have showed you we could easily do, you can get rid 

 of the non-producers and keep only producers. 



As regards this matter of late moulting, I had the experience 

 of speaking at a poultry association at Auburn two or three 

 years ago, and after the lecture was over they said to me, 

 "Come on out now, right into the farmyard ^nd pick out the 

 birds." Well, tlie farmyard was right there and that is just 

 what we wanted to do, so we all went out together, and I 

 picked out a dozen or 18 hens — this was in the latter part of 

 September ■ — every one of whom I knew was a bird who was 

 laying about 175 or 200 eggs a year, and one of the men spoke 

 up and said, "Why is it you are always picking out those dirty 

 hens?" Well, as a matter of fact, I had not noticed that I was 

 picking out the dirty hens. I was picking out hens that had 

 not moulted; hens that had pale shanks; hens that had full 

 crops; hens that had soft, velvety combs. I had not thought 

 about the dirt on them, and the proprietor spoke up and said, 

 "I can explain that to you. I put disinfectant in the nests — 

 sprayed my nests with disinfectant only a week or so ago, and 

 the only hens that are colored up as you see them here are the 

 hens that are laying." So those high-producing hens, laying 

 late into the fall, had this color or spray on their plumage, 

 and they were the ones that had marked themselves. And 

 you will find it will work out every time. 



