136 EGGS AND POULTRY 
price, but if your $1 hens have paid you $1.50 
to $2.00 the past year, you can afford to sell 
them for a little sacrifice from their cost 
price. Hens should be sold at two years of 
age because if properly fed and handled they 
have seen their best days at that age. 
It is stated as a scientific fact that when a 
pullet reaches maturity she has in embryo all 
the eggs that she will ever lay; that if forced 
for laying, the first or pullet year will be the 
most prolific year; and that after two years 
her laying will be of a desultory character. 
If a pullet is brought to laying age in Octo- 
ber there probably would be no doubt that 
she would lay more eggs than a yearling hen; 
but whether the pullet would lay more large, 
saleable eggs than the other is a question. 
Pullets,when they first commence laying, 
as a rule, lay small eggs, eggs of a size that 
might hurt your conscience to send to your 
family trade at high prices. A pullet lays 
smaller eggs than mature hens do because 
she may commence laying before she is fully 
developed as to size and weight and because 
some more of her food is required to keep 
building up her body thus leaving less for the 
production of eggs as would be the case with 
the yearling hen. 
