BREEDING POULTRY FOR EGG PRODUCTION. 1 33 



perience has shown that, under the environmental conditions 

 which obtain here, that time is the best to hatch chickens which 

 are to be used in fecundity work. Such birds come into laying 

 at the proper time without either forcing or retarding. Now it 

 is a fact that while, on the average, it takes from 6 to 10 days 

 to get fertility well established after a mating is made, yet there 

 are individuals in which the very next egg laid after the first 

 copulation will be fertile. Because of this consideration all pos- 

 sible eggs were saved from the beginning of the matings, with 

 the certain knowledge that while the relative or percentage fer- 

 tility of these early eggs would be low, yet absolutely a few 

 chicks would be obtained. The desire to get these chicks far 

 outweighed any idea of making a maximum record of fertility 

 of eggs, the latter, in fact, not entering into consideration at all. 



2. The hatching quality of the eggs as indicated by the per- 

 cent of fertile eggs hatched is again somewhat below what may 

 be considered normal for the Maine Station stock at the present 

 time. With large numbers of eggs the normal hatching per- 

 centage of fertile eggs is on the average a little over 60, taking 

 the whole season. through. Toward the last of the mating sea- 

 son (the month of May) the hatching percentage normally rises 

 considerably. 



Here, just as in the case of fertility, the records tabled bear 

 a rather heavy handicap, which could have been avoided had 

 the only purpose been to bring out the best record of which the 

 birds were capable. The factor in question here is the holding 

 of the eggs before incubation from the first week in February 

 on. No eggs were put in incubators until March 7. More 

 than half of the eggs set at this time were over two weeks old 

 when j)ut in the incubator. Everyone who has dealt practi- 

 cally with incubation knows that this means a serious reduction 

 in the percentage of fertile eggs hatched. The reason for man- 

 aging in this way was again to get the greatest possible absolute 

 number of chicks hatched about April i, regardless of the rela- 

 tivc proportion of chicks to eggs set. 



3. Taking all the i-ecords together and using the averages in 

 the computations it appears that, even with the handicaps men- 

 tioned, in the high fecundity lines it required only 2.6 eggs in 

 the incubator in igii to produce one chicken three zveeks old. 

 In the lozu fecundity lines it required ^.2 eggs to make one 



