242 MY POULTRY DAY BY DAY 
Hatcuine Heavy BrEeEeps 
My experience leads me to believe that February and March 
are the only proper months in which to hatch out all heavy breeds, 
including Orpingtons, Wyandottes, Sussex, Rhode Island Reds, 
Plymouth Rocks and Faverolles. There are some strains of Rhode 
Islanders that mature early and ought not to be hatched before 
March, but if any tendency to premature laying be observed it 
can easily be checked by feeding on grain only fora time. Person- 
ally I should like to see all my heavy breeds hatched during the 
last week in February or the first week in March, but a week or 
so either way will be found satisfactory. 
No doubt the weather is as a rule more suitable for hatching 
and rearing in April and May, but in these days when brooders 
and brooder-houses are so perfect one need have little fear of the 
weather. Nine times out of ten the mortality among chickens 
is due to some fault of the poultry-keeper, and of course he looks 
round for a scapegoat and puts the blame on the weather. Person- 
ally I lose fewer young birds in the cold weather than during the 
warmer months. Possibly it is that I am more careful then, but 
it is also likely that as the chicks grow faster and more robust in 
the early months they can stand the cold better. A chicken 
hatched in May or June does not mature so quickly as the early 
born bird, and a cold, wet night will find out its weak places sooner 
than it will a bird hardened off in the winter months. My best 
birds in heavy breeds have invariably been late February or early 
March hatched. 
A fowl coming on to lay about the last week in September or 
the first week in October will go on steadily through all the winter, 
spring and early summer, until, in fact, the new season’s pullets 
are ready to lay. It is a complete cycle of twelve months’ laying. 
The oldest birds, of course, take the rest during the last two or 
three months of the year and ought to be well on the way again in 
January or the beginning of February. 
It is sometimes difficult to get all one’s pullets hatched in the 
six or eight weeks when it is most profitable, but there is no excuse 
