THE CALL OF THE HEN. 127 



inches; and when she slops laying for the season her pelvic 

 bones may close to about l l /4 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 performance 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. 

 In this connection I wish to say that in selecting breeders 

 I found that the best way to eliminate the hens that would 

 begin to bag down behind was to follow directions as given 

 below. Of late years I have not had this trouble to contend 

 with. It is always the heavy layer that breaks down, which 

 indicates weak ovaries, and we do not want to breed from 

 such. 



In drawing our hand along her keel (breast-bone) we find 

 a slight bagging down in the rear. The abdomen seems to drop 

 below the rear of the breast-bone slightly. We will say this 

 is a pullet, perhaps six or eight months old. She is well de- 

 veloped, and you can call her one of your best hens. You are 

 proud of her, and have decided to set every egg she lays. Do 

 not use her as a breeder. This pullet should be put in a yard 

 with others of her formation after she is sixteen months old and 

 trap-nested. She may stop laying any time and never lay 

 another egg, or she may continue to lay another year or so; in 

 any case, she has been such a continuous layer that her frame 

 has become set to that form, and her pelvic bones, as it were, 

 set and will contract very little ; they will indicate that she is 

 laying, when in fact she may not have laid for years. I have 

 kept such hens until they were 6 years old, and some of them 

 have never laid an egg after they were about 16 months, still 

 others after they were 2 years old. This is where a trap- 

 nest will save you money. When you select your hens by 

 Charts 44 and 45 at 16, 28, and 40 months of age, the ones 

 that bag down the least bit should be put in a yard by them- 

 selves and trap-nested to discover the ones whose ovaries 

 have broken down and will lay no more. This is not difficult 

 to discover, as the hen that is over the 205-egg type lays more 

 or less at all times during the first two years of her life, if 

 not stimulated to over-production her first year. "A 



