POULTR?Y-CRAFT. 123 
161. What is a Good Egg Yield ?— There are ordinary, extraordinary, 
and VERY EXTRAORDINARY egg yields. 
An ordinary egg yield is from six to ten dozen eggs per hen per year. 
An extraordinary yield is from ten to fourteen dozen per hen. Anything 
over fourteen dozen eggs per hen is a very extraordinary egg yield. 
Ordinary egg yields are obtained from average fowls under the general 
conditions found on most farms, and from small flocks not given special 
attention. Ordinary egg yields from flocks handled specially for heavy 
laying, are also quite common when unfavorable weather or other unavoidable 
contingency depresses the yield. The figures given for extraordinary egg 
yields indicate the normal fluctuations in the product from good stock well 
managed. Skill does not allow it to remain below the lower figure, and can. 
rarely sustain it above the higher. Whatever may be said of the desirability 
of reaching an average of two hundred (or more) eggs per year per hen, the 
cold fact is that a twelve dozen per hen flock is an uncommonly good bunch 
of hens. Its record speaks well for its management. 
162. The Early Winter Egg Crop.— Eggs in early wimter are usually 
the feature of a large egg yield, though very prolific layers begimming to lay 
in mid-winter and continuing well into the fall can easily reach a high mark. 
In handling hens for eggs only, 1t is in every way desirable to get the hens. 
to laying as early as possible, and take the chances of keepmg them laying. 
(Some early winter layers lack staying qualities, and are poor layers). One 
who keeps fowls for eggs ought to do all in his power to get early winter 
eggs, but need not feel unduly discouraged if his best plans and efforts result 
sometimes in failure —total or partial—for here again the cold facts have 
consolation and encouragement for those that fail. The usual condition 
through November and December is that the hens are ‘‘ getting ready to lay.” 
The beginning of the season of good laying is from December 15 to January 
15, and, as has been said, hens beginning then can do highly satisfactory 
work. Beginners in egg farming commonly think that by selection, breeding 
for eggs, and feeding for eggs, they can establish a strain of hens that will 
begin laying as naturally in November as most hens do three or four months 
later. Selection and management elf to get stock that can be put in 
condition to begin laying early in the winter; but there are some very potent 
factors working against early winter egg yields. These factors are: unfavor- 
able weather, which may be expected about two years out of three; and the 
natural reversionary tendency of hens not to lay in early winter,— this 
tendency is always present, and acts with more or less strength, if given the 
least opportunity. Those two factors can put up a combination against which 
all the good breeding and skill in the world are powerless, unless resort is 
made to hot-house conditions for laying stock—a cure which, in the end, is 
worse than the disease. If this were not so very extraordinary egg yields 
and good egg yields in November and December would be the rule among 
