Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1915-03-11
FOOLS CHICKENS,
GETS MORE eggs
iNSTALLS ELECTRIC LIGHT IN
THEIR cooPS.
Hens Tricked Into Working Overtime
-Lured from Roost at 6 A. M,
Back to Their Perch at 9 P. M.

Back to Their Perch at p. M.
A few weeks ago it was explained in
a humorous feature how Brownville
chap had invented a hens nest with
a sliding bottom that fooled the hens
into laying many eggs each day.
Whether the trick nest proved sue.
cess or failure has not as yet been an
nounced by the Brownville genius, but
the experiments of George c. Newell,
Chicagoan, with his $50 egg ma
chines," lead all interested in hens
and their product to believe that moth
ing is impossible in this line of in.
dustry.
George G. Newell is an auditor. Fig.
ures and statistics and chickens are
his hobbies. Efficiency is his watch.
word. Back of his residence in Con-
gress Park there is an inclosure forty
feet square in which he keeps what he
calls his $50 egg machines" The ma
chimes" belong to the feathered tribe
known as White Leghorns. He ex.
poets and obtains eggs from these
machines" with the same regularity
and accuracy as he does figures from
an adding machine.
He says he has obtained $4,000 eggs
from his machines" in the last year,
or an average Of an egg every third
| day for each fowl, and expects to bring
this average up to an egg every other
day for each hen. All the hens are lay
| ing now and he sells the eggs for 80
cents dozen. Newell attributes his
success to the fact that his chickens
live in two electric lighted coops, so
to roost by electricity, and get up at
the beck of 100 candle power.
II figured the whole problem out in
black and white" said Newell. II
found that my chickens were not lay.
ing much in winter. They'd go to
roost earlier in the winter months and
get up later. l figured they didn't
have sufficient daylight in which to
eat the necessary amount of food and
to get the required amount of exercise
for good laying | estimated they got
about sixteen hours of daylight in mid
summer and only about seven hours in
midwinter. | decided to strike an aver
age of their waking hours.
"At a cost of about $50 installed a
100 candlepower tungsten lamp and a
two candlepower incandescent lamp in
one chicken house and two sixty
candle-power lamp in the other. These
l connected with switches in the house,
LAS soon as the alarm clock goes off
at 6 or little after in the morning
turn on the switch and the chickens
get up, thinking it is daylight. The
lights are turned off at or $3.50, when
1t is full daylight and the neighbors
fowls are just arising.
when it begins to get dusk, along
about 4, my daughter, Dorothy, or my
wife turns on the lights and they are
kept going until 8 at night, when
turn all out except the two candle.
power lamps. These give just a suffi'
cieut amount of light to give the ap.
pearance of dusk, and the chickens be-
gin going to roost. l leave the small
lamps lit all night, so that if any of
the chickens want to get up at night
to eat they can do so.
Eleven days after the lights were
installed the daily average jump ed
from twenty-six. eggs to eighty-three
During the molting season under the
old custom, when most of the food was
going to feathers instead of eggs,
got only eleven eggs day. Now | get
fifty-two day during the molting sea
son. 1t is merely an experiment in
efficiency, and hope to improve it.
Chickens think" said Newell. III
they know they are going to get plenty
of food the next day they'll lay. By my
method l keep them thinking they are
getting the same amount Of daylight all
the year around, and I'm keeping them
thinking all the time"