94 THE TRAP NEST TEXT BOOK 



EARLY MATURITY. 



It seen treasonable that the craze for early sexual maturity, combined 

 with the practice of over-stimulating the reproductive organs of the 

 growing- chicks, should be largely responsible for the degeneracy that so 

 often shows itself in families of fowls just when the breeder should be 

 reaping his reward for years of hard work. 1 read a short time ago in 

 a leading poultry journal that a prolific laying habit was the result of 

 forcing the pullet to start laying as early as possible and they would get 

 in the habit of it and keep right on. There may be rare cases where a 

 precocious pullet will make a good layer; there may be rare cases where 

 a precocious cockerel will attain good size and make'a good breeder for 

 two or three years, but in nine cases out of ten the reverse will be the 

 ca.se. The sexual life that starts early, fails early, with the human family, 

 beasts or birds. The pullet that starts laying abnormally early will, as 

 a rule, lay a few eggs and then stop. If she does not lay again for a 

 long period, and the conditions are favorable for growth, she may make 

 a good layer; otherwise not, in the majority of cases. While it is true 

 that, early-laying pullets may lay '200 or more eggs their first year, 

 under very favorable conditions, they will rarely lay profitably the sec- 

 ond year, and they will rarely if ever make good breeders. I have had 

 Plymouth Kock pullets lay at five months of age. but many of those that 

 did not begin until seven or eight months old proved to be the better 

 layers. Hens that laid well in their third and fourth laying years ma- 

 tured normally as pullets and have made my best breeders. 



rt is my present belief that no breeder will ever succeed in producing 

 a prolific strain of long lived birds by breeding from either males or 

 females that develop sexual maturity at an age abnormally early for 

 the strain. 



T do not discountenance the practice of driving pullets to the limit of 

 their capacity for market eggs and then marketing the birds as soon as 

 their profitable laying ability is exhausted. That is a business propo- 

 sition purely ; but such birds are unfit for the breeding pen, and any flock 

 will run itself out if such birds are persistently bred from. 



The advice that we sometimes read to mark the earliest-laying pullets 

 and the earliest crowing cockerels for future use as breeders may have 

 sprung from good intentions, or it may be an echo from personally in- 

 terested sources. 



The earliest laying pullet and the earliest crowing cock may be all 

 right in some flocks. "Earliest" simply means that their sexual de- 

 velopment is in advance of the others. 



Again, the advice may work well where chicks of different ages are 

 all reared together and the owner cannot, distinguish one hatch from 

 another. The chicks will naturally tend to develop in the general 



