HIGH-PRICED EGGS

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 107, 6 May 1916, Page 9

HIGH-PRICED EGGS

I ... TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I ' have read with considerable interest several letters appearing in your columns lately on the above subject. Now, I do not profess to be an expert in the art of poultry-keeping, but I do -claim to know enough about them nob to write in the same strain as your correspondent " Ham "and Eggs " does. It appears to me that he ha* never kept poultry to any extent, or he would know that, even ' with eggs, at 2s 6d a dozen wholesale (the producer does not fix the retail price), the majority of poultrykeepers, unless they have a number of first-class pullets, are not getting enough eggs laid just now to pay for the food that the birds consume. Take , a man with, say, 100 hens, twelve months and over. They will all be moulting now; some may be getting through it, but the owner would be lucky if he is getting ten eggs a day from a flock like that described. At. the present time how is he getting on? If he understands his. business and he has a decent strain he will be getting, or should be, ■ sixty-five to seventy-five eggs a day in the months of August, September, .and October from the same flock. .Which pays him best: Is or Is Id a dozenfor six dozen a day, or 2s 5d a dozen for, say, ten a day? That's an easy question for "Ham and Eggs" to answer. The whole matter is in a nutshell; it's-the same hoary old subject of supply and demand. : I may mention that during 1915 at one time the price of fowl wheat was as high as 8s a bushel; it may have been higher for all I know to the contrary. I can only say that I have paid that price myself. In conclusion. I would like to say that in my opinion it is quite useless for anyone not having had a few years' experience in ' keeping poultry to. write anything about them. —I anrj etc., -| POULTRY-LOVER. 4th May, 1916. • '