94 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



I want to say here that there is nothing arbitrary in 

 regard to Charts 44 and 45. Each poultryman can draw the 

 lines where he thinks it will best suit his purpose. A great 

 many years of experimenting has led the writer to believe 

 these charts answer the purpose very well. 



We have disposed of all the one-year-and-four-months-old 

 hens, and will move our outfit to the two-year-and -four- 

 months-old hens, and arrange the catching-coop and charts 

 as in the first case. 



The first hen we take from the coop may be a one-finger- 

 abdomen hen, in good condition. All one-and two-finger- 

 abdomen hens in good condition over one year -and four 

 months old, as a rule, should be disposed of. There is no 

 profit in them after they have laid their allotted number 

 of eggs their first season or, in other words, after they com- 

 mence to moult in their first laying year; so after this we 

 will not consider them in this connection. 



There is a great difference in the number of eggs a flock 

 of hens will lay each year as they grow older. Some will 

 lose 5 per cent, some 10 per cent, some 15 per cent, and some 

 20 per cent. Some will not lay anything (this will be ex- 

 plained later) after their first laying year. It depends alto- 

 gether on the vitality of the hen and how she has been fed 

 and raised ; and the variatipns in the percentage of eggs laid by 

 exactly the same type of hens will vary with different poultry- 

 keepers and also with the same poultry-keeper, varying more 

 or less in each separate pen, proving that environment has 

 more or less to do with egg-production, all other things, as far 

 as human knowledge is concerned, being equal. Some people 

 who are good mathematicians, but who are wholly ignorant 

 of animal nature, look surprised when I explain to them the 

 difference between classifying the production of a number of 

 like machines with the production of a number of hens of the 

 same score in egg-production. As a scientific proposition, it is 

 impossible to write a chart beforehand that will fit every case. 

 If we took 1,000 hens of any pronounced type say 100-egg 

 type, which were fed, housed, and cared for in exactly the same 

 manner, and one of them laid 5, 10, or 15 eggs more or less 

 some year than the other 999 hens, it would prove our con- 

 tention or theory, from a scientific point of view. I am sure 

 that 100 expert poultryrnen could take 100 hens of the same 



