CHAPTER XIX 
WINTER EGGS 
eggs is merely a question of breeding at the right time 
from the right stock. Perhaps it is; but, though it sounds 
simple enough, the cruel fact emerges that very few egg-farmers 
indeed succeed in getting a generous supply of winter eggs. It 
seems so simple, and yet it is a most difficult problem. It is 
generally assumed that the heavy breeds are the better winter 
layers, and while this is the rule, it has many a disappointing 
exception. 
When one speaks of winter eggs, what does one mean? Not, as 
the layman would assume, January, February and March, when 
the frost is hardest, the snow most persistent and the cold most 
general. The worst months of the year for eggs, as will be seen 
from the published prices, are October, November and December. 
By winter eggs, then, we mean really only the last three or four 
months of the year. Some people seem to think that the reason 
why hens do not lay in winter is because of the cold weather. 
That is not the real reason. If birds are warmly housed and 
properly fed the winter colds, excepting in very severe and long- 
continued frosts and cold winds, will not interfere with the egg- 
production. The reason why birds in their second year do not lay 
to any extent in the last three months of the year is that they 
have been moulting and have not yet got all the surplus vitality 
that leads to the creative impulse. Few birds lay and moult at 
the same time. It is quite impossible, then, to get a generous 
supply of early winter eggs from fowls in their second year. 
It is necessary; then; to fall back upon the nine-month-old pullet 
for winter eggs. That, however, is easier said than done. One 
may breed, say, Wyandotte pullets in the middle of March, tend 
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A CCORDING to some writers the plentiful supply of winter 
