The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1907-02-15
POULTRY INDUSTRY

otherwise, l will guarantee that you
will agree with me that the poultry
business is only in it's infancy"
Dr. N. w. Sanborn adds his expert
ence thus: THE interest in trap nests
is increasing. More and more of these
are being installed in breeding and lay
ing pens. We have learned and I'M
learned many facts since we began to
use trap nests during the breeding
season. l have not found it the trouble
| expected and my birds took to it
from the start. l have learned more
about my birds, have advanced more
in the few years I have used these
nests than in the ten years that pre-
ceded l have fewer broken eggs
than under the use of the common
nest, and l have learned much along
egg lines since l began to trap my
BIRDS
A writer whose name is not given
says: "Do not be frightened by the
statements of some people that they
are too much work, hens do not take
to them, or the confined hen breaks
the egg. You will be surprised to see
how little time it does take to handle
trap nests, how quickly the birds begin
W USE Cu6Ul, duu yOu Will hhu IiAe'o
very few eggs are ever broken in them.
| have a bunch of six splendid COCK
erels, every bird fit to show, plainly
just the same blood. What does the
trap nest tell me about these birds?
Their punched webs tell me that they
were from pen headed by my best
show cock, and also that they were out
of my best brown-egg hen on the place.
What of all this? Simply that my
brOwn-egg hen will be mated next
spring to the same male. Shall | get
any more cOckerels of show quality?
| certainly expect to. The man who
expects to work up his flock cannot
afford to neglect the trap nest. 1t is
an aid to progress
The trap nest system is proper and
it's use will bring about absolute knoWl-
edge of results in breeding operations
in high-class stock or higher averages
in egg production. It's mighty salts
factory as a fancier to look at bird
and know beyond doubt that 1t was
produced by such a dam and SUCH
sire and then to be able to follow its
breeding back several generations. We
were talking with fancier but a few
days ago that has such a record, and
could feel the CLEAN of satisfaction as
he told us the breeding of one OF his
birds-even to the number OF eggs
laid each year by dam, grand dam,
and back for several generations. Such
system is not hard to establish, not
hard to maintain, eliminates the hap
hazard system too much in vogue, and
reduces the breeding of poultry to
ho ci ond while If is
impossible to make two peas or two
birds grow just alike, it is possible by
a systematic method to breed to
greater uniformity of the general hock
by carefully kept system OF pedigree
breeding in which the trap nest plays
a most important part.
To constantly improve the prol1fl-
cacy of egg production in the Hen
Family" one must have some means
of ascertaining the exact number or
eggs each hen lays. There can be no
real advance made along this line with
out some method that is authentic ana
accurate. With this end in view, the
trap nest came upon the market
some good, some bad and some OF
doubtful worth but now the expert
mental stage of the trap nest is past,
real progress is being made by pains
taking breeders in not only reaching
the 200-egg yield annually with each
hen, but even SURPRISING that number.
An experiment made by one poultry
raiser resulted in the knowledge that
twenty-four of the hens laid 16O eggs;
six laid 208; ten laid 2O2; eighteen
laid 200; the balance fell below 16O.
These hens were banded, their number
entered upon the daily record kept,
and the number of eggs entered, each
hen being credited with the perform
ance of her dutiful deposit in the trap
oIN Cnnka of her