j8 profitable poultry production 



duction offers exceptional opportunities to make 

 money. In fact, no branch of poultry raising is sa 

 likely to prove profitable over so wide an area. 

 There is not the least likelihood that there will be 

 an overproduction or that the business will be over- 

 done ; in fact, it is the only branch of poultry rais- 

 ing concerning which this statement can be made 

 without qualification. 



Perhaps the most important reason why egg" 

 production and sale can be made most profitable 

 is not so much on account of great demand and 

 high prices as because the cost of production is pro- 

 portionately less than in other branches of the 

 chicken business. By " cost of production " is 

 meant not only the cost of the egg as a market 

 commodity, but the cost of making the machine,- 

 the hen, which is to manufacture the &gg. In rear- 

 ing chickens to sell as broilers and roasters the cost 

 occurs mainly in the losses of chicks during the 

 brooding period. Pullets of a reasonably good 

 laying strain of any good breed having been reared 

 to laying age are, therefore, worth far more because 

 of their ability to lay than they would be if sold 

 for eating. In fact, to be disposed of in this way 

 would generally mean a decided loss. For the eggs 

 such pullets would lay, especially if hatched early 

 enough to begin laying during October or early 

 November, would be worth several times the market 

 price that they could command at that season. It 

 is all well enough to sell hens after they have done 

 laying. Indeed, their carcasses at that time may- 

 command even higher prices than in the fall. So 

 the return from the eggs they lay is so much to the 

 good, the only items of expense to be deducted 

 being those connected with housing, feeding and 



