12 COMMERCIAL EGG FARMING 



tion to breed from pullets tliat have not been 

 properly selected or are immature. Though 

 it is a great temptation to use pullet eggs, 

 disaster nearly always overtakes the man who 

 has been so tempted, in two or three years. His 

 stock becomes weaker each year, and less able 

 to produce strong, healthy chicks which will 

 live and stand the strain of laying enough 

 eggs to return a profit. 



Too much stress, in my opinion, cannot be 

 put on the fact that constitutional vigor is the 

 first necessity of a successful egg farm. A 

 farmer who knows his job does not breed 

 from a young heifer, neither does a horse- 

 man breed from a filly. The reason is the 

 same in both cases. They know that they 

 could not count on getting strong calves or 

 foals. 



Having selected vigorous two-year-old hens 

 for the breeding stock, it is necessary to 

 mate these birds with young cockerels bred 

 from hens with trap-nest records of not less 

 than 200 eggs in their pullet year. By ex- 

 periments it has been proved that the cockerel 

 is much more than "half the flock," so far as 

 good egg production is concerned. The high- 



