PEDIGREE BREEDING FOR EGG PRODUCTION. 
When pullets begin to lay they seem quite 
uncertain. Some will lay regularly every other 
day, and some only twice a week. Of coures 
the first eggs are generally too small for use, or 
at least for market use, but they increase grad¬ 
ually in size. It becomes quite a study to 
keep pullets laying regularly. A regular system 
of feeding has much to do with it. By regular 
feeding is meant, not so much a regular hour as 
a regular quantity at each meal. One day a 
feast and the next a famine, will upset any flock 
of layers, and especially pullets. Fowls, as a 
rule, eat about so much at each meal, and it is 
a very easy matter to determine just the quan¬ 
tity required. Feeding a little short during the 
day induces exercise; and feeding all they will 
eat at night brings contentment and quiet 
roosting until morning. It is my opinion that 
the majority of breeders, even our best, feed too 
much, or feed injudiciously. Feeding layers to 
produce eggs is a very delicate matter—I do not 
mean to produce an ordinary number of eggs, 
but to produce the greatest possible number. 
Birds bred exclusively for show purposes, and 
to produce prize winners, are usually poor 
layers. This is not to be wondered at, if one 
knows how such stock is bred and raised. 
Early laying in such stock is discouraged. If 
the breeder is saving a string of pullets for his 
own show purposes, he prefers that they do 
not lay before going in to a show, and to prevent 
this he continually moves them from coop to 
coop each time the laying tendency becomes 
manifest. A pullet being at her best as to shape 
and plumage before she lays her first eggs, it is 
the object of such breeders to keep her so. 
I consider that green food of some sort fed 
every day in the year is really more important 
in a continuous egg yield than a choice of grains. 
Of course, in spring and summer, nature in the 
fields produces green food enough and in suffi¬ 
cient variety, but in the fall and during the 
winter, this green food ration should be kept up. 
Cabbages, mangel wurzels and steamed clover, 
together with boiled beets, carrots and turnips, 
fill the bill almost as well. 
The hardest task in maintaining a constant 
and continuous egg yield is to keep the laying 
stock in prime condition. This means such a 
condition of perfect health that the eggs will not 
only be laid regularly, but that they will be of 
uniform size, according to the breed laying 
them. Under such conditions, we should have 
large eggs from Minorcas, Leghorns, Plymouth 
Rocks and Brahmas. When such breeds lay 
small eggs, abnormally large eggs with perhaps 
double yolks or soft-shelled eggs, the stock is 
out of condition and usually over-fat. The 
eggs will thus be laid irregularly, and many 
times laying will stop entirely. Layers should 
be kept active, and activity is induced by short 
feeding. A hungry hen is usually a good layer. 
Some breeds, such as Leghorns, Minorcas, An¬ 
dalusians, etc., are by nature active, but still they 
can be overfed. Other breeds, such as Brah¬ 
mas, Cochins and Leghorns, being naturally 
slow in their movements, are less active, and 
can be easily overfed. As a rule, lazy hens are 
poor layers, and must be induced to exercise. 
Hunger will compel activity more or less. 
Some breeds are called good foragers. If hens 
are inclined to forage, and they can do this in a 
coop as well as in the fields, they must find some¬ 
thing after a diligent search. Scattering grain, 
therefore, in very deep litter, will compel a great 
deal of exercise to find it. A hen that seeks 
and finds will be induced to seek again; but, if 
after great efforts in scratching, she finds 
nothing, she will become discouraged and wait 
for feed time, and then eat too much, and thus 
contract lazy habits. 
A very successful egg farmer once told me 
that in winter he always had something in his 
coops for his hens to pick at—scattered grain, 
a cabbage hanging up, and even bones with a 
little meat on them, always something to find in 
order that his flock should not contract lazy 
habits. In this he was humoring the natural 
instinct of the animal. A hen let run at large 
is almost always hunting, picking and scratching 
—first at a blade of grass, then a bug, then a 
worm, and next a seed. I think yarded hens 
lay more eggs than fowls let run. They cost 
more to keep, but the returns in eggs are usually 
larger. The fact is that yarded hens fed on 
food which is chosen because it will make eggs, 
convert this food into eggs, as it is intended they 
should, whereas if let run and fed the same way, 
they are apt to convert the food into flesh and 
muscle rather than eggs. 
Feeding for a continuous egg yield requires 
good judgment, and a great deal of careful 
watching in order to keep the flock in prime 
condition. A good laying strain of any breed, 
when in prime condition, will lay eggs regularly 
like clock work, but it requires care and con¬ 
stant watching to keep the machinery in order. 
E. 0. Roessle, in “Country Gentleman. ” 
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