192 MY POULTRY DAY BY DAY 
White Leghorns for choice, that have completed their second 
year and shown a productivity of at least 144 eggs per bird. 
““2. I mate these hens to cockerels, one-year-old birds, bred 
from trap-nested stock, whose mothers have in their pullet year 
laid not less than 200 eggs per bird. The cockerels which are 
used must be of good type and vigorous. 
“8. The chicks from these matings are brought up entirely on 
dry food ; no wet mash of any kind at any period of their lives 
is fed to them; they are not coddled; any chick which looks 
weak is killed. 
““4. No attempt is made to doctor or cure birds ; any bird not 
looking well is killed. 
“5. The pullets are run in flocks of 400 birds, no cockerels being 
run with them. 
“6. Infertile eggs alone are sold for eating. 
“7, The breeding pens consist of 400 two-year-old hens, mated 
to 20 cockerels, run as one flock. 
«8. Each house, 180 feet long, holding 400 birds, stands on one 
acre. The southern half-acre is used in winter, the northern half- 
acre in summer. Each yard, as it is vacated, is ploughed and 
harrowed, and sown with thousand-headed kale. 
«9, Regularity in cleaning houses and disinfecting them is 
essential. 
«10. Dry mash, in boxes attached to partitions in the laying- 
houses, is accessible to the birds at all times.” 
Mr Hanson strongly deprecates breeding from pullets in their 
first year. He uses only second-year hens for breeding, and he 
Says : 
“Too much stress cannot be put on this cardinal factor: that 
constitutional vigour is the first necessity of a successful egg farm. 
“The birds must be mated at least ten days before the eggs 
are collected for incubating purposes. If 20 or 25 hens are in one 
pen, one Leghorn cockerel is sufficient ; if 50 birds, it is necessary 
to run three cockerels with them, because if only two cockerels 
were used, one would drive the other away. But one will not 
drive off the other two, even if he is boss of the pen. With flocks 
