XIX 



COST OF PRODUCING EGGS, CHICKS, AND 

 FOWLS 



Productive Capacity — Cornell's Findings — A Business 

 Poultryman's Views and Methods — Making Prices — 

 Range of Cost in Egg Production — The " Average 

 Hen" — Cheap Feeding — Free Range — Feed in Aus- 

 tralian Tests — Profit Twice the Cost — 1910 Prices 

 — What shall Your Eggs Cost? Your Chicks? — 

 Sprouted Oats — Principles of Big Business Men. 



This question, so important for every Beginner to 

 have full information on, is very difficult to be definite 

 about. The best we can do is to give an idea of cost 

 under different circumstances, and leave the worker to 

 apply the facts as stated, to his conditions. Where con- 

 ditions vary, truth becomes, for the time, untruth. This 

 point the Beginner must have always in mind in com- 

 puting probable costs. 



That which is true this year may be partly false next 

 year ; since prices of feed and other materials vary ; 

 since, also, as it is applied to different localities, that which 

 is true in the East may be false in the West. Even the 

 productive capacity of a certain fowl may differ accord- 

 ing to the climate in which she does her work. More- 

 over, the poultryman himself is a factor in the result 

 which may make my figures true for one man and false 

 for another, even when both carry the same breed and 

 live in the same locality. A knowledge of feeding 

 values such that it allows the worker to substitute a 



