46 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
January 15 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
When I stated that our November eg-gs 
cost us eight cents apiece for the grain 
alone, I expected to have some of our 
model poultrymen show that we are far 
behind in the procession. To hear some 
of our friends talk, one would think that 
a hen is like a clover plant—taking most 
of her food out of the air, and making a 
clean present of the egg. Our hens 
do not work that way. It costs a lot of 
good, sound money to feed them. We 
started out hoping to find some profit in 
poultry keeping, and w r e haven’t given 
up hope yet by a long shot, though the 
hope was badly deferred again in Decem¬ 
ber. The fact is that, counting the cost 
of feeding all our poultry, the eggs 
actually laid in December cost us over 
nine cents apiece for grain alone. Figures 
can’t lie, they say, yet they have acted 
like lye to eat up our hoped-for profits. 
X X X 
What is wrong ? Is anything w-rong ? 
IIow much does a December egg cost 
anyway ? I have been able to get be¬ 
hind the grain bill in a good many 
poultry yards, and my conviction is that 
lots of December eggs have cost over 10 
cents each! There would be a great 
shaking up in the poultry world if every 
man who sells a sitting of eggs were re¬ 
quired by law to take oath as to the cost 
of eggs in November and December, and 
print that cost in his advertisements. 
IIow that would cure this hen fever that 
breaks out so badly every spring ! The 
chief trouble with us is that we have too 
many old hens. Most of our pullets were 
hatched too late, and the majority of 
them are Black Minorcas, which are 
slow to mature. For example, we have 
60 old hens in one pen. They are mostly 
Brown and Buff Leghorns, of good size 
and shape. In December, their grain 
food cost S3.72, yet the lazy things laid 
only 10 eggs worth, at present prices, 32 
cents. The food for their two husbands 
alone cost 13 cents. Think of six hens 
toiling industriously for a whole month 
and squeezing out—one egg ! These hens 
were bought in the live-poultry market 
in New York, in September and October. 
They are good-looking specimens—but 
we have been forced to make them a 
Christmas present of their December food! 
Strange as it may appear, we still believe 
that these hens will pay us a profit be¬ 
fore July 1. Before that time, we ex¬ 
pect them to lay eggs enough more than 
to pay for all the food they have eaten, 
and then sell for enough to pay their 
cost. Nothing like having faith, and I 
must say that a man needs a barrel of it 
with such liens as these. However, we 
shall learn something. 
X X X 
But we can tell a big story, too, if we 
want to. Our Black Business birds have 
given us the chance. There are eight of 
them now, and during December, we got 
31 eggs from the pen. The food cost was 
44 cents, which is less than 1 % cent per 
egg. Or, we can make a bigger story 
yet. These 31 eggs were all laid by two 
fowls; a pullet and an old hen. The 
other five have not commenced laying 
yet. Food for these two birds cost 13 
cents, while their eggs brought 94 cents ! 
There you have a true statement about a 
December egg that cost less than half a 
cent. Now, if two hens pay a profit of 
81 cents in one month, 1,000 hens will 
pay a profit of $415. As there are 12 
months in the year, of course this means 
a total yearly profit of $4,980, or about $5 
a hen ! That’s the way to figure on the 
poultry business, and that’s the way the 
poor victim of the hen fever accepts it. 
The trouble is that 90 per cent of our 
hens refused to pay for their lodgings 
during December. We can't feed them 
on figures—they demand grain and meat 
which cost money. Whenever we feel 
like crowing over our two smart hens, 
those 60 lazy birds rise up and call us 
down. These two profitable hens show 
where to go to get more-like them. 
That is the best lesson they teach us, 
and it’s worth all it has cost. 
X X X 
Ouk small breeding pen of Black Busi¬ 
ness birds has paid a square profit from 
the start. Here is their egg record to 
date: 
No. Eggs. No. Hens. Average. 
March. 121 10 12.1 
April. 175 10 17.5 
May. 163 10 16.3 
June. 151 10 15.1 
July. 114 9 12.6 
August. 52 8 6.7 
September. 19 8 2.4 
October. 42 7 6. 
November. 17 8 2.1 
December. 31 8 3.8 
885 94.6 
Thus in 10 months these hens have aver¬ 
aged about 95 eggs each. Here, as in 
larger flocks, some hens have proved 
much better than others. I am satisfied 
that one old hen has laid over 140 eggs 
thus far. She is the first one to begin 
this Winter, and we are satisfied that 
our first laying pullet is her daughter. 
She is a big, clumsy bird, with a wry- 
tail. In buying live hens in the market, 
I would never select such a bird from her 
appearance alone, yet she is the best 
layer on the farm. This is the best illus¬ 
tration we have had of the superiority of 
home-bred stock from the best laying 
fowls. Hens vary more than most peo¬ 
ple realize, both in the number of eggs 
they will lay during the year, and in 
their ability to mature quickly and re¬ 
cover rapidly from their moult. Some 
hens seem to be best fitted by nature for 
producing eggs in cold weather. They 
are good specimens to breed from. We 
have fed our old hens just as we would 
if they had been laying. Perhaps we 
would have done better to give less food 
—only a “maintenance” ration, as it is 
called—and not try to get an egg from 
them before February. We might have 
done better to wait until now, and buy 
hens at eight and nine cents a pound. 
We wanted to find out whether a hen 
fed all she needs of a well-balanced ra¬ 
tion, and kept otherwise comfortable, 
can help laying eggs. Some of our friends 
say that she can’t. Our old hens have 
kept from laying thus far, without any 
inconvenience to themselves. They seem 
to enjoy going dry when some one pro¬ 
vides plenty of good food. We are giv¬ 
ing our poultry experience “ without fear 
or favor,” so to speak. It isn’t rose-col¬ 
ored yet—but then, it isn’t over by a good 
deal. 
t X X 
In the January 1 issue of his paper, 
the editor of Farm Poultry picks up a 
statement about our old hens, and uses 
it as a text for a very effective sermon on 
the value of pullets from well-bred stock. 
Our humble experience is a great object 
lesson, he says. We have never found 
any better object lesson than plain, 
everyday facts. There is too much of a 
tendency to paint only the bright side of 
poultrjr keeping on the front door. The 
failures are buried in the back yard, and 
nothing is said about them. At Hope 
Farm, we try to conduct operations on a 
scale that is quite within the reach of 
the everyday farmer who has but little 
capital, and who has moved along cer¬ 
tain fixed lines for the greater part of 
his life. In this experiment with the old 
hens, we are trying to learn whether 
there is any profit in feeding common 
stock on a well-balanced ration. Thus 
far, the hens are in debt—but wait, there 
are six months for them to work in. Mr. 
Hunter asks us a lot of questions. Some 
of them cannot be answered until the 
account with these old hens is closed. 
We shall try to get at them all in due 
time, but we don’t want to theorize about 
them. Wait for the figures before black¬ 
guarding these old hens. Most of them 
have the true “ egg type”, so far as shape 
goes. Can so-called scientific feeding 
make up for unscientific breeding? H.w. c. 
Bronchitis. Sudden changes of the weather 
cause Bronchial Troubles. “ Brown's Bronchial 
Troches" will give effective relief.— Adv. 
The 
Rooster 
Said : 
“Our moulting season is shortened, and condition 
improved since they began feeding us 
The H-O Co.’s 
Poultry Feed; 
in fact, I have never been so proud of my family and self as now.” 
“And I’ve never felt so fine, nor seen my family mature so rapidly, 
nor laid so many eggs.” That’s what 
The 
Hen 
Said. 
THE H-0 COMPANY, 
7 1-73 Park Place, 
New York City. 
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