The Idaho Republican., 1916-06-02

enters, she let's down a door that
keeps her in till the master comes
along and releases her. He makes a
record of the egg and it goes by it's
number and date. In the incubator
or nest it still bears it's number, and
the chick when it comes out of its
shell has to be numbered and rec
ord made that goes with the chick
as it grows up.
> The average hen in the United
States lays only 80 eggs year, and
large percentage of scrub hens lay
as low as 60 in year, That hen
is not very profitable compared with
the champion that lays 314. A flock
of we'll bred hens of the egg-laying
strain will lay 200 eggs each per
year, and in that year they eat only
as much as the hen that lays the
average number, 80. Morningside
has one hen that has laid $50 eggs
since last Thanksgiving and is still
attending to business every day. Sew
eral others are almost as good as
that, and they have pens of IA or
Is that lay 13 or IA day. A prairie
chicken lays setting or two in the
spring of the year. When the do
mestic hen is not laying eggs or
Matching them she is an expense to
her owner, and many scrub hen
is not worth her board. Some merely
make expenses for their owners and
some make a profit. The farmer who
says there is no money in chickens
probably does not know anything
about these matters. He may know
that his hens are not profitable, but
if he had egg-laying hens he might
wake up to find that his hens were
money-makers. 1t is all a matter
of figures. and the man who boards
hen a year for 60 to 80 eggs is in
the same fix as the dairy man trying
to make butter from cow of the
beef strain. He needs to change his
stock or go to selling meat.
The best hen in the world, judging
by what she produces is Lady Eglan-
tine layer of 314 eggs last year and
is valued at $1,000. She is hen
with pedigre as we'll as a record.
Her ancestors were kept in the egg
laying habit. Their mates were Sc
lected from egg-laying families and
thus the habit was emphasized in the
chicks till the old habit of laying a
setting or two in the spring of the
year was extended to a habit for the
forward to the day when hens will
work all the year like other people,
merely taking vacation of month
or a fortnight.
You might visit Morningside and
learn a great deal about chickens
and how to feed and water them. An
effort is made to give them perfect
ration made up of certain amount
of bran and shorts and cracked
wheat and charcoal When the
ground is frozen there are little feed
ers that carry shells and lime rock
and grits, and they have way of
sprouting some oats every day so
the chickens can have a few grains
apiece, each grain having green
sprout and some roots attached. In
summer they are given little green
feed each day, such as clover or al
falfa. When we were there the at
tendant of the small chicks had an
onion in his hand and he tipped off
little pieces of it among the hund-
reds of chicks, and they had great
time. 1t was like playing button,
button" among children. Occasion
ally one would get a slice and run
with it yelping SO others would notice
what he had, and they would swarm
after him and he in his eagerness
would yelp more. II he succeeded
in outrunning all the others he
would finally get away out in the
clover and hide and have a feast. IfI
a. small chick finds bug or a worm
he gets a good grip on it and then in
his excitement he begins to yell. This