l8o THE BEGINNER IN POULTRY 



I find this on early laying of pullets : " It depends to 

 some extent upon the breed and very largely upon the 

 care and feeding from hatching time till maturity. Un- 

 der the most favorable conditions, pullets should begin 

 to lay at about eight months of age." This is the most 

 conservative statement I have ever seen in print. Most 

 such answers affirm that the birds should lay at about 

 five to six months. I think the extended experience of 

 most growers will show rather that seven months is a 

 very common maturity age. This means that birds which 

 are to begin even as early as mid-December must be 

 hatched by mid-May. 



There is only one point' in which good pullets fail. 

 In the breeding pen, while many thousands of pullets 

 produce their quota of eggs for hatching every year, and 

 many of them produce good chicks, the chances are in 

 favor of the yearling or two-year hen, with a cockerel 

 well toward a year old, producing better ones. " The 

 best is good enough for me " is not a bad motto for any 

 poultry keeper. One who takes this for his poultry 

 motto will not try to raise chicks from immature poultry. 

 Older birds will have been tested at least through one 

 full season, and any short of full vigor will have been 

 culled out. This insures better average vigor in the 

 chicks than can be obtained with immature, untested 

 birds. Such tested hens, which have been tested at 

 the same time for digestive and laying capacities, will 

 do much towards growing chicks and matured fowls to 

 reach the ideal of the motto, both as to vigor and as to 

 producing capacity. 



In the eyes of the utility worker, the ideal bird is 

 typified by the specimen in the prime of health, matu- 



