104 BXJG MONEY 



four to twenty-nine eggs in a month; several have laid from 

 150 to 165 eggs in eight months, and some have laid over 200 

 eggs in a year without special care or housing. 



Laying Versus Breeding. 



It is needless to say we have great faith in the possibility 

 of the 200-egg hen, but we do not believe that one can obtain 

 such large egg records from their fowls year after year and 

 use them for breeders at the same time successfully. We 

 now select our best layers by their best month's records 

 and are confident that a hen which is capable of laying from 

 twenty-five to twenty-nine eggs in a month would be able, 

 under proper management, to lay 200 or more eggs in a year. 



There is one other feature of this 200-egg hen subject 

 where there seems to be a misunderstanding. Most writers 

 who claim the 200-egg hen is possible, base their calculations 

 on her first year as a layer, that is, they claim she is able to 

 lay 200 eggs in one year from the time she comes to laying 

 maturity. There are not many hens which will give as good 

 results in egg production the second laying year as they can 

 in the first, for several reasons. In the first place if pullets 

 commence laying in October or November they will often 

 not molt until they have gone through the full twelve months, 

 especially if they are carefully fed and housed. In fact, 

 a. good laying pullet is quite apt to molt later than the rest 

 of the flock, and, of course, by so doing adds that much to 

 her first year's record while, deducting it from the second 

 year's work. 



Then there are some writers who seem to carry the idea 

 that there are times when the weather is so cold that it is 

 impossible to get a hen to lay a single egg. A good laying 

 hen, when properly housed and fed, will not pay much at- 

 tention to the extremes of temperature. In fact, the most 

 of the secret of obtaining winter eggs ia in preventing the 

 flock feeling the extremes of temperature, by exposing them 

 as much as possible in mild winter weather and taking care 

 to keep them comfortably housed in the extremely cold 

 weather. For such reasons as these it is clearly evident 

 the average hen will not soon become a 200-egg hen, because 

 most flocks are too miserably housed and cared for in the 

 winter for them to lay at all except in the mildest weather 



