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questions: First, if it is true that fowls differ in their constitutional 

 vigor, is it also true that you and I can recognize these physical differ- 

 ences and separate the strong from the weak, thus avoiding the dan- 

 gers of weakness, and if so, whether or not there is an actual differ- 

 ence in the productive value of fowls due to their constitutional vigor 

 or weakness? It is my purpose to try to answer these few questions. 



It is important that you make a study of the difference between 

 high and low vitality and the characters by which they can be recog- 

 nized that you may be able yourselves to quickly and easily know a 

 -strong from a weak fowl. Most persons can see at a glance the dif- 

 ference between two extreme types, but it takes a very good eye and 

 discrimination to tell the fine differences between individuals when 

 rthere is not a marked contrast. 



First, let us consider the importance of strong constitutional 

 vigor in poultry and the conditions under which we are keeping it as 

 ;a result of which there has been a tendency to \veaken the constitu- 

 tion and shorten the life of the domestic fowl. This is particularly 

 true on the large poultry farms where fowls are being kept by what 

 -are known as intensive methods, close confinement, artificial hatch- 

 ing and rearing and handling chickens and fowls in large numbers. 

 But it applies nearly everywhere to a certain extent, although to the 

 credit of many breeders be it said their stock is growing stronger 

 each year. 



The average normal wild jungle fowl in nature lays approxi- 

 mately nine eggs in a litter and not more than two litters per year. 

 'The modern hen is expected to lay eleven or twelve dozen of eggs a 

 year, and we have at the College plant at Cornell one hen that laid 

 258 eggs last year, another that laid 253 and 15 selected hens that 

 averaged 236, and one flock of 12 that averaged a lay of 182 eggs 

 each as pullets last year. These fowls will average not to exceed 

 three and one-half pounds each, and you will readily be able to 

 ^calculate that they laid about five times their weight in eggs in a 

 single year. Each egg that they have laid in a measure may be com- 

 pared to the giving birth to an offspring. This without doubt is a 

 vastly more exhaustive physical process than that of milk secretion. 

 'Therefore, we see that the little hen is undergoing a tremendous 

 strain in her short and strenuous life. As a result, she breaks down, 

 or her offspring frequently lose vitality, and we hear all over the 

 country the complaint, "Why are my eggs infertile?" "Why do my 

 chicks die in the shell?" "Why am I unable to rear my chickens?" 

 "Why do we have such a large mortality in our mature stock?" It 

 is common knowledge, and the poultry schools are all teaching, that 

 when we start out to estimate on probabilities and possibilities, in 

 order to be conservative and safe we should calculate on not hatch- 

 ing more than fifty to sixty per cent of the eggs put in the machine 

 and ndt rearing to maturity more than sixty to seventy-five per cent 

 of the chickens hatched, and calculate that in a year or two we will 

 lose from -five to ten per cent or more of chickens already reared as 

 we keep them for egg production. This is a tremendous drain upon 

 'the business and something must be wrong somewhere that there 

 should be such excessive losses, yet there are instances where whole 

 flocks of hens have gone through for the entire year laying heavily 

 ;and not one hen lost. And these same hens perhaps laying eggs 

 that have hatched chicks where ninety per cent or more of the 

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