Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-04-15
Should Be a Part of the Daily
Routine at This Season of
the Year
Starving and Keeping the
Hens From Water Are
Wrong and Defeat Their
Object
BY Robert Armstrong
Experienced Poultryman
Copyright 1870

When hen completes the laying of
clutch of eggs at this season of the
year, even among the so-calIed nom
sitting varieties, she is imbued with
further maternal instincts, and is
therefore prone to attempt to hatch
them. This tendency must be discour-
aged and promptly broken up, or IL
will cause u serious falling off in the
egg yield. Its importance cannot be
Overestimated, especially on CONNER
cial egg farms, where the lien is not
held responsible for next seasons pull
lets, rather where the incubating and
brooding are done artiiicially.
NONTRARY to the opinion of many
poultrykeepers, egg production
is not sequence of so much
nourishment taken into the body daily,
digested, assimilated, and then con-
verted into the materials for making
eggs. In other words, a continuous
operation, unproKen, as 1t. were, pro-
Viding the care and feeding of the
hen are as they should be. The egg
cells, technically known as the "oVa,
of which there are many hundreds in
the well-bred, vigorous fowl, are
formed, or rather developed in series
or clusters, sometimes called "litters'
or clutches" each cluster being de-
veloped or retarded in accordance with
the hens physical condition, and her
ability to consume sufficient quanti-
ties of the proper nutrients. Between
these clusters there is an interval of
nonproduction, a sort of rest period,
which varies quite considerably with
different breeds and with specimens,
and which may be a week or month;
and not infrequently it is three
months, as in the case of impoverished
fowls, or where they have not been
bred along biological lines for heavy
egg production.
Furthermore, the number of eggs in
each cluster varies with each breed
and specimen as much as the varia-
ton in the duration of the rest per-
iods. There may be but dozen eggs
to a litter. or fifty. and in rare cases
hen will continue to lay almost with
out cessation, and continue to do so
for a couple of years. Usually, hens
that lay short htters take but few
days to the intervals between them,
whereas the hen that lays a series of
forty to sixty eggs, in almost daily
succession, will require a rest period
of a couple of weeks. With specimens
of like breeding and vigor there is
usually an average struck.
Disposition to Become Broody
Between the laying of each litter.
especially at certain seasons of the
year and notably the Spring months,
there is a tendency for the hen to in
dulge in her maternal instincts. in the
shape of a desire to sit and hatch a
brood of chicks. She has completed
the first step in the operation-the
laying of the eggs, and quite naturally
of the responsibility until she has
transformed them into a flock of
chicks. Hens of the heavier varieties,
such as the Plymouth Rocks, Wyan-
dotteS. OrpingtonS and Brahmas are
especially prone to this form of do
mesticity; yet the desire is also found
among the lighter breeds. even to the
so-called nonsitting breeds, the Leg
horns, Campines and Hamburgs. In
the latter, however, the tendency is
not so habitual. nor so likely to be
difficult to break up.
1t is not definitely known whether
hen can control the DEVELOPMENT of
an egg once the yolk is we'll formed
and has left the ovisac, but it is quite
certain that she can influence or check
the development of the yolks at the
beginning of the process, and she also
has the power to hold the finished egg
for considerable time. When a hen
becomes broody and shows a deter
mination to sit on the nest day after
day, for in many cases the desire is
but passing fancy, the succeeding
cluster of egg cells is held in a dor
mant state for two or three months, or
until she has hatched, reared and
weaned her brood of chicks, and sub
sequently reinvigorated herself for
further productiveness.
On farms devoted to egg production.
where the Incubation and brooding is
done artificially, the hen is not held
responsible for the production of next
seasons pullets. 1t is the hens exclu-
sive business to produce eggs, conse-
quently she must be encouraged in
that speciality as much as possible. AS
soon as she shows signs of shirking
her task, she must be held to strict
accountability" her broodiness must
be couraged-harmless not bru-
tally-and her internal workings"
stimulated and spurred on to further
achievements.
Even on the general farm, where
chlcks are reared naturally, there are
times when more hens become broody
than are ever needed to hatch the
young flock, and because they are al
lowed to sit as long as they choose.
without interference from the farmer.
although he may not give them eggs
to sit upCn, the habit soon becomes
able decrease in egg production. Fail
ure to discourage broodiness is prob
ably the most potent cause for the low
egg production in farm flocks, and for
which the farmer has nothing to
blame but his own indifference or ig-
norance.
Egg Production Is Secondary
We have all noticed the poor, thin
and emaciated condition of the hen
that has been sitting on nest for
couple of weeks, and perhaps mar
veled at her ability to sustain life at
all, when we consider that she eats
and drinks very little, and takes prac-
tically no exercise. If it were not for
her internal storehouse. on which she
draws heavily for sustenance, she
would not survive. Before she started
TO sit, she carefully stored up a sup
ply of fatty tissue that was intended
to help nourish her during the period