CHAPTER XXX 

 The Original Thirty Hens 



The egg production of the Original Thirty Hens 

 on The Corning Egg Farm is an interesting story, 

 but, of course, it must be remembered that this record 

 is of one hundred and fifty-three days, the banner 

 days of the year for eggs from yearling hens. , 



The Biddies arrived in different lots, the last days 

 of February, our record beginning with March first, 

 and ending with July 31st. During that period they 

 laid 2466 eggs, and at the end of the third month we 

 lost two of them. The cause of death we were 

 unable to tell, for, at that time our experience was 

 not of sufficient duration to have made even a close 

 guess. 



The average for the birds, it will be noted, was 

 eighty-five eggs per hen. Had we been better posted 

 as to feeding methods, doubtless the hens would have 

 been capable of producing eggs in numbers consider- 

 ably greater than the figures show. 



The record, however, for real yearling hens (and 

 these were real yearling hens, because when they 

 started to lay with us they were fully eighteen months 



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