90 POULTRY 
it advisable to use pullets rather than old 
hens as female breeders. 
Saving in Money. The question of cost 
enters into the case with males as well as 
females. If we use two-year-old cocks for 
breeding we must keep over into the second 
year one male bird for every ten or twelve 
females, because some of the males are almost 
certain to die and because some of them are 
likely to be injured by fighting. At present 
prices of feed it costs approximately two 
dollars to feed a male bird one year. This 
two dollars must be charged against the ten 
or twelve hens to which he may be mated. 
In other words, it has cost us at least sixteen 
cents and possibly twenty cents per hen to 
carry over the male bird from the time that 
he might have been used as a cockerel breeder 
to the time when he is used as a cock breeder, 
or into his second year of age. This is equiv- 
alent to subtracting sixteen to twenty cents 
from the profits that we can make from a 
hen. With a thousand hens this runs into 
money. 
Advantage of Cockerels. A_ strong, 
vigorous male bird which is ten to eleven 
