262 MY POULTRY DAY BY DAY 
two hens, and of the eighteen chickens that hatched out on 26th 
February ten proved to be pullets. 
They thrived well from the beginning, and in three weeks they 
were such large, well-developed birds that I jokingly remarked to 
my wife that they would be laying when they were six weeks old. 
I took good care not to force them and simply let them run as 
youngsters with 200 pure breeds of various kinds. The Wyandotte- 
Faverolles always looked well, even among the pure breeds. In 
colour and conformation they bore all the characteristics of their 
mothers, excepting that they had no feathers on their feet and 
legs. Otherwise they might have been mistaken for Faverolles. 
I took no special notice of them, nor did I anticipate that they 
would prove to be anything exceptional. When they were about 
six months old I removed the ten birds from my flock and passed 
them on to my wife with my blessing. She put them in a small 
house 5 feet by 4 feet by 4 feet, made of half-inch matching and 
covered all over with tar-felting. No doubt the felting kept them 
as warm as, say, another half-inch thickness of wood. At any 
rate they were happy and comfortable from the first, and while 
several of my own birds had colds the Wyandotte-Faverolles never 
looked back. 
On the 17th September the first egg was laid. It was small and 
shell-less. The birds were then nearly seven months old. Three 
days later one more egg was laid, presumably by the same bird, and 
it had a good hard shell. No other egg save the first was shell-less. 
As eggs were now laid with some regularity I give the exact 
record : 
September — October — 
17th . ‘ I egg Ist . 4 eggs 
2oth . TE 35 2nd . 4 
22nd . 2 eggs 3rd. 3 x 
23rd . 2 a 4th . 2 
24th . er 5th . 3 
25th . 4 6th . 4 
26th . 3 7th . 4 
28th . 6 8th . 4 
2oth . 4 oth . 4 
30th . 9 Toth . 3 
Total . 5 . 36 eggs Carry forward 38 eggs 
