^54 PROFITABLE POULTRY PRODUCTION 



method is more effective, as a rule, than the com- 

 mon way of confining hens in a slatted coop above 

 the floor. Often the hens will begin to lay within 

 a week or ten days. Under no condition should 

 starving be practiced. It is not only cruel, but it is 

 not effective and the poultryman who practices it 

 pays the penalty by injuring the laying proclivities 

 of the hen. 



RECORD OF SIX HUNDRED HENS 



Among the questions for the poultryman to 

 answer are : When fowls are kept in large numbers 

 [what is the average egg production? How much 

 does it cost for feed? How much for labor to care 

 for them? What per cent of the fowls die each 

 year? How should fowls be fed and handled so as 

 to give the greatest net profit, the cost of feed, the 

 cost for feeding, the egg production and the mor- 

 tality all being taken into consideration? These 

 questions Professors Stewart and Atwood of the 

 West Virginia experiment station have sought to 

 answer by keeping a record of a flock of 600 Single 

 Comb White Leghorn pullets for one full year. 

 TThe pullets were brought in from the colony houses 

 which they had occupied during the summer and 

 placed in a long laying house. 



This house was of the curtain-front, shed-roof 

 type, 180 feet long and 16 feet wide and divided by 

 solid board partitions into nine compartments each 

 20 feet long. The middle compartment was reserved 

 as a feed room. The curtain-front house is dis- 

 tinguished by an opening, preferably facing the 

 south or east, which, on cold nights in winter and 

 in stormy weather, may be closed by a framework 



