The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1903-11-05
MAKING A LAYING STRAIN.

"A Poultry Man Who Thinks 1t Can
he Done without the Trap Nest.
Suppose a poultry man wants to es-
tablish a laying strain without using
trap nests
The first thing he will do will be ia
introduce some new blood from the
pens of breeder of established reputa-
ton who has solved the problem of
large egg production. He will send
away for two cockerels to put with his
best hens. He will expect to pay for
them from So to 50 apiece, and ali that
be will demand of the breeder is that
he will send him sturdy, we'll grown
birds of typical shape and from an egg
producing strain. He will then mate up
each of these cockerels with twelve or
fifteen of his best yearling hens, with
the purpose of breeding from them in
the spring.
The man is now face to face with his
problem. There are in the two pens, let
us say, some hens that will lay only
fifty eggs a year and others that will
lay 100. Without the trap nest how is
he to tell which hens to breed from and
which not? Easy enough. All he has
to do is to make such careful study
of the eggs that are laid in each pen
that he can tell at glance which pen
an egg comes from and whether 1t will
do for him to set it or not. In other
words, he must watch the eggs instead
of the hens and use in incubation only
those eggs that he is convinced come
from prolific layers. If an egg of
certain type makes its appearance
about Thanksgiving and is followed all
through the winter by eggs of the
same type it does not take very gi-
gantic intellect to reach the conclusion
that it would be a good idea to use
these eggs in incubation.
1t is surprising what a difference
there is in eggs of hens of the same
breed kept under the same conditions.
They differ in size, shape, color, mark
ings, smoothness or roughness of shell
and in other ways too numerous to
mention. There is the most difference,
of course, among the so called drown
eggs" but even in white eggs there are
distinctions.
Let me illustrate from the pens with
which am most familiar. have four
breeding pens, each containing male
and twelve females, which l designate,
respectively, pens A, b, G and ID. l
have made such a study of the eggs
that | can tell at a glance from what
pen an egg came and whether it is APP
pearing with sufficient frequency to
warrant me to use it or not.
Pen A is made of twelve white wy
andotte hens mated with a sturdy
cockerel. 1t would naturally be sup
posed that the eggs would all look
alike but they do not, at least not to
me. Each egg has it's distinct and
characteristic physiognomy, markings
| recognize the moment l see them.
There is a large brown egg big enough
and symmetrical enough to be placed
on exhibition in the poultry and eggs
department at the Boston show. There |
is large white egg, not quite so SYM |
metrical, with curious blotchings at the
big end, as If the lime of which the
she'll is composed needed sandpapering |
down; an egg which looks like field
spar, it is so smooth and glistening; a |
pink egg with little white patches on
it, as if 1t had been rolled in -four be-
fore 1t was dry; straw colored egg, |
with little polka dots on the shell; q |
dark brown egg which If looked at in |
a strong light will show little black |
points like pepper dust on the shell.
And so l might go on. But it is not |
necessary. Not one Of the twelve hens
in pen A but puts her hall mark on her
eggs.
Then, too, there is another way by |
which keep track Of the eggs. The |
hen is a born conservative, a creature
of habit, the slave Of system. If she
laid in a certain nest yesterday she
means to lay there today, no matter |
whether another hen is ahead of her
or not.-Edgar Warren in American
Poultry Journal.