Voi.. LXYTII No. 4025. 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR. 
NEW YORK, 
SELECTING THE BREEDING HENS. 
Uses for the Trap-Nest. 
Last Spring a correspondent signing "L. It. P." wrote an 
article bolding attacking the plan of feeding a “dry 
mash” to poultry and the method of using a “trap-nest” 
to select the laying hens from the drones. By “dry 
mash” is meant a mixture of crushed grains or meal fed 
dry. A “trap-nest” is on<? in which the hen is imprisoned. 
She cannot get out until released, so that it is known 
when she lays an egg. At the time this article appeared 
we had a number of replies to it. We hold them for a 
more timely season and now begin their publication. 
L. R. P.’s onslaught on trap-nests and dry mash 
feeding (page 509), seems to call for some comment 
and reply. While each of these has been misused, 
I am sure that when rationally used, both can fill a 
useful place in the care of most flocks. The trap-nest 
is a somewhat recently developed instrument for 
commercial and scientific investigation, and it should 
be expected that time 
would be required to 
learn its limitations. Or¬ 
dinarily about the first 
thing which impresses 
its user is the wide vari¬ 
ation in egg production 
of the individual hens in 
a flock, apparently uni¬ 
form in all other re¬ 
spects. Now the com¬ 
mercial advantages of a 
200 -egg-per-year hen over 
one that will lav but half 
as many arc so manifest 
as to make it hardly sur¬ 
prising that many of us 
have parted company 
with common sense for 
a time and given our¬ 
selves up to dreams of 
the hen that laid the 
golden eggs. The diffi¬ 
culty appears to have 
been that we thought the 
trap-nest provided us 
with the means of prop¬ 
agating the 200-egg hen, 
when as a matter of fact 
it merely served to point 
her out. It tells us 
whether or not we have 
her, but that is all. Her 
perpetuation depends up¬ 
on other factors whose 
relation to the question A FLOCK OF 
are of more vital im¬ 
portance than the trap-nest, but whose bearing can be 
more quickly and definitely determined by the use 
of the trap-nest than without it. 
L. R. P. calls attention to the discouraging results 
so far attained in the efforts to build up great egg- 
producing strains by trap-nesting. Well, for one thing 
the knowledge of how not to do a thing is second in 
importance only to the knowledge of how to do it. 
Breeding from heavy layers has proved disappointing, 
but it hardly seems fair to blame the humble instru¬ 
ment whose only office has been to measure the prog¬ 
ress made, or rather the lack of progress in this case. 
Now that this first and apparently most obvious 
method of improvement has been found wanting the 
way is open to try others; but the trap-nest or some 
equivalent will be needed as long as we meet with 
such great variations in the laying capacity of differ¬ 
ent individuals, and to discard it seems to me equiv¬ 
alent to “lying down” and saying that improvement 
in egg production is impossible. For one I am not 
yet ready to take that view. 
The 200-egg hen having 
tions it is probable that the re nTTri « iit* < 1 . , r'”m the 
flock will receive a fair share of attention. It is use¬ 
less to expect much further improvement from the 
application of the statistical or general flock method. 
Each member of the breeding flock should be selected 
because of possessing certain individual characteris¬ 
tics. Let us suppose that the keeper has a flock in 
which each bird is vigorous and of hardy constitution, 
as evidenced by its present condition, and past history, 
and that each also comes reasonably near to some 
definite standard of size, weight, shape and color. 
Say that such a flock of perhaps 25 has been care¬ 
fully chosen from a miscellaneous lot of 100 fowls, 
and that these 25 constitute the only birds of the 
whole 100 from which the keeper feels safe in breed¬ 
ing, the remaining 75 having been discarded because 
of obvious defects. Experience with most cases has 
WFIITE TURKEYS IN NORTHERN NEW Y 
shown that if we now go a step further and trap-nest 
this picked lot of 25, as great variations and as mani¬ 
fest defects will be discovered as were found in mak¬ 
ing the first selection. There will be some hens 
laying 200 or more eggs per year, and others pro¬ 
ducing less than 50, with all ranges between. There 
will be some whose eggs are usually infertile, others 
whose chicks die before breaking the shell; some that 
hatch to live only a few days, and still others that 
produce good chicks that are lusty and strong from 
the very start and continue so with any reasonable 
care. Outward appearance of vigor in the parent 
stock is a valuable index of germ vitality in the egg, 
but it is not final. The trap-nest enables the keeper 
to discover these less obvious but equally important 
variations, and still further cull his breeders in 
accordance with such findings. The usual mistake so 
far has been in culling out all but the heavy layers, 
irrespective of the more important power of prepo¬ 
tency. 
Those scientists who have looked into the matter 
with the greatest care believe that nature has endowed 
all hens with the ability to lay about the same total 
number of eggs; but for some reason or other a few 
can “lay themselves dry” in two years’ time, while 
others require six or eight years for the process. 
Experiments s^ far seem to show that the short-time 
heavy layers undergo such a severe drain on the 
system as to reduce the vitality of their progeny. 
\\ hile they may be all right in other particulars such 
hens are abnormally developed in this one respect, 
and for that reason should be placed in the commer¬ 
cial laying flock rather than the breeding pen. They 
will make more money for their owners, but the 
probability is that their offspring will not. 
The comparatively few very light layers in the flock 
would also seem to be unsafe as breeders. If the 
environment which causes most of the fowls to lay an 
average of some 140 to 150 eggs per year and forces 
a few to more than 200 
can only bring these to a 
production of 50 to GO 
they must already pos¬ 
sess a low vitality, or 
other inherent defect lia¬ 
ble to be transmitted. 
Even should it be found 
that they are all right in 
every respect, and could 
produce as good an aver¬ 
age of layers as other 
hens, it would still not 
be commercially profita¬ 
ble to breed from them, 
unless further experi¬ 
ment shows that they 
are distinctly superior to 
the better producers. 
Then since such hens 
would hardly pay for 
their feed in either the 
commercial flock or 
breeding pen the butcher 
is the proper party to 
receive them. Some¬ 
where between these two 
extremes is the golden 
mean, the hen that will 
prove most profitable as 
a breeder; the one that 
while she may not im¬ 
prove the production of 
the flock will maintain 
its standard with the 
ORK. Fig. 586. least expense to the own¬ 
er. It needs no argument 
to show that, other things being equal, the heaviest 
layers that can reproduce vigorous, hardy chickens of 
laying capacity equal to or greater than the average 
of the flock will be the most economical breeders. 
So far the trap-nest has shown us that in the case of 
the very heaviest layers “other things” are not equal. 
It remains for us to discover the point at which the 
equality exists. But neither the owner nor anyone 
else can find this point without using either the trap- 
nest or single matings, and this latter is usually 
considered too tedious and expensive a process. 
Used during the breeding season by one who has 
the time and inclination to look after them properly, 
trap-nests will wonderfully improve one’s acquaint¬ 
ance with his flock, and correspondingly increase his 
chances for assorting his birds in accord with their 
several talents for profit-yielding. In addition to 
trap-nesting the breeding pens during the proper 
season, I find it profitable to trap-nest the laying flock 
for six or eight weeks, in order to cull out the poor 
layers and market them before they have consumed 
