HOW NEW HAMPSHIRE POULTRYMEN USE PULLETS AS BREEDERS A. W. RICHARDSON University of New Hampshire
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In order that the reader may thoroughly understand the situation, will say that in all probability ninety per cent of all the hens kept in the State of New Hampshire are Rhode Island Reds, and that ninety-five per cent of the commercial poultrymen in the State use nothing but pullets as breeding stock. These pullets are hatched during the latter part of February and during March. They reach maturity and lay their first eggs at from four and one-half to five months, weighing at this time from four and one-half to five pounds. Our people possess an unusually early maturing strain of Reds. These birds are allowed to lay reasonably heavily from forty to fifty-five per cent production until the latter part of October, when they usually go through a moulting or resting period. This period involves usually eight to ten weeks, during which time the production gradually drops to twelve to fifteen per cent and then gradually.works back to forty to fifty per cent. We feel that the reason for this moulting period can be traced primarily to the shorter days. The moult usually consists of shedding of feathers around the neck and is very seldom anywhere near a complete moult. The birds, during this time, with the price which prevails for eggs, will still be paying a reasonable profit. They will be building up their reserve and are in good condition the succeeding January, February, March and April to produce good hatching eggs which will produce good strong, livable chicks. The average per cent of hatchability, which the majority of our commercial poultrymen obtain from eggs produced by pullets handled under these conditions, will run from sixty-five to eighty per cent of all the eggs incubated and the eggs will produce chicks with an average livability of ninety to ninety-five per cent, bearing in mind all the time that most of our commercial poultrymen have flocks which are either free or practically free from white diarrhea, having been tested by the agglutination method. To these birds are mated cockerels. The males are selected when the average of the males will run about two pounds. The 51
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POULTRY
SCIENCE
males chosen being those birds which show a very rapid maturity not only in comb development and the ability to crow but also in the development of size, this being measured by the difference in weight of the birds chosen, as compared with the average of their brothers ; the males chosen Aveighing from two and onefourth to tΛvo and one-half pounds. About twice the number of
PLANT
males which will be necessary for the next season's breeding work are selected, placed in a colony house by themselves and there allowed to remain until the succeeding fall; the poorer cockerels being eliminated and sold during the growing period so that by November or December, only the choicest of the original cockerels are left. These pullets which are to be kept as breeders are housed in permanent la3âng houses in flocks of 150 to 300 at about the time they are commencing to lay. They are never allowed to go out doors again. Most of our poultrymen have no hen yards. The growing chickens, of course, are on unlimited range. The type of house used by most of the chicken men is known as a twothirds span roof with an abundance of open front and sunlight, the pens, twenty, twenty-four or thirtj^ feet square, carrying respectively 125, 200, and 300 birds each. This house faces the south, being boarded up from the floor approximately two and one-half feet and having open front from there to the plate. The front studs vary from six to eight feet depending upon the depth of the house. Each of the pens usually have two windows.
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A T Y P I C A L N E W H A M I ' S H I E E POUI/I'KY
USING
PULLETS
AS
BREEDERS
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Most of the houses are equipped with four cellar window sash underneath the dropping boards on the back side of the house, these being open all summer from the early part of June until
the first of October and are closed from October to June, making the house reasonably light in winter and very cool in summer. METHOD OF FEEDING
When the pullets are housed they are fed for a green feed whatever the owner may happen to have. Some of them use rape, some cabbage, and others the ordinary waste from the garden. Most of them feed germinated oats at the rate of two or three pounds of germinated oats per 100 pullets per day. The mash used consists of 100 pounds of bran, 100 pounds of corn meal or hominy, 100 pounds of white middlings, 100 pounds of gluten feed, 100 pounds of rolled oats or reground rolled oats, and fifty pounds of reasonably high-grade meat scraps. Most of the commercial men feed milk in some form, either liquid skim milk or buttermilk from nearby creameries, or semi-solid buttermilk. If the liquid milk is used the birds are fed about twelve quarts per 100 pullets per day. If semi-solid buttermilk is used
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T Y P E OF COLONY H O U S E U S E D BY N E W H A M P S H I K E POULTUYMEN
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POULTRY
SCIENCE
SUCCESS OBTAINED BY THIS SYSTEM
In order that the reader may understand the success which has been attained by this system, it may be said that most of the poultrymen have followed this method of management for some years. One of our most successful chicken men has followed this system for fifteen years, during which time all of his birds have been hatched from pullets, mated with cockerels, no foreign stock having been introduced during this time ; all of his pullets having been kept strictly in the house each year after they have begun to lay. He produces an average of 50,000 chickens each year and keeps approximately 2000 to 2500 pullets each year and is probably making an average return, over and above all costs such as feed and fuel and labor of a hired man, of approximately $4.50 per hen per year. These figures, however, do not include interest on his investment nor depreciation ; and this man, while he is probably our most successful chicken man, is at the same time only typical of the commercial poultrymen within the State who are following this system of management. As a resume of the above, I wish to impress upon the mind of the reader the fact that these pullets are produced at the time of year at which the parents are laying their best and the parents are in all probability in the best physical condition of their lives. After they recover from the moulting or resting period they have an abundance of reserve and are in the prime of life.
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the birds are fed from three to five pounds of this per 100 pullets per day, the amount varying with the time of year and with the rate of production, being highest previous to and during the breeding season. The scratch feed which is fed, consists in most 'instances of two parts of cracked corn and one of wheat; the amount fed running from fifteen to twenty-two pounds per 100 pullets per day. The desire of most of the poultrymen is to get the pullets to eat all of the scratch feed possible, and especially to get them to eat all the scratch feed they can during the months of January, February, March and April.