| OCR Text |
Show EXPERTS AT ODDS CN PULLETS, HENS Tests Show Older Birds Are the Best Breeders. There is a vast variety and difference differ-ence of opinion as to the use of the more mature pullets as breeders or the use of hens for this purpose. Ohio's experiment station seems to have found a difference in the mortality of pullets from pullet matings and pullets from hen mat-ings mat-ings greatly in favor of the latter. These Ohio findings of excessive mortality, running as high as 60 per cent with pullets from pullets, pullet pul-let breeders and selected or culled, a promiscuous breeding flock, would not, In the majority of cases, agree with the practices of poultrymen in general. However, this test did not attempt to prove that there are not flocks throughout the country which have and will produce layers from pullet-bred pullet-bred pullets, which layers in the first year will show a much lower mortality mor-tality and will produce eggs in profitable quantities. Many poultrymen hold to the belief be-lief that pullets in perfect health and full egg-lay are far more desirable de-sirable as breeders than hens that are run down from heavy yields and, therefore, more susceptible to disease. On the other hand, some poultrymen believe that hens that have successfully passed a year of heavy yielding are more desirable for reproduction purposes. Breeding pens will soon be arranged ar-ranged for spring reproduction purposes pur-poses and some of these pens will become the tests for proof of success suc-cess or failure both as to the use of young or old birds. Depreciation, Labor and Mortality, Cost of Eggs The three big items in the cost of producing the $12,000,000 worth or more of eggs that Illinois farmers farm-ers sell every year are feed, depreciation, depre-ciation, which includes mortality, and labor, according to records which twenty poultrymen kept during dur-ing the past year in co-operation with the extension service of the College of Agriculture, University of Illinois. Any flock owner who cuts down on these items therefore will be going go-ing a long way toward getting a wider margin of net return out of the cash that he receives for his eggs, it is pointed out by H. H. Alp, poultry extension specialist of the college. "Probably the best opportunity to reduce feed cost is to improve the average egg production of each hen in the flock, as the good layers eat but little more feed than the mediocre medi-ocre layers. Too many flocks carry about 20 per cent defaulters hens that start laying and then quit and it is this class of birds which runs up the feed cost of a dozen eggs." |
