100 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



type, she is too lazy to care for her chicks, even if she is for- 

 tunate enough to hatch any and not kill them all by standing 

 on them. She is too stupid any way, and the typical egg type 

 hen is too nervous, and has no time to attend to them. She 

 thinks of nothing but manufacturing eggs. So we will have to 

 look for a hen between the above types which we have in the 

 dual purpose type, with the following characteristics . 



First, she must have prepotency large: that gives her the 

 mother instinct. Next, she should be in normal condition as 

 indicated by her breast bone; that is self evident, for a hen out 

 -of condition lacks more or less of the animal magnetism that 

 is an aid to successful incubation. I need not mention good 

 health as indicated by good red comb and wattles as every one 

 knows that. The hen should be four fingers abdomen since 

 anything heavier is more or less liable to break the eggs and 

 anything less than that would not be large enough to cover 

 sufficient eggs. If the hen is a three fingered abdomen, hen 

 her pelvic bones should be about seven-sixteenths or one-half 

 an inch thick. If she is a four finger abdomen hen, her pelvic 

 bones should be about one-half inch or nine-sixteenth thick. If 

 you can find hens such as described here, you will have hens 

 with the mother's instinct. They will not be too lazy to take 

 proper care of themselves and their chicks nor will they want 

 to lay so soon as to neglect their chickens. The nearer you can 

 get to procuring the above type of hens, the better success you 

 will have raising chicks with them. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

 SELECTING THE STOCK FOR RAISING BROILERS. 



A great many of my friends have requested me to write a 

 chapter on how to raise broilers, but as there are so many ex- 

 cellent books on the market that describe the process of the 

 feeding, caring for and raising of broilers a great deal better 

 than I could do it, I will confine myself to the selection of the 

 breeding stock only. The writer has raised Light Brahmas and 

 White Plymouth Rocks for years and has experimented with 

 them to get the greatest amount of meat from the smallest 

 amount of feed: to get the greatest weight of meat at three 



