CHAPTER XL 
EGGS AND EXERCISE 
HE quest for eggs takes a variety of forms. Undoubtedly, 
the first and most important matter is to secure a hen 
that is bred to lay. What do I precisely mean by a bred- 
to-lay hen? It is the production of fowls whose fore-parents 
through many successive generations have been selected primarily 
for the large number of eggs the female birds have laid. All the 
male birds must also have been the sons, grandsons and great- 
grandsons of very prolific mothers. A bred-to-lay hen must have 
a long and honourable ancestry in which both males and females 
have descended from deep laying progenitors. 
The utility laying hen is now regarded by the commercial 
world as an egg machine. The machine once secured must 
then be treated by certain methods to secure its maximum 
output. 
First of all it is necessary that it be created at the right time. 
When a fowl is running wild it does not lay eggs as a rule before 
March or April, this being the mating season for the majority of 
birds. The egg-farmer has to steal a march upon nature and by 
getting the bird bred in the very early months of the year it comes 
on to lay when six, seven or eight months old, according to breed. 
We thus get a matured bird early in October, and if it has been 
properly fed and snugly housed it will commence to lay at once 
and thus, as it were, give us eggs out of season. 
The foods that the bird picks up out of doors, even on a free 
range, are as a rule not all that are necessary to produce eggs. 
No matter how suitable cereals and other vegetable foods may 
be for keeping the bird in health, it is needful if we wish to produce 
eggs in abundance to supply protein in the form of animal food. 
The protein will provide the stimulus as well as the material for 
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