
Aaj AD ti 
New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 271 
requirements are concerned, but were not very good layers. The 
egg yields, however, are only comparable among these four pens 
of fowls, which were in the same house and received similar 
rations and treatment. The somewhat close confinement neces- 
sary in any trial where a careful account of the food is kept of 
course always makes the conditions more or less unfavorable for 
the largest egg production. No attempt was made to force laying, 
and broody fowls were allowed to sit at will, there being plenty 
of nest boxes in each pen. About the same number became 
| broody in pens having male birds as in those without. Some from 
pens 5 and 7 were removed long enough to hatch eggs, but were 
fed while out of the pen the same as those remaining, and were 
returned to the same pens from which they were taken. 
All these pullets were separated from all male birds when imma- 
ture and some months before any began laying. Those in pens 7 
and § were kept away from males thereafter and during the time 
for which these records are given. Male birds were put with the 
pullets of pens 5 and 6 nearly two months before any of them 
began laying. The pullets in pens 5 and 7 were from the same 
lot of chicks and were under exactly the same conditions up to the 
time of selection for this trial. Those in pen 6 were also from the 
same lot of chicks as those in pen 8, and had been under the same 
conditions. 
Some of the Se in. pen 7 began laying about a month earlier 
than any in pen 5, and some of those in pen 8 from one to two 
months sooner than any in pen 6. The records given in accom- 
panying tables include the larger part of the laying season and 
‘show what differences there were in results. 
The pullets in pen No. 7 layed about twenty-two per cent. more 
eggs than those in pen 5 (thirty-four per cent. more fowl, cockerel 
in pen 5 counted), and although the consumption of food was some- 
what greater per fowl for pen 7, the cost of eggs produced was 
nearly thirty per cent. less than for pen 5. During the first three 
months for which records are given, pen No. 8 also produced 
thirty- two per cent. more eggs per fowl than pen 6. After this 
the yield fell below that for pen 6 — owing, doubtless, to the con- 
firmed habit of “feather eating,’ which had been, purposely 
allowed to develop unchecked in pen 8 (reference to this will be 
