FIRtir LillStSONti li\ POULTUl' KEEFl?i(i. 91 



LESSON XI. 



Summer Management of Fowls. 



THIS subject naturally divides into two topics: 

 1.— What fowls to keep. 

 2.— Sow to handle them to best advantage. 

 Both of these topics have to be considered with reference to future as well as 

 Immediate results. 



Old Hens as Layers. 



In connection with the question of keeping over for another year the hens now from a year 

 to fifteeu or sixteen months old, arises the old question of the relative value of pullets and 

 hens as egg producers, a question which has provoked as much controversy and as much 

 needless and pointless wrangling as any of the many questions each swiftly passing generation 

 of beginners in poultry culture has to solve anew for itself. 



The first cause of all this trouble is in the statement of the proposition — in the attempt to 

 make an arbitrary division of fowls into profitable and unprofitable producers, and make the 

 line of separation at a certain age. 



I think it may be truly said that in no matter relating to poultry (or to anything else, but 

 we have to do only with poultry here), is it possible to make arbitrary and sharp divisions and 

 distinctions for certain alleged purposes, and have results as they come justify the rules upon 

 which the divisions were made. There is no best breed of fowls. There is no best method 

 of feeding or housing. We are many men of many minds, working under many difi'erent 

 circumstances, with stocks of fowls that have experienced many difi'erent conditions. So we 

 cannot all use the same rules, nor will any of us be wise to make hard and fast rules to 

 govern in the conduct of our business. 



To get back to the main point. In the discussion of question of the relative laying qualities 

 of hens and pullets, the fowls are generally classed according to age at the beginning of the 

 period for which results are to be compared, and considered as in that class throughout tlie 

 entire period, though, as a matter of fact, the pullets may pass the pullet age at some time 

 within it. Properly designated, a pullet is a hen less than a year old. 



The period" for which results are usually compared Is from the time the first pullets begin 

 to lay — generally October or November — until the next spring or early summer. Hence, in 

 such comparisons, no account, as a rule, is taken of the performance of the hen during 

 summer and early fall, though it must be evident to every one that in considering tbe question 

 at this season, (July Ist), we must consider what we may get out of the hens in the four 

 months or so before the pullets are laying, as well as what we may get in the winter and 

 spring. 



Some authorities advise and some poultrymen make a practice of disposing of laying stock, 



