Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1916-05-11
LAYING CONTEST
Big in PROMISE
Perpetual Championship
Match Among Families
to be Staged.

@'C@-N~
Husbandry, State University.
Before 1922 he expects to see the
eggs from the same number of hens
return $50, 900, 900 to the poultry rails
ers and farmers of Kentucky.
The average hen is paying for her
'lseep" with less than FIVE dazen coos
a year. She should be producing
more than ten dozen. The fault is
with her owner in large degree.
The egg-laying contest to be inaug-
urated at the experiment station No
vember is TO be the vehicle for a
transformation. The first effect will
be to eradicate the scrub hens from
Kentucky. Hens that cannot yield
better than five dozen eggs in twelve
months are going to the block.
The second effect will be to stimu-
late the owner of flocks to use his
brain and so feed the house and man.
age his chickens that the annual egg
crop will double itself.
incidentally, the poultry movement
will be given big impetus, and in five
years the number of hens should be
largely in excess of the total to-day.
PERPETUAL CONTEST FOR LEX
INGTON.
Work on a two-thousand dollar
i plant to accommodate a perpetual
egg-hying contest-an event which
will be as interesting to poultry peo-
pie as a horse race with weekly,
monthly and year-long heats-will be
commenced at the Experiment Station
farm in the skirts of Lexington with
in few weeks. Professor Hooper
will go to Mountain Grove, Missouri,
Monday for an inspection of sixty
pen plant-largest of the only two of
the kind in the United States. When
he has returned, final touches will be
given to the plans for the plant here,
and book of rules and information
will go to the printer.
Six acres of a beautiful bluegrass
lawn will be devoted to the purpose.
The contest will start with fifty pens,
each 30x15 feet, and every pen will
have house of latest design. The
pens will front on lanes, and the
grounds will have the appearance of
a little city. Each pen will be the
home of group of hens. Contest
ants will also be allowed a reserve
hen, and during three months of the
year, when fertile eggs will be pro-
duced for Matching, they will provide
a male bird.
BOOSTERS FROM FAMOUS DAMS
From eggs produced next spring
and each successive spring the Ex-
pertinent Station will reserve settings
from the seventeen standard breeds,
and from these will hatch battery of
roosters to be used for the mating sea-
son the next year.
1t is estimated that the fifty pens
will produce case of eggs every two
days. A contract will be made with
a New York house to take the entire
output of nine months of the year,
and the returns will be applied to run
ming expenses. Eggs laid during the
remaining quarter will belong to the
owners Of the pens, with certain res
ervations.
The laying ground will be enclosed
and gates will be kept locked. Each
pen likewise will be kept under lock
and key continuously. The plant will
be in charge OF two men. One will
make the collection of eggs and keep
the books. The other will feed the
chickens, remove waste and change
bedding.
TRAP NESTS FOR CONTESTANTS
Each house will be provided with
trap nests. These are so constructed
that when a hen enters the door clos
es automatically and she can not get
out until the egg checker makes his
rounds. Upon opening the door, the
checker will examine the number on
the hens leg ring, enter her number
and the number OF the pen in the
record, and then write both numbers
on the egg itself.
Reports viii be given out every
week and at the end of each month.
Handsome ribbons will be given for
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