146 LE550NS IN POULTRY KEEPING — SECOND SERIES. 



LESSON xvm. 



Winter Egg Production. 



MOST poultry keepers want to get eggs in the early winter when eggs are scarce and 

 high in price. The difference between the fancier who says he does nut care 

 whether his hens lay them or not, and the poultry keeper who is greatly disap- 

 pointed if they do not lay at that time, is not as great as at first thought it appears 

 to be. Fanciers, as I. find them, are not so indifferent to egg production as they sometimes 

 jirofesB to be. When their hens do lay well early in winter they are as pleased and as ready 

 to boast of it as anyone. When tliey do not lay well at that time they console themselves 

 with the thought that there are two strings to their bow, and that what they miss on early 

 winter market eggs may lie made up to them in the spring when they can sell the eggs for 

 liatching. The poultryman whose eggs are not salable for hatching purposes has not another 

 }ieriod of especially high prices to which to look forward, hence his disappointment over 

 failure to get early winter eggs is greater, for he knows that his loss, it made up, must be 

 made up from the profits of the remainder of the year on sales at lower prices. His need of 

 ■winter eggs being greater, his desire to get them is greater; he plans for them and works for 

 them, making it a point to have his stock ready to lay by winlfer if possible. 



The fancier may be indifferent about the laying of such fowls as he intends to show, but 

 lor the rest of his stock he would, as a rule, rather have it laying than not laying. There are 

 few fanciers who are indifferent to the receipts from market eggs, and fewer still who try to 

 <liscourage egg production in any considerable part of their flock, for fowls eat nearly as 

 much w hen not laying as when laying, and it takes but a small egg yield to pay the feed bills. 

 We may, say then that the difference in the attitudes of practical poultrymen and fanciers in 

 tlie matter of winter egg production is a difference in degree — not in kind — of interest. All 

 want as mapy eggs in winter as they can get — but the intensity of desire, and of effort to get 

 them, varies in a general way between these classes of poultrymen and also between individ- 

 uals in either class. Perhaps the difference may be illustrated by a remark a friend of mine 

 made to mc one day at the New York show. We were talking of a man well known to 

 poultrymen who has been a marked success as a money getter. Said he: " All men want 

 niuney, but some will work harder to get it than others, and some will do things for money 

 that others would not. Now the the difference between you and I and Blank in regard to 

 money Is this: If a dollar were rolling around on the floor, you and I would each make a 

 grab at it as It passed us, but Blank would follow that dollar, on his hands and knees if 

 uecessar} , until lie got it." 



In the ordinary course of events Blank will probably reach the age at which men retire 

 'trom active life— if they can— with many times as much wealth as either my friend or I. He 

 ■will get more because he cares more for it, and will work harder to get it. And this principle 

 — or policy — (It is something of both) has a great deal more to do with the getting of eggs 

 in winter than many would suppose. It has more to do with it than the kind of fowl, or the 

 kind of food, or the kind of house. Within reasonable limitations it has as much to do with 

 It as the period of hatching, the care and attention the chicks get while growing, and the 

 treatment of the hens at the period when they are or should be laying. It is the intensity of 



