HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION
10
A Weekly Page of Poultry Hints
Does it Pay
ToTrapnest?
By G. L. Wood, Poultry Editor.
THIS DEPENDS upon the time, re
sources and nature of the busi
ness the breeder would engage
in and whether he is In the business
for all the money he can make out
of it It is absolutely necessary for
the man who would sell high egg
yielding stock and depend on rec
ords to make his sales, to trap-nest
his flock. These breeders have open
ed a new avenue for poultry profits,
in selling male breeders from heavy
layers to poultry raisers who want
Borne of the 1914 egg-laying effi
ciency in their yards.
Leaving it for granted that there
will always be enough of these pro
ducers to supply the demand for
male breeders when they are wanted,
does it pay the average breeder to
traD-nest. and does his poultry sue
cess depend upon it? A very able
contribution on this subject has been
made by L. E. Keyser. Smithboro,
N. X., which contains sound practical
facts taken from his personal expert
ences. We submit his views in part
The aim of the producer of com
mercial eggs is to produce the great
est number at the least cost. To
make egg production profitable the
hens must lay well for at least 2 50
of the 365 days in the year. We all
know there are many hens which do
not lay eggs enough to pay for the
feed they eat, while others are ex
tremely profitable. If all the hens
were like the best hens in our flock
it would not take such a great num
ber of them to make a poor man
rich, while the poor layers can make
a rich man poor. By careful selec
tion and breeding the production of
hens has gradually increased. They
lay more eggs now than they did
fifty years ago. At that time people
did not expect to get winter eggs,
nor did they expect hens to do much
during the summer and fall while
in the molt. The average farm flock
would lay only during the spring
months, and those who wanted win
ter eggs resorted to some method of
preserving them.
Poor Layers.
Even now we have hen3 which do
not lay except in the spring, and
then only moderately. These are the
kind of hens the commercial egg
farmer wants to get rid of, but from
a lack of knowledge of how to select
them or in the belief that they will
do better later, they are retained,
and in many cases their eggs are
used for hatching, which is very like
ly to result in breeding more poor
layers. Of course, it does not imply
that because a hen is a poor layer
her daughters will be. That depends
on the manner in which she is mated.
A prepotent male, carrying the lay
ing instinct, is just as likely to im
part this quality to the daughter of
a poor layer as to the daughter of
a good layer. The chances are that
the cockerels from such a hen will
not carry or impart the laying trait.
That is where we run the greatest
chance in breeding from a poor layer.
Careful selection for type and
vigor all breeders, and a knowledge
that the breeding male had a heavy
laying mother may help to a certain
extent, but there will still be many
poor layers. Many careful breeders
have installed trap nests and at
tempted to breed up a great laying
strain by their use. Most of tnose
who have stuck to it long enougn
have succeeded, but owing to the
trroat amount of labor involved many
have abandoned the use of trap nests
or use them only during the breeding
season. This latter plan is productive
nf eood results where one is able to
pick out the good layers when
mating the pens.
To make egg production profitable
we must secure a large number of
eggs, and whether it pays best to
Veen a large flock of moderately
eood layers or a smaller flock of
hiirhlv nroductive hens is the ques
tion to be decided. The large flock
requires more capital invested in
houses and stock. The small flock
reouires. more attention to breeding.
On the large commercial egg farms
the trap nest is impractical. It would
cost almost as mucn to trap a.uuu
laying hens the entire year as the
profit on their eggs would amount
to. If one traps continually from
200 to 500 hens is about all one per
son can care for and look after the
growing stock to keep up the flock.
Unles the hens are uncommonly pro
ductive this number will not afford
the remuneration one is wont to ex
pect who takes up the production of
commercial eggs as a business.
A Tedious Grind.
For nearly ten years I have trap
ped my pullets designed for breeders
and the breeding hens. It has Deen
a steady and tedious grind. It means
that in that time I have visited tne
coons something like 15,000 times.
The duty could not be shirked and
must be done every day, whether
there is a circus in town or not.
Many times I have been on the point
of abandoning the work, but the
thought that it would render useless
all that I have accomplished sus
tained me. As I think it over I am
in doubt whether it has paid or not.
In fact, I am stronglx of the opinion
that it has not paid in dollars and
cents. What I learned about the lay
ing hen has been of much use to me,
but if I had been on terms qf in
timacy with my flocks I might have
secured a portion of this knowledge
without the use of trap nests.
I am pretty well convinced that if
I hart not tranned my hens and de
voted the same time and energy to
raising more stock and culling out
the poor layers, I would have been
mnnev ahead. The Plan 1 snouia
have followed is to breed from the
most vigorous females, using males
from some reliable breeder who does
(ran or select males that came from
great laying hens. I should raise
about twice as many pullets as I
cared for, so as to have plenty to se
lect from and keep culling up con
tinually. Yearling hens should be
culled twice a year and this selec
tion may continue to the two ana
three-year-old hens, as it is their
laying condition rather than their
age which determines their value. If
I had followed such a course I would
have been able to care for and raise
the stock to keep up a flock from
nn ft in two thousand hens with the
same labor I now expend on about
three hundred breeders.
'ot Worth the Price.
Tiv the use of trap nests and pedi
gree breeding we can build up a lay
ing strain which will reproduce itself
to a marked degree, but is the game
worth the price? I hardly think so,
and this conclusion is reacted aner
ten years of use. The number of
neriiereed birds that can be pro
duced is too small, even though they
are the best of layers, to return suf
ficient revenue. We might better dis
card half the pullets we raise, and
will then be able to secure double
the number we can by pedigree
breeding, and if these selected pul
lets do not lay quite as many eggs
each as the pedigreed stock, the ag
gregate will be greater. If the pedi
greed hens return a net pront or
three dollars each and the selected
hens two dollars each, we can cer
tainly make more money from 1,000
of the latter than we can from 300
of the former, and the labor will be
about the same.
Hv the flock record we can esti
mate the number of hens which are
laying. If the percentage Is small we
should make an examination of the
hens, say once in two weeks, and
note down the band numbers of those
which are laying. If this is done
three or four times it will not take
lone to find out the hens which are
not producing. Hens which show no
signs of laying during two or three
examinations may be put down as
poor layers and not worth keeping.
From the commercial viewpoint it
is doubtful whether It pays to trap
nest and pedigree breed. The fixing
of the laying trait by this method is
slow at best. By breeding for vigor
and carefully selecting the layers,
flocks of more than ordinary pro
dutciveness can be secured, though
there will not be the phenomenal lay
ers that are secured by pedigree
breeding, nor will the percentage ot
good layers be as great, but in the
aggregate we can secure more eggs
and make more money though the
profit on each individual hen is
smaller.
MORE ABOUT TRAP NEST.
THE HEN of the future will be
from trap-nested parents, no
matter what breed the "Tom
Barron" fowls are. Wrandottes. or
a cross, they are the product of trap-
nested parents, and their annual
winning at the laving contests held
in this country should be an object
lesson to the American beginner tnat
for egg production it pays to trap
se fn tho future breeder. That our
present-day breeds, the American
standard Leghorn, Plymoutn u.oc.,
won,intton nhnria Island Reds, or
,t ftuuw.iw, -
Orpingtons, can be brought to a high
standard of egg production gu
without saying it being merely a
matter of safe and sane breeding and
in the majority of cases the new
standard of perfection as adopted by
the American Poultry Association at
Chicago has in no way harmed the
utility qualities or the majority of
varieties in the standard. Rather,
thanks to the leading breeders, every
leeway has been given to improve
these qualities. It is now up to the
breeders to make the most of their
nnnrtnnlHea and breed along safe
and sane lines. Philadelphia Record.
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182-6 Morrison Street, Portland, Oregon.
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