The Original Thirty Hens
The egg production of the Original Thirty Hens on The Corning Egg Farm
is an interesting story, but, of course, it must be remembered that
this record is of one hundred and fifty-three days, the banner days of
the year for eggs from yearling hens.
The Biddies arrived in different lots, the last days of February, our
record beginning with March first, and ending with July 31st. During
that period they laid 2466 eggs, and at the end of the third month we
lost two of them. The cause of death we were unable to tell, for, at
that time our experience was not of sufficient duration to have made
even a close guess.
The average for the birds, it will be noted, was eighty-five eggs per
hen. Had we been better posted as to feeding methods, doubtless the
hens would have been capable of producing eggs in numbers considerably
greater than the figures show.
[Illustration: PULLETS IN LAYING HOUSE NO. 2, FALL OF 1911]
The record, however, for real yearling hens (and these were real
yearling hens, because when they started to lay with us they were fully
eighteen months of age), was very far from a poor one, and the novice
who succeeds in caring for his breeding stock in such a way that he
does not fall short of this average, may consider that he has done very
well.