PRACTICAL FEEDING OF POULTRY 



In Table VIII the Leghorn chickens at the Connecticut 

 station were all pullets after the eighth week and the 

 Reds were all pullets after the eleventh week. The White 

 Plymouth Rock and the White Leghorn pt-Uets would 

 be practically mature at the age given but the Rhode 

 Island Reds and the Barred Plymouth Rocks would not 

 be mature at these ages unless there were a strain of birds 

 which were small and which matured earlier than the 

 average birds of these breeds. It takes Plymouth Rocks 

 from 4 to 7 weeks longer to mature than Leghorns and 

 Rhode Island Reds from 2 to 5 weeks longer than Leg- 

 horns. 



Table IX gives detailed figures on the weights of grow- 

 ing chickens of several breeds secured on the govern- 

 ment experiment farm, Beltsville, Maryland. These 

 figures give average weights of these breeds where the 

 growing chickens are kept under good conditions. 

 Weights for both pullets and cockerels are given and these 

 weights vary slightly from those given in the previous 

 table. The cockerels in these tests weighed considerably 

 more than the pullets after the first few weeks of age. 

 Chickens which do not approximately come up to these 

 weights are either being improperly managed or are from 

 poor strains or of poor breeding, 



LABOR COST OF PRODUCING EGGS 



The cost of labor in producing eggs is a big item and 

 one that has to be carefully considered in profitable 

 poultry farming. In many cases it means the difiference 



221 



