l6 PROFITABLE POULTRY PRODUCTION" 



ready sale either as eggs or as mature birds for 

 breeding purposes. But when all is summed up 

 the hen is the only fowl that can fill all the roles 

 in the diagram on the preceding page. For this 

 reason she will occupy chief attention in the pages 

 that follow. Special chapters at the close of the 

 book will discuss the other farm fowls. 



The diagram covers the various activities of the 

 chicken business. For convenience, let us start 

 with the egg and discuss the various divisions. 



EGGS FOR HOME USE 



The cost and the value of the eggs consumed at 

 home is rarely considered by the general farmer. 

 Hens are kept because the housewife must 

 have eggs for making certain dishes as well as for 

 boiling, poaching, frying, etc. If they were not 

 kept the farmer would either have to do without or 

 purchase eggs. As the former does not suit his 

 palate nor the latter his pocketbook, he tolerates 

 a few hens which care for themselves more or less, 

 and which pick up a considerable amount of forage 

 that would otherwise go to waste. If they supply the 

 family's needs he is content to consider the yield in 

 eggs and chickens as offsetting his losses of grain 

 which he has to feed the flock. 



This is a slipshod way of doing things. Its prac- 

 tice is only too often costly, especially when the 

 common practice of allowing poultry to do its own 

 breeding without any oversight is followed. No one 

 who practices this way can tell whether his fowls 

 are producing eggs at a loss or at a profit. Doubt- 

 less, with ordinary farm flocks, as still too fre- 

 quently managed, the record of egg laying would 



