CHAPTER VIII. 



THE TRAP NEST AND ITS USES. 



Within the past few years the outfit of the poultryman has 

 been enlarged by the addition of the trap nest. As to the practi- 

 cal value of these nests there is a wide difference of opinion : on 

 the one hand they are enthusiastically advocated; on the other 

 they are scornfully condemned. The trap nest needs a judicial 

 appraisal. It has been unfortunate in both its enemies and its 

 friends. Many of those who have ridiculed it have never tried it, 

 and those who have advocated it have too often been those who 

 are interested in it in a financial way. 



The principle on which the invention rests is that of the influ- 

 ence of heredity. It is a fact well known to all breeders of ani- 

 mals that desirable traits may be transmitted, and by careful mat- 

 ing a strain may be permanently established. It is a matter of 

 common knowledge that in the poultry world some of the most 

 popular breeds of to-day have been made within a comparatively 

 recent time by the combination of individuals of different varie- 

 ties. It would seem almost axiomatic, therefore, that if one 

 wishes to establish a heavy-laying strain he must breed only from 

 heavy layers. In the preceding chapter I have told how these 

 layers may be picked out. But there is always the possibility 

 that the poultryman may be mistaken. The trap nest box may 

 be used in the breeding pen for a time at least to supplement the 

 poultryman's personal observation. It is not necessary to use it 

 all the year round, or to use it in all the pens ; but it may be used 

 at times in certain pens to good advantage to ascertain if all the 

 hens are laying, and to weed out hens that are not doing so well 

 as their owners think they ought, and hens that lay small, mis- 

 shapen or poorly-colored eggs. 



The fancier also may make good use of the trap nest in the 

 breeding season, to enable him to select the eggs of individual 

 layers. He may have in a pen a hen of unusual beauty or excel- 

 lence, the offspring of which he desires to keep for his own use. 

 The trap nest will enable him to pick out the eggs this hen lays, 

 and then by markings on the feet of chicks hatched from these 

 eggs it is easy to tell them from the rest. 



