PROFITABLE EGG FARMING. 
Four Thousand Eggs in December, 
We didn’t quite do it—the exact figures being 
8,957—but we expected to pass the 4,000 mark, 
and up to Christmas day there was every indi¬ 
cation that we would do so; but our young 
man went home for a week’s vacation, and the 
eggs dropped off a little—one here, another 
there, possibly owing to slight difference in 
quantity of food, and we were 43 eggs short of 
our ambition. 
The record is perfectly satisfactory as it is; 
we have no hard feelings toward the birds that 
gave us Si30 worth of eggs in thirty-one days, 
and we feel that not many of our readers can 
beat that record. 
We have 90 year-old fowls, and 290 pullets, 
and their total egg-yield for each day was: 
Dec. 1. 
.Ill 
Dec. 17. . . . 
.116 
9 
.105 
18.... 
.142 
3. 
.112 
19.... 
.142 
4. 
.127 
20.... 
.120 
5. 
.117 
21. . . . 
.147 
6. 
.124 
22 
.120 
7. 
.123 
23.... 
.152 
8. 
.115 
24.... 
.140 
9. 
.120 
25.... 
.132 
10. 
.143 
26.... 
.136 
11. 
.109 
27.... 
.150 
12. 
.125 
28.... 
.136 
13. 
.132 
29.... 
.118 
14. 
.127 
30.... 
.125 
15. 
.129 
31. . . . 
.136 
16. 
.126 
Total. 
. . . .3,957 
This is an average of almost ten and one-half 
eggs per hen for the month, and quite as much 
as can reasonably be expected. If one is getting 
•j (33^%) egg yield in December, he is doing all 
that he has a right to expect. Many of the old 
hens haven’t fully recovered from the drain of 
the molt; and pullets do not (as a rule) pro¬ 
duce an egg every other day in early winter. 
We have one pen of pullets that did. One pen 
of Leghorn—Lt. Brahma cross, laid an average 
of 154 eggs apiece—exactly 50% egg-yield; 
and a pen of White Wyandotte pullets laid an 
average of 14^ eggs apiece, a very close second. 
It is easily apparent that it is the pullets that 
produced this highly satisfactory egg-yield. 
The 290 pullets laid 3,373 eggs, an average of 
(practically) Ilf eggs apiece; while the 90 year- 
old hens laid but 584 eggs, (practically) 
White Wyandotte Eggs Weighing Two Pounds to the Dozen. 
This is the kind of eggs that the housekeepers crave 
and will pay a Handsome Premium for. 
From the Poultry Farm of 
Barnes & Woodbury, 
VVenham, Mass. 
eggs apiece, a difference of about 90% in favor 
of the pullets. 
The price of eggs has been 40 cents a dozen 
for most of the month, and the market value 
of these eggs is $130. It costs us about $1.35 to 
feed a fowl a year, which is Ilf cents a month, 
making a cost of feeding these 380 fowls for that 
month, $42.75, leaving us a profit of $87.25— 
a pretty fair return for one month’s work, and 
that the dull month of December. The profit, 
however, is really greater than that. Those 
fowls have got to lie fed whether or not they are 
laying. A certain amount of food has got to 
be fed them to repair waste and furnish fuel for 
necessary warmth; those animal economies 
must be met first, and it is only when there is a 
surplus over and above these calls, that there 
are eggs produced. It is usually estimated that 
it costs $1 a year to feed a fowl, which is 8f 
cents a month, making $31.67 for a month’s 
food for 380 fowls, and that allows $11.08 for 
the surplus—the meat meal, green food, etc., 
which induced the egg-yield. 
There was no “ happen so ” about those eggs. 
They were planned for long ago. The pullets 
that laid them were hatched early, were fed for 
growth, so that a good many were laying in 
October, and since November they were fed for 
eggs, and they have been kept at work. 
Farm Poultry. 
54 
