Early Chickens to be Selected. 21 
No iule is so imperative to profitable poultry-keeping, and none is so constantly neglected by 
all except the skilled breeders, who know it too well ever to neglect it. We have repeatedly 
been shown hens of very uncertain age, except that they were certainly over seven years, 
running in a narrow but ornamental gaol at the bottom of a garden ; and their fair owners 
wondered they did not lay ! Their laying was done, except for a stray egg once a month 
or so, just to keep up the sweet memories of the past, and awaken hopes never to be realised. 
For fowls to be profitable, they must be regularly killed at moulting time, when two-and-a-half 
years old. Of course, if they are pets it is hard to kill them, and the female members of the 
family especially will protest. That is another matter. A hen may be kept to be petted just 
as lawfully as a canary ; but the object then in view should be borne in mind, and nothing 
more in the shape of profit expected from one than from the other. 
Not less important is the time of year at which the birds were hatched. It has been often 
repeated in various works on poultry that a pullet, in whatever circumstances, mast begin 
to lay at a given age ; but this we have found, by special and systematic experiments, is by 
no means the case, a difference of months being caused by the time of hatching. If the 
age of five months finds a pullet belonging to one of the more prolific breeds in the midst 
of warm weather — say August — eggs may be expected about that time ; indeed, great care 
is needed if it is desired to prevent laying at such seasons. But birds hatched in May will 
complete their sixth month in October ; and in very few cases will eggs be procured before 
Christmas, if even then, unless the feeding be unusually good. Still later hatched — let us 
suppose late in May or early in June — it will be as late as next spring before most of the 
pullets are producing eggs, and ere this occurs many of them will be at least nine months 
old. The effect of mismanagement in the date of hatching upon the profit and loss account is 
hence readily seen. Supposing that the fair average time for a pullet to commence laying is 
at the age of six months, and that the cost of her food be (as in large breeds it is) about 
three halfpence per week, a late May pullet must be fed three months longer, at an additional 
outlay of one shilling and sixpence, before she yields any return. No fowl (we speak now 
of mere ordinary or market stock, not of “ fancy ” values) can be expected to recover such 
a cost ; and it is in this way that about half the failures in poultry-keeping are caused. Ordinary 
fowls become broody oftener in May than any other month, and the bright warm days tempt 
the proprietor to choose that time for hatching the chickens. The latter do well indeed — 
they enjoy themselves, and thrive, and grow; but they will not pay — whereas chickens hatched 
from the middle to the end of March, or early in April, will require more attention certainly, 
and call for much self-denial occasionally, in the shape of braving bad weather to see they 
are duly cared for ; but will often, if in reach of a town market, repay the whole of their 
cost even before New Year. 
Nearly all fowls, however mismanaged, and if not too old, will, so long as they are in 
tolerable health, lay freely in summer ; but eggs are then cheap, and it is the zvinter that 
chiefly decides which side of the balance-sheet shall preponderate. Eggs in winter mean profit ; 
the want of them as clearly means loss. Pullets hatched early will moult early also, not only 
getting better and quicker through the process, and having warmer weather for it, but getting 
ready to commence laying in good time again. To say, as some do, that no hens of any 
breed will lay in winter, is a mistake; we have often had Brahma hens re-commence laying 
in November. 
Regarded as laying stock, therefore, one-third should consist of pullets hatched in March, 
another third of hens hatched the March previous, and the remainder of birds a year older 
