Show A SHORT CUI TO LONGER PROFITS trap nesting displaces guess work in favor of certainty for selecting the profitable members of a poultry flock you think you have eliminated the I 1 pavy eating light laying drones aiom your flock but are you SURE ou on have gotten them all alla it if you re a good judge of signs which in dacate poor layers the chances are you have eliminated the worst of the drones in all likelihood however there are still a number of hens left which are on the border line or just below it either they consume as much in food as they pay back in eggs or just a little more in either case they are unprofitable to keep but hard to discover when ordinary methods of culling are employed now these border line fowls require just as much care and equipment as their more profitable sisters pare and equipment represent part of the investment on which a profit must be paid it becomes self evi dent therefore that very many such fowls will cause a serious cut in the percentage of profit returned on each dollar of capital invested but the question is how to convict the offenders of their shortcomings I 1 know 0 of f but one certain way and that is to keep books on the whole lot of them and in a short while will know which are the egg layers and which are des tined for a speedy trip to market trap nesting in short Is the one siire method of determining exactly hew much each hen Is laying and whether or not she Is going to be worth kepping on the job such knowledge iq 14 of especially great im to the breeder of tine fine pedigreed fowls but is sufficiently im to most poultry erasers to be worthy of consideration trap nesting incidentally Is valuable in tarn tam ing young birds which tends to in crease productiveness many will object to trap nesting as it involves much labor it Is true there Is some additional work in evolved but it is questionable cheth er there is much more than would be required for taking care of a large number of fowls from which no prof it could possibly be realized fur thedmore ther more the work can be material ly reduced by dividing the flock and trap nesting one section at a time As soon as the desired purpose has been definitely achieved another section can be put through the course and so on until a dependable record has been made for every hen in the en tire flock this record not only serves to indicate the best myers but it is an invaluable guide tor for the selection of breeding stock A flock should be trap nested for twelve 12 months to tell accurately just what each individual hen la is capable of doing in egg production to trap nest tor for there months and multiply by tour four does not give an accurate yearly record and now just a word about the mechanics ot of trap nesting A trap nest as everyone knows Is one equip ped to hold a hen captive when she enters it to lay each hen in the flock has a numbered leg band on one of her legs and before she Is released it if she has bayed her number is put down on a dally daily record sheet indicating that she has laid that day after a hen lays in a nest she has to be released by an attendant and the nest left open tor for another hen homemade nests of this kind are aas ily constructed although space Is 1 lacking in this article tor for giving det def enite instructions as aa to how it is done there are many ready made forms of trap nests that give satisfaction and are reasonable priced some manu facture rs simply furnish a front with the trap mechanism attached it can easily be fitted to a suitable form of homemade nest numbered leg bands for identifying the hens are purchased in series at campara lively trivial cost at least one trap nest should be furnished tor for every tour four birds in flocks of fifty or more and one tor for every three in smaller flocks try to have a sufficient number ao so that hens do not have to wait too long for their respective turns for the same reason pay a bit more atten tion to the arpa nests during the normally busy hours of the day at aiom fi 8 to 11 a in they should be v s ted once every hour especially during the forenoon the use of trap nests enables the poultry ralser raiser to learn some really astonishing facts about what his hens are really doing he will be ed to find that some of those in which he had tin thi most faith were the least deserving of his trust and vice versa he ile will definitely drop guessing from his payroll and tute scientific certainty the change may mean more work of one kind but it also means less work of adoth er less profitable kind in the long run trap nesting ta Is bound to pay day |