Chapter IV. 
PULLETS FOR LAYERS. YEAR-OLD HENS FOR BREEDERS. THE WINTER 
EGGS PAY THE BEST PROFIT. 
~HE one object of all poultry keeping is 
^ profit, and as in practical egg farming 
it is the fall and winter eggs that pay 
e) the best profit, it is necessary that we 
study the conditions favorable to get¬ 
ting eggs in fall and winter if we would have 
that best profit. It is very generally conceded 
by observing poultrymen that the pullets are 
the early winter layers, hence it is obvious that 
we must look to the pullets for the eggs that 
pay that best profit. It is equally well under¬ 
stood, by experienced egg farmers, that to be 
good fall and winter layers, these pullets must 
have been early hatched, and have been kept 
growing so that they come to fidl size and laying 
maturity before the cold weather of winter 
overtakes them; indeed, the writer has frequent¬ 
ly expressed the opinion that the key note to the 
best profit from poultry can be laid down in 
these three short rules: 
First: Hatch the chicks early. 
Second: Keep them growing so that the 
pullets shall come to laying maturity before 
cold weather. 
Third: Keep them laying by good care and 
good food. 
The full story of profitable egg farming is 
condensed into those three short rules. 
It is equally well understood that the chicks 
hatched from the eggs of pullets are generally 
slightly smaller, and are likely to be less hardy 
and vigorous than the chicks from the eggs of 
year-old hens, and the wisest poultry man 
hatches the chicks which are to be the future 
laving-breeding stock from the eggs of year-old 
hens. This principle of pullets for layers and 
year-old hens for breeders makes it easy to plan 
our method of procedure. To get the best all¬ 
round results, three-fourths of our stock should 
be early hatched and well matured pullets, 
we will get the bulk of the early fall and winter 
eggs from them,—the eggs which pay the 
creamy profit; and by selecting for the future 
breeders the best layers among those pullets 
and breeding from them when they are year-old 
hens, we will strengthen the laying habit and 
thus increase and develop' it. It is well known 
that not every pullet hatched from eggs pro¬ 
duced by a great layer will be a great layer, 
just as it is known that not every colt from 
record trotting ancestry will prove a great 
trotter; still we will get the best results if we 
breed from stock of known great-laying an¬ 
cestry, because by breeding from that stock we 
will strengthen and develop the egg-producing 
quality. 
In this chapter we give numerous articles 
which show, also a report of a poultry experi¬ 
ment conducted at the Utah Agricultural Ex¬ 
periment Station, the illustrations accom¬ 
panying which clearly show, that it is to the 
pullets that we must look for profitable egg 
production. With a certainty better average 
size of the egg, and consequently better size of 
the chick hatched from the egg (even with a 
lesser egg yield), the year-old hens will be profit¬ 
able to us if we consider them chiefly as breeding 
stock; they will not lay so many eggs at the 
time of the highest prices, but during the breed¬ 
ing season, when we want their eggs the most, 
they will be practically as good egg producers 
as the pullets; the profit of keeping year-old 
hens is in the greater strength and vigor of the 
young chicks hatched from their eggs, and that 
greater strength and vigor is of itself a good 
profit for keeping them. We must have great 
strength and vigor in our laying stock if they are 
to be realty great layers. This point is well 
brought out in Bulletin No. 79 of the Maine 
Agricultural Experiment Station which reports 
poultry experiments in the years J900 and 1901. 
In that report is given the egg records for two 
years of the many tested birds, and this state¬ 
ment is made: 
“Every hen that has laid large numbers of 
eggs through the first two years, has shown 
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